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 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.
“Don’t you, forget about me
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t”
The forgotten men returned to haunt our simple minds this week, as our bench scores frequently outmatched our starting eleven
The returns of Andreas Pereira (£4.6m), Leon Bailey (£4.6m), Kurt Zouma (£4.5m) and the now legendary Danny Ward (£4.1m) all embarrassed their heavy-hitting rivals.
Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) captainers were left most red-faced as the Egyptian King looks to have lost the throne and the confidence of his backers, although I suspect Let’s Talk FPL Andy will still put the armband on him this weekend such is his devotion.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Ok folks, brace yourself: I can confirm that Az was indeed this week’s top performer so expect The Great and The Good feature on FPL Blackbox to be longer than usual this week.
He scored an impressive 74 points, gaining over 500,000 places and moving above his rival Andy. Timothy Castagne (£4.5m) was his hero with a 12-point haul, and it’s worth noting the Leicester City defender has amassed 39 points in the last five weeks.
Geoff Dance was not too far behind thanks to the same flying Foxy full-back on 70, equalling Ben Crellin, who rose to the top of the table. The fixtures spreadsheet Superman scored highly despite putting the armband on Salah, with Tyrone Mings’ (£4.5m) merciless ten points his key return.
What is interesting here is that both Az and Ben have a three-heavy hitters formation (aka the “threemium”), so this was certainly the weekend that the mid-priced options let us down.
Elsewhere, with the exception of Ben, the Salah captainers had a difficult weekend. I suspect some sort of support group will need to be set up between Tom Stephenson and Andy.
WILDCARD – Neale Rigg
Finally, after a lot of build-up, the Scout head honcho himself played his Wildcard.
He looks to have placed his bets on City and Arsenal having a strong finish before the World Cup break with a triple-up on both. Intriguingly he has gone Bukayo Saka (£8.0m) over Gabriel Jesus (£8.0m), maybe it was the Suspension Tightrope that the Brazilian forward is walking that put him off.
Neale is heavy in the middle, sticking with a 3-5-2, and so that has meant he has looked to his defence for his cut-price differentials; Aaron Cresswell (£4.8m) and Ben White (£4.5m) certainly delivered for him in Gameweek 13.
With a couple of weeks before the enforced interval, let’s see how it plays out. The immediate results were less than exciting with a grey dot achievement almost unlocked: he dropped a mere 633 places as a result of his tinkering.
The full ins and outs are listed below:-
- IN – Ward, Guaita, White, Cresswell, Dunk, Foden, Saka, Greenwood, Mitrovic
- OUT – Pope, Iversen, Williams, James, Cucurella, Trossard, Andreas, Stansfield, Darwin
TRANSFERS
Pras may wish to look away at this stage, as the burning question for him is why he moved out Harvey Barnes (£6.9m) and Leandro Trossard (£6.8m) for a hit. The logic was sound, but he probably felt like giving variance a virtual V-sign when it came to the outcome.
The Trossard to Foden move was a popular one and caused much anguish but spare a thought for Finn Sollie, who must’ve thought he was upgrading when he transferred in Gabriel Martinelli (£6.8m) for Andreas Pereira.
The full list of moves are below:
- Az – White (Doherty)
- LTFPL Andy – Foden (Trossard)
- Ben Crellin – White (Dunk)
- Fabio Borges – Saka (Trossard)
- Finn Sollie – Martinelli (Andreas)
- FPL Harry – Foden (Trossard)
- Joe Lepper – Foden (Trossard)
- Geoff Dance – Gomez (James)
- FPL General – Foden (Trossard)
- Magnus Carlsen – Foden (Gordon)
- Mark Sutherns – Dias (Perisic)
- FPL Matthew – Foden (Trossard)
- Neale Rigg – Wildcard
- Pras – Martinelli, Foden (Barnes, Trossard)
- Suvansh – Foden (Trossard)
- Tom Freeman – Gabriel (Perisic)
- Tom Stephenson – Foden (Bowen)
- Zophar – Foden (Trossard)
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:
Pope (11), Ward (11)
Trippier (18), Cancelo (14), Guehl (9), Williams (7), Doherty (6)
Martinelli (17), Andreas (16), Salah (16), Zaha (16), Foden (14)
Haaland (18), Mitrovic (18), Solanke (7)
The template was shaken but not stirred this week, with Phil Foden (£8.4m) the one new name, few could’ve predicted his benching, Pep clearly doesn’t live in the fantasy world though.
Andreas Pereira drops out of the 100% ownership club due to Finn’s move and Neale seeing him as surplus to requirements in his overhaul, the Brazilian playmaker gave them a reminder of what he could do on the way out.
TEMPLATE RATING
This week we are having a quick look at how Template the current The Great and The Good squads are, with data provided by LiveFPL.
So, who has stuck with masses? Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, FPL General and Zophar, known for their steady, good judgment, have stuck to the path well-trodden.
Elsewhere, Andy, Mark and even Tom Stephenson have taken a different track, whilst Geoff and Ben have ignored the FPL Satnav altogether and are heading down their own differential street.
I’ve also done a comparison with the rating at the start of the season in the table above. What we can see here is that the likes of Az, Mark and Suvansh, who bet against the house in the opening Gameweek, have been beaten in submission moving back into the FPL herd.
The fact that Ben has one of the most differential squads right now and is top suggests that going against the template is not a bad idea but just a case of timing.
CONCLUSION
So, a threemium differential route provided the best results this week, but what will happen over the last couple of Gameweeks? Will caution be thrown to the wind before we all collectively overhaul our squads, or will some prefer to protect what they have built?
Perhaps the most interesting dynamic is how to approach the game post-World Cup. Will we all revert to the template or will the mavericks be rewarded for doing some different upon the restart?
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
