“It’s something unpredictable
But in the end it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life”
Good riddance? Or did you have the time of your life? A season of highs and lows for many encapsulated in final day rollercoaster with the unexpected Bamford benching, brave Mane captainers rewarded and of course Aguero was there to finish us off with the emotional sucker punch.
For those of you just catching up and by now it’s probably too late, The Great and The Good are the Scouts Neale Rigg and Joe Lepper, Pro Pundits (Mark Sutherns, Az, Lateriser, Fabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General, Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville Ronka, Matthew Jones and Sean Tobin.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
In a dramatic finish to the season Fabio Borges was crowned champion in this mythical mini-league by just three points, thanks to a last day surge by Mark.
Fabio had a 27-point advantage going into the final Sunday, but Mark rolled the dice on Mane and scored 74 points taking him to his highest rank of the season teetering outside the top 2,000.
However, Fabio was a worthy winner and Kane sealed victory for the Portuguese wonder, who was in the top 10,000 from Gameweek 18 and finished in the top 2,000 for the fifth time in a row – massive congratulations to the true no.1!
Magnus continued to confound all with a maverick last day bench boost, he managed 15 from the pine but suffered from no shows from Forster and Greenwood.
Sean Tobin was top scorer this week with Mane, Kane and Coufal providing double digits but Matthew Jones was not far behind him on 71 points.
It was a season of two halves for the Welsh wonder as he was the second highest scorer from Gameweek 19 with only Mark pipping him by three points. If he gets a good start next year Fabio could be in trouble!
TRANSFER TRIUMPH
The table below shows the season stats:-
This turbulent season of fixture chaos meant there was a flurry of transfer activity, to give some context The Great and The Good averaged seven hits last season whilst this year it was eleven.
However, a degree of subtlety is needed here in determining whether an aggressive approach is the right or wrong answer, for example both Az and FPL General led the way in minus fours between Gameweek 19 and 30 with five each but whilst Az’s rank soared as a result, moving up roughly 800,000 places, the General lost ground and never quite recovered to his season-high of 1,621 in Gameweek 20.
Mark wins the awards for the best wheeler dealer over the season with 298 immediate points from transfers, I’ve removed the free hit, but as always this doesn’t consider the longer-term impact of the moves.
This is a summary of the transfers for the final week :
Az – Raphinha (Greenwood)
Fabio Borges – Antonio (Calvert-Lewin)
Joe Lepper – Robertson (Shaw)
FPL General – Robertson (Ward)
Lateriser – Aguero, Mount (Calvert-Lewin, Fernandes)
Magnus Carlsen – Harrison, Robertson (Struijk, Son)
Mark Sutherns – Bamford, Mane (Kane, Jota)
Matthew Jones – Mane, Raphinha (Jota, Fernandes)
Neale Rigg – Mane, Dallas (Son, Lindelöf)
Sean Tobin – Bamford (Calvert-Lewin)
Tom Freeman – Raphinha, Dallas (Jota, Veltman)
Ville Ronka – Raphinha (Zaha)
*transfers out are in brackets
Neale, Mark and Matthew deserve a mention for their Mane manoeuvre but the biggest ovation should be left for Lateriser who let his heart rule his head to dramatic effect with his love of Aguero seeing him rewarded with a brace off the bench.
A word on Lateriser, whilst these articles are a bit of fun, I do appreciate they add a little to the intense spotlight on these more prominent managers. He has not had the best of seasons but throughout it all he has been nothing but kind and supportive of others and I know he will be back with a bang next season!
CAPTAIN CALL
A point worth repeating is stressing the time we should take on our captaincy picks, Fabio topped this metric with 621 points, and this accounted for approx. 25% of his score, so time invested in your armband agony is time well spent.
If we are to learn anything from Fabio is his consistency with Mo Salah getting the nod for 50% of the Gameweeks, he was also the manager who captained Bruno the most at eight times.
His dedication to the heavy hitters meant he had only eight different captains, compare that to Az who went for double that number at sixteen, perhaps when it’s come to captaincy it’s best not to differentiate too much.
CHIP CHAMP
This season provided the most variety when it came to Chip strategies – we had early Wildcards, a Bamford triple captain and even a final day bench boost.
The table below shows the timings and the outcomes from the choppy chip play:-
One learning point here is the negative impact a bench boost can have on your fortunes if played mid-way through the season. Whilst stocking up your substitutes it can mean minimizing investment in your playing eleven and valuable transfers wasted as you try to correct.
One example is Sean who hit a season-high of 35,000 in Gameweek 19 but then three reds came along as he looked to readjust his squad after building to a power fifteen.
Tom Freeman proved to be the champ of the chips overall with a late free hit netting him 57 points above the average and jump of 56,000, his Kane triple captain call scored him 36 and he boosted his bench for an extra 32 points.
A shout out to Ville Ronka who scored the most from his Kevin De Bruyne triple captain, the Fin has had a tough season never entering the top 100,000 but at least it shows even the best have struggled in this tough campaign.
COMMUNITY CLASH
Let’s now have a look at the Community team that dared to challenge The Great and The Good.
Plenty of strong performances but it was Chaballer who led the way with a final place in the top 10,000, his aggressive style with a century of hits paid dividend and there was nothing toxic about his performance.
Pras also deserves a mention with a final day flourish with a Mane captain saw him finish at 11,000 but when it comes to captains, we should all pay attention to Pete Beswick who rivalled even Fabio with his picks.
Swanmoretime clearly likes a hit or ten and took a -4 forty-one times this season making even Lateriser look cautious.
There were also some great ending surges, Sepp Blattered had eight of ten greens in the last weeks, the newly named Lighthouse Keeper shone brightly as he managed eleven out of thirteen but Darth Krid’s rise from 1.1 million to 148,000 from Gameweek 22 has to be mentioned, and he does frequently.
Unfortunately, all this wasn’t enough as The Great and The Good out scored the Community team by 900 points but a big thanks to everyone for getting involved.
CONCLUSION
Before I get onto the thank you’s a special mention to Les Caldwell who won The Next Great and The Good mini-league and so will be battling it out with these big names next year. He finished with 73 points and a place in the top 1,000 for the first time in his career, Fabio and Magnus best beware there is a new champ in town!
A massive thank you to Rotation’s Alter Ego who has put up with my misspelling of Coufal all season and continues to edit these ramblings into a reasonable form.
Thanks also to The Great and The Good for not calling for a restraining order as I have tracked their performance and poked a little fun along the way.
Finally, thank you to those who have read along, as mentioned before I enjoy my early morning routine of writing these updates and I hope they have helped or at least amused at some point during this year when life has been anything but routine.
The Great and The Good will return next year with some new faces and some old ones, Mr Slippers aka Andy deserves a return after his stunning finish, and there is even talk of a cross over with the return of the Community tournament, but I have already said too much.
So, for now and for one last time, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.
For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19
2 years, 10 months ago
Thank you Greyhead - editing these has never been a chore, been fantastic to read each week. Really really appreciate your work on the series and look forward to what you have planned next!
I think we've got Coufal nailed down, next season we'll move on to Raphinha 😉