Learning from ‘The Great and The Good’ FPL managers ahead of Gameweek 14

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.

“Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you”

There was a Chil(well) in the air this week leading up to Gameweek 13, as many fell afoul of an early transfer for the Chelsea wing-back, it got Jota on Saturday as Diogo lived up to his promise but it was snow joke on Sunday as we lost our Spurs and Burnley players to the wintry conditions.

An ‘FPL Weatherman’ Twitter account is expected to turn up any day now and no doubt we will all put him on speed dial for the seasonal fixture chaos ahead.

It proved just as hard to forecast the line-ups. Phil Foden’s (£8.2m) absence was predicted, Kai Havertz (£8.0m) was perhaps a surprise but it was Cristiano Ronaldo’s (£12.4m) benching that even Michael Fish (Google him) would have struggled to guess.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Magnus stormed back into some form, halving his overall rank due to 75 points that were fuelled by Diogo Jota (£7.7m), Ivan Toney (£6.7m), Conor Coady (£4.5m) and that man Jamie Vardy (£10.6m). All this despite having a no-show from Kane due to the incremental weather.

He was this week’s leading scorer but Zophar and Tom Stephenson also hit the 70s, WKD Warrior Vardy being the common denominator.

This means we have a new leader, with Tom moving back into number one spot and into the top 10k overall. However, watch out for Zophar just behind him in the table, who is on a run of six green arrows in a row.

I prefer to keep quiet on who is biding his time at the back of the pack.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – Kane (Ronaldo)

LTFPL Andy – James, Jota (Foden, Chilwell)

Fabio Borges – None

Joe Lepper – Gallagher, James (Sarr, Chilwell)

Geoff Dance – None

FPL General – King, Jota, James (Vardy, Mbeumo, Chilwell)

Les Caldwell – James (Coady)

Magnus Carlsen – Jota (Havertz)

Mark Sutherns – Alonso, Davis, James (Chilwell, Hwang, Jansson)

FPL Matthew – Jota, James (Foden, Chilwell)

Neale Rigg – Kane, Alonso (Ronaldo, Dias)

Tom Freeman – Jota (Foden)

Tom Stephenson – Alonso, Chilwell (Chilwell, Dias)

Yavuz Kabuk – Jota, James (Foden, Semedo)

Zophar – Alonso, Chilwell (Chilwell, Dias)

There was a Black Friday-like charge on Reece James (£6.3m) and Jota as The Great and The Good scrambled to acquire their services, with Foden and Ben Chilwell (£5.8m) abandoned.

Even the best of the bunch Zophar and Tom fell for the early transfer hoax of Chilwell as his injury ruined many of our plans.

There were a few minus fours flying around because Mark, Yavuz, FPL Matthew all took hits. FPL General also took one with mixed results, sacrificing Vardy but gaining Jota and Josh King (£5.6m).

TEMPLATE

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

Foster (11), Ramsdale (6)

Alexander-Arnold (15), Cancelo (14), Livramento (13), James (12), Rudiger (5)

Salah (15), Raphinha (11), Jota (11) Mbeumo (8), Brownhill (7)

Antonio (13), Toney (11), Kane (9)

The template seems almost etched in stone now that James has cemented his place in the backline and Jota has come in to replace Foden – I wonder whether the England star’s exit will come back to bite. Interesting to note that Tom and Fabio have retained his services. Will their patience pay off?

SEASON STATS

A glance now at the stats over the season so far:

Az will no doubt be disappointed to have lost top spot but he has the cash to spend on returning to the peak with £105m in team value, a whopping £2.8m more than the miser Neale.

Fabio has yet to take a hit all campaign and is surprisingly joined by Magnus, whilst Yavuz and Andy have taken -16. Shockingly, the ‘Prince of Patience’ FPL Matthew has also taken four hits and it’s difficult to explain these diva-like antics from such a normally cautious manager.

Some crumbs of comfort for Mark, who still leads the way on captaincy scores, gaining some 56 points over Magnus. Worth noting that the Chess Grandmaster is the one who has taken the most gambles on captains with five different names so far, whilst the rest have stuck with Mohamed Salah (£13.0m), he has a 70% selection rate over the season within this group of managers.

CONCLUSION

Think fast! There’s barely time to complain about the under-soil heating at Turf Moor before we jump into the next round of fixtures.

Remember, just having a playing eleven will be an advantage so stock up on those reserves as there could be more benching blizzards to come.

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.