Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns for the 2022/23 season 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 season are the BlackBox pair of Mark Sutherns and Az, Scouts Joe Lepper, Tom Freeman, Neale Rigg, Geoff Dance, Pro Pundts Pras, Zophar and FPL Harry, FPL “celebrities” Magnus Carlsen, FPL General, LTFPL Andy, Ben Crellin, from the Hall of Fame, Fabio Borges, FPL Matthew, Finn Sollie and Tom Stephenson and of course last year’s mini-league winner and overall no.2 Suvansh.
“Eat. Sleep. Captain Haaland. Repeat”
A new cheat code in FPL has been discovered as the man that gives us all Norwegian wood Erling Haaland (£11.9m) scored another hat-trick and made a mockery of any doubts that he wouldn’t play as he completed another 90 minutes.
Yesterday’s man Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) made those who stayed loyal to him sweat, assisting in Klopp-time – aka the 98th minute – to at least limit the damage to those who had given him the armband.
Before we go any further, we should have a minute’s silence for those that don’t even own Haaland. 2022/23 season Rest In Peace; I am half-joking.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Billed as Haaland vs Salah, the Meat Shield captainers came out on top with Tom Stephenson the top dog this week, his double City defence also helping him to a rank rise of over 500,000 places.
That late assist from Salah allowed Fabio to stay top, but there are only 12 points separating the top ten. Pras is the one putting the most pressure on the Portuguese maestro.
The one fun fact is that Joe Lepper and Finn Sollie are the only managers who have yet to suffer a red arrow – despite their relatively high rank, maybe this will be a case of the tortoise catching the hare.
Az’s WILDCARD
You call that a Wildcard? This is a Wildcard! Is what I assume Az said to his pal Mark as the Blackbox host hit the button.
Haaland arrived and Kevin De Bruyne (£12.2m) departed as Az finally gave into the irresistible force of the City striker.
Most of the moves were in the backline with injuries to Reece James (£6.1m) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.1m) prompting him to act, although it’s his transfer out of Joao Cancelo (£7.1m) which will give him the biggest Wildcard hangover.
Moves below the radar are his signing of Dean Henderson (£4.6m), who looks as good as he did for Sheffield United a couple of seasons back. Emerson Palmieri (£4.0m) could be gold at that price and Phil Foden (£8.0m) is due and could cause chaos against a weak Villa defence.
The full ins and outs are below:
- IN – Henderson, Estupinan, Dias, Gabriel, Emerson, Foden, Gross, Haaland, Mitrovic
- OUT – Iversen, Cancelo, Perisic, James, Zinchenko, De Bruyne, Mount, Archer, Greenwood
TRANSFERS
There were a few (Lewis) Dunk (£4.6m) moves this week with Andy and even Fabio, who showed he wasn’t perfect, as the Brighton defender scored a minus one on his debut for their teams.
Those who signed Rodrigo Moreno (£6.4m) fared no better: Joe and Harry only gained 32 minutes of play before his injury. I suspect a quick departure for the Leeds man from their squads.
Perhaps the best move this week was Magnus, who just burnt his transfer!
The full moves are listed below:-
- Az – Wildcard
- LTFPL Andy – Dunk, Gross (Reed, James)
- Ben Crellin – Estupinan (James)
- Fabio Borges – Dunk (James)
- Finn Sollie – Gross (Mount)
- FPL Harry – Saliba, Rodrigo (James, Saka)
- Joe Lepper – Rodrigo, Gross (Mount, Bailey)
- Geoff Dance – None
- FPL General – Perisic (James)
- Magnus Carlsen – None
- Mark Sutherns – None
- FPL Matthew – Saliba, Perisic (Zinchenko, Williams)
- Neale Rigg – Cucurella, Sanchez (Ward, James)
- Pras – Gross, Williams (Reed, James)
- Suvansh – Gundogan, Estupinan (Son, James)
- Tom Freeman – Perisic (James)
- Tom Stephenson – None
- Zophar – Iversen (Ward)
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:
- Ward (14), Sanchez (8)
- Alexander-Arnold (18), Cancelo (15), Cucurella (9), James (8), Perisic (6)
- Martinelli (18), Andreas (18), Salah (17), Luis Diaz (9), Gross (6)
- Jesus (18), Haaland (17), Archer (9)
James stays in the template despite the mass sales as he loses his 100% essential status, while one man who should have that title is Haaland, but Mark has decided to die on that particular Norwegian hill.
Elsewhere, Robert Sanchez (£4.7m) comes in for Aaron Ramsdale (£5.0m) and Pascal Gross (£5.9m) enters the building as the fifth midfielder of choice.
FORMATION
You remember the good old days when everyone just went 3-4-3? Well, those times have passed. In fact, from these managers, Geoff Dance is the strongest advocate and he has only utilized it twice.
The new vogue is to go heavy at the back, with 4-4-2 just edging it at 47% deployment compared to 5-3-2 at 37%. Fabio is a big fan of the latter, having adopted it for every Gameweek so far this campaign.
CONCLUSION
A quick turnaround this week and lots of attention needed to the team news with the words of Messrs Tuchel, Conte and Pep being scrutinized very closely as we enter the dreaded rotation roulette stage of the season.
So, avoid chasing value this week, duck any fake in-the-know accounts, check your sources and make your decisions late as I suspect benches will be needed this weekend. Information is power!
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
