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
“We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no!”
His owners certainly didn’t want to talk about Mr Fernandes, well not until the last minute of another rollercoaster Double Gameweek, when suddenly they turned very chatty.
Ownership or captaincy of Bruno Fernandes (£11.7m) was pivotal as to whether your arrow was dark green, light green or indeed red.
It was also a stark reminder that checking your live rank even a few moments before the final kick can be hazardous to your FPL wellbeing.
Elsewhere, Adam Webster (£4.4m) owners must be feeling blessed as he turned out to be the right Brighton defender to pick, certainly when compared to those FPL managers who stretched to Lewis Dunk (£4.9m) who found themselves 14 points down for the extra outlay.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Magnus Carlsen and LTFPL Andy shared the glory of being this week’s top scorers as they both totalled 83 points; Michael Keane (£4.8m) was an unlikely hero for the Chess Grandmaster.
The leader Fabio Borges was not far behind on 81 points with Ruben Dias (£6.1m), who continues to be a great long-term pick, although to prove not everything goes his way, the Portuguese Hall of Famer did also have the red card of Dunk to deal with.
Neale and Mark were the unlucky Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.5m) captainers who were left cursing Bruno’s goal, although at least Mr Rigg had some fortune as he had Craig Dawson‘s (£4.9m) thunder-blaster-header points off the bench covering for Joao Cancelo’s (£7.2m) absence.
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week :
- Az – Ramsey (Martinelli)
- LTFPL Andy – Broja, Fernandes (Antonio, Gray)
- Fabio Borges – Dunk (James)
- Joe Lepper – Fernandes (Gallagher)
- Geoff Dance – Fernandes (Son)
- FPL General – Cucurella (Alonso)
- Les Caldwell – No transfers
- Magnus Carlsen – Rashford (Gray)
- Mark Sutherns – Dunk, Dalot, De Gea (Alonso, Diop, Guaita)
- FPL Matthew – De Gea (Ederson)
- Neale Rigg – No transfers
- Tom Freeman – No transfers
- Tom Stephenson – Fernandes (Foden)
- Yavuz Kabuk – Fernandes (Gray)
- Zophar – Fernandes (Gray)
Everyone rushed to get in United players this week with Bruno the most sought after. Magnus tripled up on the out-of-form Old Trafford outfit and Marcus Rashford (£9.4m) at least gave him an assist for being different.
Mark was the only one to take a hit with triple D moves for Diogo Dalot (£4.6m), David de Gea (£5.3m) and Dunk; needless to say, some worked better than others.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good is as follows, with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:
- De Gea (10), Foster (6)
- Alexander-Arnold (15), Cancelo (15), Livramento (9), Dawson (5), Coufal, Regulion, Digne (4)
- Bowen (15), Jota (15), Bruno Fernandes (13), Foden (7), Raphinha (4)
- King (13), Antonio (9), Ronaldo (9)
The core of the template remains unbreakable for another week with Demarai Gray (£5.5m) the only one dropping out for Raphinha (£6.5m), whose owners will have had some concern when he was left keeping warm on the sidelines in the second half at Goodison.
SWING WHILST YOUR WINNING
The last few weeks have our Salah perma-captain taken away from us and several armband swings have had a significant impact on our ranks.
We have had Antonio v Bowen (Gameweek 21), Fernandes v Ronaldo (Gameweek 22) and King vs Dennis (Gameweek 23), plus anyone unfortunate enough not to hand the armband to Diogo Jota (£8.5m) in Gameweek 24.
The following table shows the form of The Great and The Good over the last five weeks and the impact of the captaincy.
There’s no surprise that Fabio has been the leading light but the gains have been significant: he has scored 84 points more than the unfortunate Les Caldwell due to his armband decisions. Is it variance or skill? Either way, the captaincy calls have been a major influence on our arrows in the last few weeks.
Over the full season, the captaincy scores have accounted for, on average, 27% of the total scores of The Great and The Good – but as you can see from the table in the last five Gameweeks, this has been up to 39.7%. Captaincy has certainly been king in our fortunes or misfortunes from Gameweeks 21 to 25.
CONCLUSION
There’s much to look forward to this Gameweek, as Salah is a-go for the Triple Captain chip and we have some delicious doubles to devour.
Yet, before we all go hit crazy to cram in the Double Gameweek players, remember that whilst there may be no cloud in the sky, it looks like rain in Blanks Gameweek 27 and 30, so plan accordingly – and remember, don’t talk about Bruno.
Anyway, that’s all from me for this week.
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
