Learning from ‘The Great and The Good’ FPL managers ahead of Gameweek 17

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.

“I don’t know where I’m goin’

But I sure know where I’ve been

Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday

An’ I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time

Here I go again, here I go again”

Not again. This all feels strangely familiar, as our preparations for the weekend were once again blighted by Covid-19 cases and a match cancellation – even when the action started, it felt like we were repeating everything one more time as VAR grabbed the headlines after a raft of dubious penalty decisions.

Perhaps more alarming was that ominous feeling it is going to get much, much worse as midweek rotation and further Covid chaos beckons, no matter how many hits we take or how much we have boosted our bench strength.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

The race to be the greatest of ‘The Great and The Good’ is looking to be closer than the Formula One finale as Az regained the advantage over FPL General and Tom Stephenson, but there are still only 11 points separating the top three.

Yet, it was a little further down the table where we find this week’s top performer, as Yavuz Kabuk scored 79 points, gained a green arrow of 75k and moved off the bottom, leaving Mark Sutherns – who probably for his own sanity no longer reads these updates – cast adrift in 15th.

Conor Gallagher (£6.1m) was no doubt the hero for Yavuz with his 15-point haul but Aaron Ramsdale (£5.0m) continued to prove his doubters wrong with a second double-digit return and Antonio Rudiger (£6.1m) was Saturday’s unlikely assist supreme.

Spare a thought for Zophar and Tom Stephenson, who would have been this week’s joint top scorers but for leaving Gallagher’s 15 points on their bench.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – King, Ronaldo (Toney, Kane)

LTFPL Andy – Ronaldo (Kane)

Fabio Borges – Ronaldo, James, Sissoko, Guaita (Toney, Son, Livramento, Foster)

Joe Lepper – Ronaldo, Bowen (Kane, Raphinha)

Geoff Dance – Antonio, Rashford, King (Brownhill, Kane, Toney)

FPL General – Bowen, Bernardo Silva (Son, Brownhill)

Les Caldwell – De Gea, Dennis, Mount (Steele, Kane, Raphinha)

Magnus Carlsen – Antonio, Cancelo, King, De Gea (Toney, Sanchez, Kane, Williams)

Mark Sutherns – Dennis, Bowen (Toney, Son)

FPL Matthew – Ronaldo, Bernardo Silva, King (Toney, Kane, Raphina)

Neale Rigg – Bowen, Ronaldo (Kane, Raphinha)

Tom Freeman – Ronaldo, Dalot, Guaita (Kane, Regulion, Foster)

Tom Stephenson – King, Ronaldo (Toney, Kane)

Yavuz Kabuk – Bowen, Bernardo Silva (Jota, Raphinha)

Zophar – King, Ronaldo (Kane, Toney)

Hits, hits and more hits as the Spurs postponement plunged The Great and The Good into panic, with 14 of the 15 selling Tottenham players with Magnus Carlsen and Fabio Borges taking their first transfer penalties of the season in style by spending eight points.

Les Caldwell again proved to have impeccable timing: David De Gea (£5.0m), Emmanuel Dennis (£5.8m) and Mason Mount (£7.6m) all provided immediate returns.

TEMPLATE

The template for ‘The Great and The Good’ is as follows, with the number in brackets showing how many teams each player appears in:

Foster (9), Ramsdale (6)

Alexander-Arnold (15), Cancelo (15), James (13), Livramento (11), Alonso (6)

Salah (15), Jota (13), Mbuemo (7), Brownhill (6), Gallagher/Raphinha/Bowen (5)

Antonio (13), King (12), Ronaldo (11)

Unsurprisingly, the forward line has seen an overhaul, as popular transfers of Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.5m) and Joshua King (£5.8m) coming in for Harry Kane (£12.1m) and Ivan Toney (£6.6m) are replicated in the overall squad template.

There appears to be less consensus on the fourth midfield spot. Jarrod Bowen (£6.5m) and Gallagher have joined the debate but did they all forget James Maddison (£6.8m)?

FOLLOWING THE TEMPLATE

As we enter the festive period, I thought it’d be worth investigating ‘The Great and The Good’ squads to see how template they are by using Live FPL (built by Ragabolly) which, along with live rank updates, provides a comparison of your squad against the template. You can read how this is calculated here.

You can see below how the squads compare, plus how this compares to Gameweek 3 when I last had a look under the covers. Bear in mind that the usual guidance is a 50-70% match that allows for a balance of ownership and differential.

There is no doubt that the template is working again as our top three of Az, Tom Stephenson and FPL General have a rating of 86-87%.

If you want differentials then keep an eye on Geoff Dance, Les Caldwell and Tom Freeman, although the latter two were more successful this week, Mount and Diogo Dalot (£4.5m) are good examples of how they have made themselves stand out.

CUP UPDATE

Before I go, as always there were a couple of cup upsets to report on. Kamelista gets the headlines for dumping Mark Sutherns out of the cup, despite being ranked at over two million and having not made a transfer since Gameweek 10.

However, the biggest giant-killing was Khaled Costa, whose score of 74 was enough to see off FPL General – some 5,127,939 places ahead of Costa in the overall rankings.

CONCLUSION

There’s no time to think before we jump into our next round of chaos, with Aston Villa and Manchester United the latest clubs to make us worry about further postponements. Now is not the time to have inactive benches so boost that pine but brace yourself for some seasonal disappointment.

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.