Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead analyses 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 Pundits 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.
“I only told you to blow the bloody doors off!”
Blimey! After two weeks of a tedious international break, FPL exploded back into life in Gameweek 9.
It started with more Salah disappointment on Saturday, continued with the Erling Haaland (£12.1m) superlatives Sunday show and then ended on what can only be called “Maddison Monday”.
The lead-up to the weekend had seen many a Wildcard played, with some hoping to gather value from the two weeks of price fluctuations that didn’t really happen.
Many saw the opportunity in Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) becoming a differential of sorts, whilst others saw it as a way of navigating some tricky fixture swings and the blank in Gameweek 12 for Arsenal and Manchester City.
The results led to some massive swings, with those who dared not to captain Haaland severely punished. Centuries were commonplace but perhaps the most remarkable highlight amongst all this frenzy was that Danny Ward (£4.1m) actually got some points!
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Looking over The Great and The Good mini-league table you can see just how big the gains (and losses) were this week. There was a gap of 62 points between flying Finn Sollie on 119 and Magnus Carlsen on 57, he should really check on the positioning of those magic beads.
There were centuries for six of the managers including Az, Suvansh, FPL Matthew, Tom Freeman, Tom Stephenson and of course Finn who now takes the top spot from FPL Harry. Is this the season that Finn becomes the new Fabio? It’s worth checking out his career history as this would be his 11th top 10k finish if he stays at his current ranking.
Ownership of a combination of Phil Foden (£8.1m), Jarrod Bowen (£8.1m) and James Maddison (£8.1m) was key to hitting the hundred, and in the case of Finn, he had all three sitting in his midfield.
As for those who had sub-optimal weeks, well it came down to whether you decided to go against the Haaland armband and in this game of FPL roulette let’s just say Mark, Pras, Andy and Magnus should’ve cashed out early.
WILDCARDS
Wildcard season continued with four more stepping into the breach to play the mightiest of mighty chips, with mixed success, although let’s at this point roll out the cliché that a Wildcard can’t be judged on one week alone, although I doubt that makes anyone feel better right now.
There is only one manager amongst The Great and The Good still to overhaul his squad and that is Neale Rigg. One area of improvement in his squad would be his bench strength as he had the displeasure of seeing Neco Williams (£4.1m) minus one auto subbed into his first team this week, however worth noting he has seemingly avoided the Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.9m) uncertainty.
So, let’s jump into the Wildcards and start with the GOAT himself…
FABIO BORGES
The Portuguese maestro gave his team the biggest facelift with nine changes over the international break. It’s a squad data modelled to perfection with the Liverpool lads of Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.4m) brought back, the midfield gems of Wilfried Zaha (£7.3m) and Maddison, plus he has even got on the Dominic Solanke (£5.7m) conga line which everyone seemed so keen to join before reality hit on Saturday.
The biggest decision point seemed to be Joao Cancelo (£7.2m) and Solanke over Kieran Trippier (£5.5m) and Ivan Toney (£7.3m). It remains to be known whether Fabio has got that one right, although spoiler alert he normally does.
- IN – Raya, Alexander-Arnold, Guehi, Williams, Maddison, Zaha, Salah, Mitrovic, Solanke
- OUT – Sanchez, Dias, Trippier, Schar, Reed, Saka, Diaz, Jesus, Kane
LTFPL ANDY
The FPL manager whose Wildcard always gets the most scrutiny, I do feel he gets more grief for his decisions than a Kwasi Kwarteng mini-budget.
Anyway, whilst many of his moves made sense, Maddison, Zaha, Reece James (£6.0m) etc, unfortunately it will be remembered for its ill-fated Salah captaincy and that move out of Jarrod Bowen. Season-ending? Absolutely not and no doubt he’ll bounce back over the coming weeks.
- IN – Iversen, Alexander-Arnold, James, Guehi, Williams, Salah, Maddison, Zaha, Solanke
- OUT – Ederson, Gabriel, Trippier, Perisic, Cucurella, Groß, Diaz, Bowen, Jesus
FPL HARRY
One manager avoiding the pitfall of a Salah captaincy was FPL Harry who was the only Wildcarding manager who ignored the Egyptian and instead went with Kevin De Bruyne (£12.4m), with Southampton up next for the Man City creator supreme I think he has made the right choice. Unless of course, rotation, but surely Pep wouldn’t?
The extra cash saved from going “No Mo”, means he has a much stronger bench with Trippier being the one this week to sit on the sidelines. It does however mean he has to navigate Gameweek 12 with four players to manoeuvre around, but I am sure the man with six successive green arrows has a plan.
- IN – Guaita, James, Guehi, Zaha, Maddison, Solanke, Mitrovic
- OUT – Pope, Patterson, Saliba, Harrison, Groß, Toney, Jesus
PRAS
Next up is Pras, he was the only one to go with two up front, with Sam Greenwood (£4.3m) effectively just a cheap cheerleader and this allowed him to stay strong at the back plus double up on the Leicester midfield who have some lovely fixtures ahead.
There was a collective cheer amongst the FPL Community when Harvey Barnes (£6.9m) scored on Monday as one of the hardest working/nicest chaps amongst us deserved some fortune after the Salah armband.
Interestingly, he has given up the “value” in Gabriel Martinelli (£6.6m) which seems to have hamstrung so many of the other Wildcards we saw over the break.
- IN – Guaita, James, Guehi, Salah, Zaha, Maddison, Barnes, Greenwood
- OUT – Ramsdale, Botman, Williams, Diaz, Groß, De Bruyne, Martinelli, Jesus
TRANSFERS
Outside of the Wildcard world, we also saw a multitude of moves with the headline being that Mark finally, after guidance from Az’s Dad, brought in Erling Haaland. He still forgot to put the armband on him, but you know, small steps.
Other highlights were Neale’s move for Maddison which showed an excellent sense of timing, Crellin’s signing of Salah is one he may regret, and Geoff probably sighed with relief, when Harvey Barnes’ goal at least made up for him missing out on Sean Longstaff’s (£4.4m) fourth Premier League career goal.
- Az – James (Estupinan)
- LTFPL Andy – Wildcard
- Ben Crellin – Salah (De Bruyne)
- Fabio Borges – Wildcard
- Finn Sollie – None
- FPL Harry – Wildcard
- Joe Lepper – Toney (Isak)
- Geoff Dance – Barnes (Longstaff)
- FPL General – Maddison (Gordon)
- Magnus Carlsen – None
- Mark Sutherns – Haaland, Zaha (Kane, Gibbs-White)
- FPL Matthew – Toney (Isak)
- Neale Rigg – Maddison (Kulusevski)
- Pras – Wildcard
- Suvansh – None
- Tom Freeman – None
- Tom Stephenson – Zaha (Saka)
- Zophar – Toney (Isak)
TEMPLATE
Jumping into the template now, and definitely a little flux here with Haaland joining Andrea Perriera (£4.6m) as the only two owned by all. Elsewhere we see Zaha added to the ranks and as mentioned Neale is the only one who has avoided Mitrovic so far, and therefore missed out on the pain of his blank this Gameweek.
Pope (12), Ward (10)
Trippier (16), James (16), Cancelo (14), Williams (10), Alexander-Arnold (8)
Andreas (18), Martinelli (17), Maddison (14), De Bruyne (9), Zaha (8)
Haaland (18), Mitrovic (17), Kane (6)
TRANSFER SUCCESS
A look now at who the wheeler-dealer is amongst these managers by checking in on their immediate transfer success. This is a metric measured by FPL Statistico which does what it says on the tin and tracks the points gained from their moves. Worth noting, it measures the gains from just the following Gameweek and therefore does not reflect the long-term significance of the transfer.
That being said, here are the results up to Gameweek 8 and some good news here for Az as he leads the way with 72 points gained due to his weekly trades, compare that LTFPL Andy who has actually lost points on his moves.
The full table is below, note that this is only up to Gameweek 8 due to the timing of this article.
CONCLUSION
Time for us all to gather our breath after a tumultuous weekend of FPL action. I suspect this week will be one where many will scour the internet for training pictures of Mitrovic, shake our heads in disbelief that we spent so long talking about Solanke and wonder whether hat-trick Haaland will strike again
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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