Learning from ‘The Great and The Good’ FPL managers ahead of Gameweek 13

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.

“Work it, make it, do it, makes us: harder, better, faster, stronger”

You’d be daft punk not to get excited about the packed schedule of FPL activity over the next few weeks! We have nine Gameweeks crammed into the next 42 days, if you read this on 23rd November, otherwise it will be 41 days if you read on the 24th November or even 40 days if you read… anyway, you get the gist. It’s going to be an FPL frenzy!

The international break brought its own series of surprises with Roberto Firmino’s (£8.8m) injury giving Diogo Jota (£7.5m) owners comfort, Phil Foden (£8.3m) felt a disturbance and many believed Harry Kane (£12.2m) would be essential after scoring against a few accountants, sales assistants, and ceramic shop workers.

Then there was the managerial merry go round. One can only assume club chairmen thought there were coaching supply chain issues, as they stockpiled on new managers with Steven Gerrard, Dean Smith and Eddie Howe all bouncing their clubs to a much-improved performance.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Geoff Danced away with the top score this week of 85, with 53 of those points coming from his defence as Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.8m), Antonio Rudiger (£5.9m), Joao Cancelo (£6.6m) and Reece James (£6.1m) all provided him with double-digit hauls.

Az remains top, despite a captaincy mishap when he miscalculated just how fragile Ole’s grip on the wheel was, as his choice of Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.4m) only offered an assist when he should have gone for double-digit Emmanuel Dennis (£5.2m).

This was a better return than Kane provided Magnus, who gambled on the Spurs striker but he again failed to add to his solitary Premier league goal for the season, despite three shots inside the box against Leeds United.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

Az – Ronaldo, Johnson (Vardy, Duffy)

LTFPL Andy – Kane, Omobamidele (Vardy, Laporte)

Fabio Borges – Jota (Raphinha)

Joe Lepper – None

Geoff Dance – Kane (Vardy)

FPL General – None

Les Caldwell – Kane (Vardy)

Magnus Carlsen – Wilson, Kane (Vardy, Aubameyang)

Mark Sutherns – Guaita (Sanchez)

FPL Matthew – Kane, McArthur (Vardy, Mbeumo)

Neale Rigg – Cancelo (Christensen)

Tom Freeman – None

Tom Stephenson – None

Yavuz Kabuk – Alexander-Arnold, Gallagher (Azpilicueta, Havertz)

Zophar – None

Kane was the most popular transfer for the week with high hopes for the Conte revolution, but he again frustrated, Jamie Vardy (£10.6m) was the fall guy for most of them. Az went with Ronaldo instead of Kane and he’ll be hoping that the interim interim Michael Carrick can inspire some kind of response; I do wonder whether Cristiano will end up picking the team himself and allocate tea-making duties to Michael.

Mark made the sexy goalkeeping trade this week and again that move seems cursed as Vincente Guaita (£4.6m) conceded three on his debut, although he did at least secure some save points. The Magnus move for Callum Wilson (£7.4m) catches the eye as, although he blanked, he had five shots in the box and ‘attack attack attack’ seems to be the Eddie Howe tactic for avoiding relegation, meaning goals should follow for the striker.

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)
Alexander-Arnold (15), Cancelo (14), Livramento (13), Rudiger/Chilwell/James (5)
Salah (15), Raphinha (11), Foden (10), Mbuemo (9), Brownhill (7)
Antonio (13), Toney (11), Kane (7)

Kane is the big-name arrival in the template this week, displacing Vardy. Yavuz’s purchase of Alexander-Arnold finally means he is at 100% ownership but perhaps the biggest surprise is that James and Ben Chilwell (£6.0m) don’t have bigger ownership.

DOUBLE DIGITS

One of the best ways to catapult yourself up the ranks is through explosive returns and the following chart shows how many double-digit hauls that The Great and The Good have secured this season:

Unsurprisingly, Az and Tom lead this metric, which is one of the factors towards their places in the top 20k. Perhaps alarmingly for everyone else, it could have been three more for Az as he has benched Ben Foster (£4.1m), Aaron Ramsdale (£4.8m) and Emile Smith-Rowe (£5.9m) over the last few weeks.

Looking at the players behind these returns, no shock to see Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) at the top but the fact that Alexander-Arnold, Cancelo and James are next in the list highlights that it is finally the time to go big at the back and maybe even consider putting the armband on one of them?

CONCLUSION

A strong template is forming with four-at-the-back seemingly the optimal strategy, complemented by a perma Mo captaincy with the real ground made up by your choice of mid-price striker and midfielder. As always, it’s best to look ahead though, as the fixtures turn towards Manchester over the next few weeks, so many of us will be keeping a close eye on the Old Trafford soap opera to see if they can get their act together and appoint someone to give them a bounce into a green set of fixtures.

Anyway, 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 here on Twitter.