Learning from ‘The Great and The Good’ FPL managers

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.

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

Let’s all just pretend that Gameweek didn’t happen.

A sea of red arrows, tales of woe and shaking fists as the weekend provided little joy for many of the FPL world with the lowest average Gameweek score of the season (45).

It’s led many to question the unquestionable, such as whether Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) is now surplus to requirements? Even though he has 38 points already to his name – odd times.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Green arrows at the top and the bottom of magical mini-league with FPL Harry, Mark Sutherns, Finn Sollie and Geoff Dance all hitting the high score of the week on 55 points.

In his debut season amongst The Great and The Good, this is the first time Harry has reached the summit, as Fabio fell down the mountain due to a little too much faith in the Egyptian King.

Harry’s transfer in of Ivan Toney (£7.2m), for a hit, proved a move of genius as the Brentford Bee stung the Leeds defence with a hat-trick, before taking to Twitter to goad those managers who sold him.

Mr Sutherns, another to benefit from Toney, was awarded a green arrow of 680,000 places and Finn Sollie was the remaining owner of Ivan, he is now the only one of the group yet to suffer a red arrow this season.

Meanwhile, Geoff had a slightly more up and down weekend as he had sold the Brentford striker, so must have looked on in horror during Saturday’s action, but he was soon in a better mood as his Marcus Rashford (£6.5m) Wildcard pick saw him bounce back on Sunday.

TRANSFERS

The full in’s and outs of the week are listed below:-

• Az – None
• LTFPL Andy – None
• Ben Crellin – Reed (Groß)
• Fabio Borges – James (Gabriel)
• Finn Sollie – None
• FPL Harry – Harrison, Toney (Rodrigo, Archer)
• Joe Lepper – Zaha (Rodrigo)
• Geoff Dance – Darwin, Longstaff (Toney, Rodrigo)
• FPL General – Groß (Rodrigo)
• Magnus Carlsen – Henderson (Ramsdale)
• Mark Sutherns – Gibbs-White (Rodrigo)
• FPL Matthew – Williams (Perisic)
• Neale Rigg – None
• Pras – None
• Suvansh – Darwin (Archer)
• Tom Freeman – James (Perisic)
• Tom Stephenson – Sanchez (Ramsdale)
• Zophar – Dunk (Perisic)

Harry’s hit was the pick of the transfers this week, Geoff and Suvansh’s early move for Darwin Nunez (£8.9m) perhaps shows an eagerness to shake things up a bit and many appear to have lost faith in Ivan Perisic (£5.6m) with three of them moving him on ahead of the European schedule.

There was a bit of Nottingham Forest love as a trio of tricky trees were traded in, obviously, Mark led the way with Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.5m), FPL Matthew gave himself money to spend by dropping Perisic for Neco “haul incoming” Williams (£4.1m) and Magnus went with Dean Henderson (£4.7m) between the sticks.

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 (9)
• Alexander-Arnold (18), Cancelo (15), James (10), Cucurella (9), Dunk (6)
• Martinelli (18), Andreas (18), Salah (17), Luis Diaz (9), Gross (8)
• Jesus (18), Haaland (17), Archer (7)

The template looks rock solid although I suspect to see some movement in the next few weeks as Gameweek 9 Wildcards are prepared and we see some short-term punts beforehand, hello Kieran Trippier (£5.2m).

Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.8m) will be warming up on the sidelines ready to join the squad as his fixtures turn a lovely colour in a couple of weeks and he seems to score regardless of the opposition.

As for this week, the only change was Lewis Dunk (£4.6m) coming in for Perisic despite his previous misdemeanors, The Great and The Good are nothing but a forgiving bunch.

WHAT IF?

This weekend was cruel, but just to pile on the agony I thought it a good time to bring out the What If Machine which effectively calculates what would’ve happened if you had left it well alone, so no transfers or changes to your captain. The results are below, and you can check out your own score here.

Some good news for Az whose tinkering has paid off, gaining him an extra 45 points, based on an effective Wildcard, it’s just a shame his starting 15 was so bad.

Finn Sollie is not far behind having made up 36 points, and he has yet to play his overhaul chip. His astute moves for the likes of William Saliba (£4.8m), Robert Sanchez (£4.7m) and of course Toney have all paid dividends.

Elsewhere, Magnus should have just left well alone, although much of that is his lack of patience with Rashford who he started with but then jettisoned before United became good again.

CONCLUSION

Do you hear that rumble? That’s the sound of Wildcards being prepared, with FPL General the next to break from the herd, as it a week to forget.

Rank is, of course, irrelevant right now, unless you have a good one, so stick to your plan, as another week is another week of information and there are another bunch of mistakes yet to be learnt from.

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

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