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.
Due to the unforgiving Thursday-Friday turnaround between Gameweeks, we’re bringing you TGATG a little later this week!
“The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is…”
Whilst experts and non-experts alike continue to argue as to whether their chip plans are the right plans, some bloke called Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.2m) scored a hat-trick, another Double Gameweek was announced, and the sheer boredom of Everton v Newcastle led to protests.
Amongst all the chaos, one of The Great and The Good moved into the top 1,000 for the first time this season, Magnus proved the Grandmaster again by handing the armband to Andy Robertson (£7.2m) and the Triple Captain gang got frustrated as Mohamed Salah (£13.3m) got splinters from the bench.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Four of The Great and The Good hit centuries this week with FPL General the leading scorer on 117 points, thanks to the double Liverpool defence, Dejan Kulusevski (£6.2m), Harry Kane (£12.4m) and his new best friend, Aaron Ramsdale (£5.1m).
The General goes level on points with Fabio Borges but ahead of the Portuguese Hall of Famer, although they are both still behind Az, who now has a triple-digit rank after a triple-digit score following a successful Wildcard.
Mark Sutherns was another to score over a hundred this Gameweek, giving him six green arrows in a row. Joe Lepper was the other manager who managed a century, doing this without the aid of a chip and still left 23 points on his bench.
WILDCARD
Az hit the Wildcard button this week in a desperate attempt to secure Daniel Amartey’s (£3.9m) services, however, alongside the Leicester defender he made 11 other changes with a triple-up on Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool players.
He has gone cheap with his bench, despite not playing that chip yet, with the likes of Amartey, Rayan Alt-Nouri (£4.4m) and Hee-Chan Hwang (£5.4m) unlikely to provide any explosive returns.
The team looks set up well to protect his position over the coming weeks, sitting at 87% template according to LiveFPL.net, so it’s going to take some differential moves from the likes of Fabio and FPL General if they are to catch him.
The full moves are below:-
- IN – Dubravka, Robertson, Doherty, Alt Nouri, Amartey, Salah, Coutinho, Kulusevski, Gordon, Saka, Kane, Hwang
- OUT – De Gea, Cancelo, Livramento, Digne, Johnson, Fernandes, Bowen, Foden, Son, Ramsey, Jimenez, Weghorst
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week:
- Az – Wildcard
- LTFPL Andy – Doherty, Kulusevski (Ramsey, James)
- Fabio Borges – Doherty, Kulusevski (Bowen, James)
- Joe Lepper – Robertson, Kulusevski (Bowen, James)
- Geoff Dance – Doherty (Rudiger)
- FPL General – Gelhardt, Kulusevski (Broja, Ramsey)
- Les Caldwell – Doherty (Coufal)
- Magnus Carlsen – Son, Doherty, Ramsdale (Bowen, James, De Gea)
- Mark Sutherns – Doherty, Kulusevski (Kilman, Raphinha)
- FPL Matthew – Kane, Saka (Bowen, Dennis)
- Neale Rigg – Saka, Doherty (Bowen, Dawson)
- Tom Freeman – Martinelli, Doherty (Bowen, James)
- Tom Stephenson – Doherty (Digne)
- Yavuz Kabuk – Lacazette, Soyuncu (James, Jimenez)
- Zophar – Doherty, Kulusevski, Kane (Livramento, Bowen, Dennis)
Hits galore again this week, as would be expected in a Double Gameweek with ten of them either taking a minus four or minus eight.
Unsurprisingly, the most radical was Magnus as he brought in a north London trio, although it was interesting to note that he resisted Kane.
I can only assume Lateriser has taken over control of Zophar’s account as he was the other manager to take a minus eight but all of them provided immediate returns, with Kulusevski looking a “must-have” pick.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-
- Ramsdale (9), Foster (6)
- Alexander-Arnold (15), Doherty (11), Rudiger (6), Robertson (5), Saiss (5)
- Salah (15), Raphinha (13), Saka (13), Kulusevski (8), Son (7)
- Broja (9), Jimenez (8), Kane (8)
The evolution of the template continues with growing investment in the backline as Robertson and Doherty move into the squad. Elsewhere, Jarrod Bowen (£6.8m) makes way for Kulusevski, who has now scored 29 points in the last four weeks.
It’ll be fascinating to see over the next few weeks how they accommodate the likes of Reece James (£6.2m) and Joao Cancelo (£6.9m) as “big at the back” looks to be the favoured strategy for the run-in.
SEASON STATS
Diving into the season stats, we can see that Az is just ahead on the captaincy points but beware the Chess Grandmaster as Magnus showed his ability to take a successful calculated gamble with his decision to captain Robertson this week, netting him 16 points more than the safe Salah option.
We await in anticipation for Zophar’s Wildcard as he has the biggest treasure chest to open with £106.1m in funds to spend, I doubt he will penny-pinch on Amartey.
Elsewhere, Yavuz Kabuk’s mission to get his eighth consecutive top 10,000 finish has been driven by an aggressive approach with 68 points in hits taken so far this season.
CHIP PLANS
Chip chat is all the rage so it’s worth having an update on where The Great and The Good sit with their plans. Matthew Jones looks to be setting up for another late, late charge with four chips at his disposal – could one be deployed this week?
The Scout editorial team will no doubt be pouring over the stats tables in the coming weeks as both Tom Freeman and Neale Rigg have held back their Wildcard, while Zophar is another one waiting to strike with a sprint finish.
Magnus is, as always, the most intriguing as he is the only one with the combination of just a Wildcard and Bench Boost left in his chess set. He wouldn’t overhaul to get Kane in Gameweek 30, would he?
CONCLUSION
The Gameweek that everyone wants to forget is coming up with the blank that some have prepared and some, well, just want to ignore.
Beyond that, we should see even more rank turbulence with those who have chips in hand expected to rise and those who have emptied the coffers expected to fall, but as Lateriser reminded me this week, it’s not the chips that get you points, it’s the players you pick – so choose wisely.
Anyway, that’s all from me, 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
