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.
“Does anyone know the way; did we hear someone say. We just haven’t got a clue what to do. Does anyone know the way, there’s got to be a way? To blockbuster”
Sweet (or sour in some cases) this Gameweek was a blockbuster with centurion scores flying around, chips thrown in and the highs and lows of owning Reece James (£6.2m)
It was always going to be a pivotal week with 31% of the top 10,000 playing their Wildcard and 18% boosting their bench (data according to LiveFPL.net).
This was mirrored amongst The Great and The Good as five Bench Boosted and three Wildcarded (including Fabio Borges) but only one man deployed the Free Hit – so look away now if you don’t want to hear more about Az’s success.
For his Blackbox buddy Mark, it may be for his own good to skip this week’s article.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Yes, Blackbox host Az was the leading scorer this week and leapfrogs Fabio with a very impressive 133 points fuelled by Phillipe Coutinho (£7.4m), Harry Kane (£12.3m) and Kai Havertz (£7.8m), plus of course that man James.
He sits just outside the top 1,000 with three chips left to play – can Fabio catch him to retain his crown?
Az was not the only one to hit a hundred with FPL General, Tom Stephenson, LTFPL Andy, Geoff Dance and Yavuz Kabuk all managing triple digits.
Yavuz is now at his highest position of the season at 72,000; a top 10,000 finish is still possible, and remember this would be his eighth in a row.
WILDCARDS
It was also a week of Wildcards as three of them decided to press the button, the full details are below:-
Fabio Borges
- IN – Dubravka, Schmeichel, Kilman, Coady, James, Son, Saka, Lacazette, Wood
- OUT – Pope, Sanchez, Cancelo, Dias, Dunk, Foden, Maddison, Jimenez, Weghorst
Fabio threw in his Wildcard chip this week finishing just shy of a hundred in its first outing.
Triple Arsenal is as you would expect, and you must admire his goalkeeper planning as Kasper Schmeichel (£4.8m) and Martin Dubravka (£4.4m) covers him well for the known and possibly unknown doubles and blanks to come.
There may be some initial disappointment with his double Wolves defence, and he may have picked the wrong Spur in Son Heung-min (£10.8m) but his pick of Raphinha (£6.5m) is maybe his biggest worry as the Brazilian seemed to want to be anywhere but Leeds on Thursday night.
Joe Lepper
- IN -Dubravka, James, Rudiger, Kilman, Davies, Ramsey, Raphinha, Broja, Kane, Adams
- OUT – Steele, Cancelo, Robertson, Diop, Livramento, Fernandes, Martinelli, King, Dennis, Watkins
Joe’s Wildcard was certainly a surprise as he looked to be able to navigate the doubles and go later with his overhaul but clearly Chelsea’s delicious double changed his mind, that, and his desire to rid his squad of Watford forwards.
Yavuz Kabuk
- IN – Ramsdale, James, Rudiger, Kilman, Davies, Saka, Kulusevski, Raphinha, Coutinho, Salah, Jimenez, Kane, Broja
- OUT – De Gea, Cancelo, Dawson, Tarkowski, Livramento, Foden, Son, Fernandes, Bowen, Cornet, Weghorst, Antonio, Edouard
Yavuz made the most of his Wildcard with 13 new additions to his squad, but one name stands out as he was the only manager to bring in Dejan Kulusevski (£6.1m) who looks to be the next “must-have”.
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week:
- Az – Free Hit
- LTFPL Andy – James (Van Dijk)
- Fabio Borges – Wildcard
- Joe Lepper – Wildcard
- Geoff Dance – Rudiger (Robertson)
- FPL General – No Transfers
- Les Caldwell – Mount, Rudiger (Bowen, Lowton)
- Magnus Carlsen – James (Cancelo)
- Mark Sutherns – Saiss, Raphinha (Semedo,Bowen)
- FPL Matthew – Raphinha, Havertz (Foden, Fernandes)
- Neale Rigg – Raphinha, Rudiger (Gray, Cancelo)
- Tom Freeman – James (Cancelo)
- Tom Stephenson – Rudiger (Van Dijk)
- Yavuz Kabuk – Wildcard
- Zophar – Broja, Raphinha (King, Fernandes)
Away from the Wildcarders, there was plenty of activity with the James move a popular option. Raphinha was in demand, too, but his returns were less rewarding.
A nod to Les Caldwell who went with Mason Mount (£7.5m) and quietly got on with providing him a double-digit haul.
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:
- Ramsdale (7), Foster (7)
- Alexander-Arnold (14), James (8), Rudiger (8), Digne (6), Saiss (6)
- Salah (15), Raphinha (15), Saka (10), Bowen (7), Ramsey/Son (6)
- Broja (10), Jimenez (9), Kane (6)
The template is similar to the Everton defence as it’s all over the place, with only five surviving the carnage and big names like Joao Cancelo (£7.0m) leaving the fold as he was reluctantly sold by many to lure in a Chelsea defender.
CAPTAIN CALLS
Captaincy has played a huge part in recent gains and the table below shows the top performers amongst The Great and The Good:
One stat I’ve included is the performance of the non-Salah captain picks. The Egyptian has been favourited most of the season, but the real gains have been made by those who have successfully hopped off and got those differential armband calls correct.
You can see that Magnus has been the one to veer away from the norm the most often with eleven different picks.
You can also see going without the comfort blanket of Salah is fraught with both risk and reward. Az has had some success with the highest average for non-Salah captaincy of 27.8, whilst the likes of Neale and Geoff have not fared so well.
CONCLUSION
Huge swings this week and well done to those who had a blockbuster week, with Gameweek 29 shaping up to be equally dramatic.
Perhaps the biggest decision this week is whether to stick with Salah for the armband or go with the revitalized Kane; there are big green arrows or possibly red arrows to be made if you decide to throw the dice.
Anyway, that’s all from me for and remember don’t have nightmares.
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
