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.

“You should have known by now you were on my list”

All Killer(s) and no filler this week as controversy erupted on and off The Great and The Good made-up pitch. We saw Az captain the wrong but yet somehow the right Bruno, there was some hot chip action, and people on FPL Twitter got very upset about not being on an old fool’s list.

In all the melee, Double Gameweeks were announced, Manchester United became a team to target for all the wrong reasons and miraculously Wout Weghorst (£6.4m) finally returned some points.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

There were three centurions this week as Az, Zophar and Yavuz made triple digits, with the BlackBox host the talk of the town as he put the armband on Bruno Guimaraes (£4.9m); the “defensive” midfielder’s haul took Az back to the top of the table, overtaking Fabio in the process.

Zophar used his Bench Boost this week but he probably hoped for more from this chip, with only Weghorst supplying any points. What is interesting here is that he didn’t use the Bench Boost later in combination with his Wildcard, which he still holds.

This chip does really seem to be the poor relation this season with more and more established FPL managers seeing it as more of a burden than a blessing. Is it time for it to be replaced next season?

Yavuz Kabuk, who remember is on the hunt for his record-breaking eighth top 10,000 finish in a row, played his Free Hit to great effect. Many had been put off the idea of using the chip this week – only 15% of the existing top 10,000 activated it – but he deployed it with some style.

A Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.2m) captaincy helped but he also had Mohamed Salah (£13.3m) along with Bruno Guimaraes to take him to 43,148, his highest rank of the season. He still has his Bench Boost and second Free Hit in hand: will he make the top 10,000 again?

On the topic of captaincy, it was a differential disco this Gameweek with each of The Great and The Good roaming the FPL dancefloor for the armband last dance. In total, there were seven different picks across this group of managers.

The end results led to red arrows for many with Bruno Fernandes (£11.6m) disappointing the majority, and for once Magnus missed the mark with Gabriel Martinelli (£5.3m). Tom Stephenson also probably regrets getting Chris Wood (£6.8m).

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

• Az – Adams, Bruno Guimaraes, Cancelo (Lacazette, Coutinho, Doherty)
• LTFPL Andy – Fernandes, Wood, Cancelo (Son, Lacazette, Doherty)
• Fabio Borges – Emerson Royal, Cancelo (Doherty, Kilman)
• Joe Lepper – Wood, Fernandes (Kane, Raphinha)
• Geoff Dance – Emerson Royal, Ronaldo, Fernandes, Pope (Doherty, Lacazette, Sa, Salah)
• FPL General – Ward-Prowse, Schar (Raphinha, Doherty)
• Les Caldwell – Schar, Schmeichel (Doherty, Sanchez)
• Magnus Carlsen – Martinelli, Cornet (Gordon, Raphinha)
• Mark Sutherns – Fernandes, Cancelo (Salah, Doherty)
• FPL Matthew – Wood, Fernandes (Jimenez, Havertz)
• Neale Rigg – Ronaldo, Dewsbury-Hall, Schar (Antonio, Rudiger, Raphinha)
• Tom Freeman – Ward-Prowse (Raphinha)
• Tom Stephenson – Wood, Cancelo, Schar (Doherty, Lacazette, Tierney)
• Yavuz Kabuk – Free Hit
• Zophar – Sancho, Burn, Schar (Raphinha, Digne, Doherty)

Panic set in across The Great and The Good, with nine of them taking hits; Geoff Dance was the most extreme with a -12. It did see the Canadian Kingpin bring in Ronaldo for his hat-trick but at the same time also displace Salah from his squad.

Magnus was probably the most unfortunate as his transfer fails were a story of two penalties: Maxwel Cornet (£5.9m) missed his and Bukayo Saka took Arsenal’s spot-kick when even Mikel Arteta thought Martinelli was due to take the set piece.

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:

• Ramsdale (7), Foster (5)
• Alexander-Arnold (12), Cancelo (10), Schar (7) Robertson (6), White/James (5)
• Saka (12), Salah (9), Fernandes (8), Kulusevski (8), Raphinha (6)
• Kane (11), Weghorst (9), Broja (7)

As expected, the Double Gameweek did strange things to the template with Fernandes coming in for Son Heung-min (£11.1m), Newcastle defender Fabian Schar (£4.4m) replacing Matt Doherty (£4.7m) and, whisper it, Armando Broja (£5.5m) making his return.

If I was to channel my Mystic Meg powers for a brief minute, I would suspect we will see a little more Chelsea and Man City in the squad next week. Could they all finally forgive Havertz after Gameweek 9 and return him to the template?

PICK OF THE POPS

As we start to enter the final stages of the campaign and to pick the bones a little further, I have looked at, courtesy of FPL Statisco, the most popular players over the season across The Great and The Good.

These are the top five players that have started the most games for this collection of managers:

Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.4m) has been the most popular choice across the board, appearing in the top five of all the managers’ selections over the season, although he was not the top dog for everyone with Neale Rigg’s loyalty to Robert Sanchez (£4.6m) one to catch the attention.

The popularity contest also highlights the blind spot that has hindered us all this season with Michail Antonio (£7.5m) so prominent despite the likes of Teemu Pukki (£6.0m), Ivan Toney (£6.9m) and even Emmanuel Dennis (£5.8m) outscoring him over the course of the 33 weeks. I suspect a cheap forward line will be the new normal going into next year unless there are reclassifications planned.

There are some other heavy-hitting names missing, with the second highest-scorer Son not making the list and Kevin De Bruyne only being selected twice all season by The Great and The Good: Mark and Geoff were the ones to at least have a go at picking the City maestro. Did injuries and that man Salah play a part in his absence or is this just an example of the FPL Community groupthink missing the obvious?

CONCLUSION

There are only five weeks left to go but this will not be a quiet end to the season, and I expect some late surges from those lucky enough to still hold their Wildcards and Free Hits.

For those looking to make ground without the benefit of chips, now would be a good time to channel your inner maverick and look at the likes of Marcus Alonso, Sadio Mane or even Bruno Guimaraes if you can dare to be different.

Whatever you decide to do, it will soon all be over – remember that FPL is meant to be fun, so enjoy the ride while you can.

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 on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19