Learning from the ‘Great and Good’ FPL managers ahead of Gameweek 11

Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead continues with his series of articles analysing the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) transfers and strategies of some noted Fantasy managers, from serial top 10k finishers to well-known faces.

The Great and The Good this year are the Scouts Joe Lepper, Neale Rigg, Geoff Dance, and Tom Freeman, FPL Wire’s Zophar, from the Hall of Fame Fabio Borges, FPLMatthew, Yavuz Kabuk and Tom Stephenson, Blackbox’s Az and Mark Sutherns, FPL “celebrities” LTFPL Andy, Magnus Carlsen and FPL General plus last year’s mini-league winner Les Caldwell.

“It’s time for the good times. Forget about the bad times, oh yeah. One day to come together to release the pressure. We need a holiday”

Whilst some needed a Kai Havertz (£8.1m) inspired holiday after Gameweek 9, I took an actual one, which was more inspired by a love of Cornish cream teas.

I came back from my short break – did I mention the iced buns – to find that Aaron Ramsdale (£4.7m) had returned whilst in FPL General’s team, there had been a Magnus captaincy mishap and, most shocking of all, Az overtook Mark. Enough to drive any man to clotted cream.

Mark could no longer preserve his Wildcard and hit the ‘activate’ button with Phil Foden (£8.2m) and Son Heung-min (£10.2m) the objects of his FPL desires. Then, to add extra box office appeal, one of the other ‘greats’ of The Great and The Good, FPL Matthew, laid down the mightiest of all the chips.

The discussion between who played it better could cause a bigger debate than whether to put jam or cream on a scone first, but I digress.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Az proved he could have his cake and eat it after a strong showing over the last couple of weeks which sees him second in the table and just one point behind our leader Tom Stephenson.

Reece James (£5.8m) surely deserves a framed picture on his wall after hitting double digits in both weeks. The Blackbox host was the top scorer over the fortnight with an impressive 173 points and a rise from 175,000 to 21,000.

All this and he had Emile Smith-Rowe’s (£5.6m) 13 points winking at him from the bench in Gameweek 9; what’s worse is that he repeated the mistake in Gameweek 10 but this time Bryan Mbeumo’s (£5.6m) absence meant he was able to take advantage of a bit of bench jam. Thankfully for everyone else, he did at least keep Ramsdale on the sidelines.

He was not the only one to score well in Gameweek 9 as Mohamed Salah’s (£12.9m) hat-trick saw five of The Great and The Good score over 100 points, with Tom Stephenson, Matthew Jones, FPL General and Zophar all hitting the century.

FPL General had a particularly good week as his Chelsea troops from his Wildcard survived the first round of the Tuchel Tombola, Mason Mount (£7.6m) and Ben Chilwell (£6.0m) provided big returns from the 7-0 thrashing of Norwich.

General is still the only one of these illustrious set of managers to hold the Blues’ midfield maestro, although I doubt many will be rushing to acquire his services after shock omission in Gameweek 10.

Talking of Gameweek 10, it was Magnus who ruled the roost with 66 points; it was that man James again but Bukayo Saka £6.3m), Raphinha (£6.6m) and Havertz also helped. The German had been the architect of the Grandmaster’s collapse the previous week as he was one of many who gambled on the Chelsea midfielder as his captain.

WILDCARDS

The last two Wildcards were scone this week as Mark and Matthew decided to play the most delicious of the chips.

Mark Sutherns

• IN – Foster, Chilwell, Jansson, Livramento, Son, Foden, Hwang, Toney
• OUT – Steele, Rudiger, Alonso, Veltman, Sarr, Benrahma, Kane, Perica

I sense a tortured soul, in the often over scrutinized Sutherns Wildcard, with the maverick devil on Mark’s shoulder perhaps prompting him to make more changes and be a little less template in his picks.

However, in these times of uncertainty, he followed the more conservative Angel bringing in everyone’s favourites Foden, Chilwell and a triple-up on Brentford. It’s safe to assume that the Bees will have more sting against Norwich this weekend.

Elsewhere, I would suspect he may have had initial misgivings about his Son pick with a dreadful Spurs showing against United. However, with a change in manager and some decent fixtures, he and Harry Kane (£12.1m) are now flavour of the week.

FPL Matthew

• IN – Ederson, Chilwell, Mbuemo, Brownhill, Toney
• OUT – Sanchez, Christensen, Sarr, Benrahma, Dennis

A minimalist approach by FPL Matthew with just the five changes. I often wonder if he sees Wildcards as something he must do, rather than wants to do, as he prefers the usual weekly green grind to climb those ranks.

The Brentford double, Foden and Chilwell are all present and correct but the Ederson (£6.0m) choice will gain attention as he is the only one of these select managers who has a heavy-hitting keeper.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az

• GW9 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW10 – Toney (Maupay)

LTFPL Andy

• GW9 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW10 – Foden, Chilwell (Azpilicueta, Raphinha)

Fabio Borges

• GW8 – Jimenez (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Foden (Saka)

Joe Lepper

• GW8 – Kane, Raphinha (Ronaldo, Greenwood)
• GW9 – Fernandez (Raya)

Geoff Dance

• GW8 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Foden (Greenwood)

FPL General

• GW8 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW9 – None

Les Caldwell

• GW8 – Vardy, Mbuemo (Lukaku, Gallagher
• GW9 – None

Magnus Carlsen

• GW8 – Havertz, Vardy (Traore, Lukaku)
• GW9 – None

Mark Sutherns

• GW8 – Kane (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Wildcard

FPL Matthew

• GW8 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Wildcard

Neale Rigg

• GW8 – Toney (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Alexander-Arnold (Marcal)

Tom Freeman

• GW8 – Kane (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Alexander-Arnold (Azpilicueta)

Tom Stephenson

• GW8 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Toney (Armstrong)

Yavuz Kabuk

• GW8 – Vardy, Toney, Havertz (Ronaldo, Lukaku, Douglas Luiz)
• GW9 – Foden (Smith-Rowe)

Zophar

• GW8 – Vardy (Lukaku)
• GW9 – Toney (Armstrong)

The Gameweek 9 transfers were dominated by the debate over the best Lukaku replacement, with Vardy the favoured option but Kane and Ivan Toney (£6.6m) also in the running. Fabio wins by default on this one as his move for Raul Jimenez (£7.6m) at least provided an assist and a goal.

In Gameweek 10, we saw a clamour for Foden and Toney. I was surprised to see Tom Stephenson go for the Brentford striker as he had been one of the few not to go with him at the start of the season.

As for Foden, his disallowed assist meant that he had a disappointing debut for most of The Great and The Good. Andy will probably have regrets about giving up Raphinha for a hit as part of the deal to bring him in and poor Yavuz continues to suffer from bad variance as he moved out Smith-Rowe to accommodate the Stockport Iniesta.

TEMPLATE

The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-

• Foster (11), Ramsdale (6)
• Cancelo (13), Livramento (12), Alexander-Arnold (13), Rudiger (5), Dias (5)
• Salah (15), Raphinha (14), Foden (10), Mbuemo (10), Brownhill (7)
• Antonio (15), Vardy (10), Toney (9)

Despite the Wildcards and the transfer frenzy, it’s only the forward line that gets a facelift with Vardy and Toney coming in for the big names of Romelu Lukaku (£11.5m) and Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.4m)

Neale has stuck with Cristiano and benefited from his double-digit returns this weekend; who would have thought the ‘Siu’ superstar would have been a differential? I doubt it will remain that way as the fixtures turn in Gameweek 14/15.

SEASON STATS

Let’s have a quick run through the season stats to see how the managers are performing these key metrics:-

Mark still leads the way on captaincy points and that won’t change if the current Salah permanent captaincy narrative continues. I do wonder who will be the first to break and go for a differential.

Resolve will be tested over the next few weeks with a potential Spurs new manager bounce combining with a sea of green fixtures. Harry Kane versus Everton, anyone?

There are some surprising names at both ends of the transfer hits: I wouldn’t have expected FPL Matthew to be top of the minus four mountain, nor would I have foreseen Magnus yet to take one.

As for value, Tom Stephenson continues to reap the benefits of some early-season gains at 103.4 and Neale is the poor relative on two million less.

CONCLUSION

A holiday gives you perspective as well as a burgeoning waistline after all those scones. The last few weeks seem to have all of us charging around after the latest must-have transfer, from Havertz to Toney, but maybe we need a little more patience.

The squad management from the likes of Pep and Tuchel will continue, as will the unforeseen injuries. Andreas Christensen’s (£5.0m) dental work drama certainly raised a smile with me.

So, rather than chase those points, let’s take a break, accept the rotations and have a transfer holiday. You never know, you may gain a little rank by taking time away from that tinkering. Now wouldn’t that “be so nice”.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now, and remember: don’t have nightmares about cream teas or anything else.

For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me on Twitter here.