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.
“Just when you think you’re in control
Just when you think you’ve got a hold
Just when you get on a roll
Oh, here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again”
Ok go, or not, as was the case on Saturday when bedlam repeated itself with FPL managers around the world desperately trying to make last-minute changes.
The combined calamity of the FPL servers failing and the City news of Erling Haaland’s (£12.1m) benching meant some were left wondering who they had actually captained or indeed had in their team as the deadline passed.
When the dust settled we had a weekend of swings, with Mohamed Salah (£12.7m) captainers left to celebrate, Haaland sellers left to ruminate and Joao Cancelo (£7.4m) owners left to commiserate.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Well, well, well, Let’s Talk FPL Andy’s season-ending couple of weeks were turned on its head this week as he hit the heights of 82 points and with it a 640,000 green arrow.
His decision to bring in and captain Julian Alvarez (£6.0m) paid off, his patience with Wilfried Zaha (£7.5m) reaped rewards and of course, he had Kieran Trippier (£5.9m), but there again everyone has him.
He was not the only one to have a barnstorming weekend with all of the top six managers halving their rank, particularly gratifying for Joe who at least could go on his last Scoutcast with a big green arrow-induced smile on his face. Fitting that it was an Alvarez magic bean that helped him along the way.
Tom Freeman is flying and now sits in the top 75,000 with Arsenal’s Gabriel (£5.1m) his hero. The others should be thankful he sold Zaha this week as otherwise, he would’ve taken all the headlines.
To avoid the wrath of the FPL Godfather, I should also mention Mark Sutherns’ green arrow of 520,000 places – is the comeback on?
For every up there has to be a down and there were some tales of woe this week with many of The Great and The Good impacted by the technical difficulties.
FPL General, Zophar and FPL Matthew all fell victim to their late changes not going through, while the server sluggishness meant that Neale Rigg didn’t get the chance to stick new signing Alvarez in his starting XI.
Tom Stephenson will probably be sending his captain pick Callum Wilson (£7.5m) some Lemsips in the post after the Newcastle striker’s sniffles meant he only managed 45 mins.
However, most sympathy should be saved for Pras, who not only ended up stuck with Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.9m) as captain but then had to endure the fatal blow of seeing his unexpected vice-captain Cancelo sent off!
TRANSFERS
- Az – Wilson, Trossard, De Bruyne (Mitrovic, Zaha, Salah)
- LTFPL Andy – Alvarez (Mitrovic)
- Ben Crellin – Alvarez, De Bruyne (Haaland, Zaha)
- Fabio Borges – Darwin, Benrahma (Mitrovic, Saka)
- Finn Sollie – None
- FPL Harry – Wilson, Rashford (Mitrovic, Foden)
- Joe Lepper – Alvarez (Toney)
- Geoff Dance – De Bruyne (Salah)
- FPL General – Trossard (Foden)
- Magnus Carlsen – None
- Mark Sutherns – Wilson, Rashford (Toney, Foden)
- FPL Matthew – Wilson (Toney)
- Neale Rigg – Alvarez, Bowen (Foden, Mitrovic)
- Pras – None
- Suvansh – Darwin (Mitrovic)
- Tom Freeman – Bowen (Zaha)
- Tom Stephenson – Cresswell, Wilson (Schar, Mitrovic)
- Zophar – Wilson, De Bruyne (Toney, Salah)
Apocalypse wow! Some big moves when it came to transfers with three of them selling Salah, two letting Zaha go at just the wrong moment and Ben Crellin moving Haaland on, just as he looks set to wreak havoc in Gameweek 16.
Most of the moves look questionable in the cold light of hindsight, apart from Fabio’s transfers in of Darwin Nunez (£7.9m) and Said Benrahma (£5.6m). The Portuguese maestro has been quiet this season but has now moved up to 147,000, so as ever is one to watch in the second half of the campaign.
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 (15), Salah (13), Zaha (13), Saka (9)
Haaland (16), Mitrovic (11), Solanke (7)
In the midst of all the panic, the template remains relatively unmoved but we finally saw the back of Phil Foden (£8.2m) with Bukayo Saka (£8.0m) coming in. The Stockport Iniesta wouldn’t punish his sellers in the final week before the World Cup, would he?
TEAM VALUE
Who cares about team value? Well, not The Great and The Good as it turns out.
The latest numbers are below but this week alone this group of managers dropped a collective £4.7m of value due to the sale of the likes of Mitrovic and Haaland.
Finn Sollie and FPL Harry are the relatively cash-rich managers at £103.8m, whilst Magnus is the poor relation at £102.2m. These are meagre figures when compared to last year’s average at this time for The Great and The Good, where it was £104.3m.
The argument to support how little attention is being paid to their bank accounts is the under-pricing of players this year but it may still be worth keeping a few coins back as I suspect the ‘threemium’ may make a comeback in Gameweek 17, and whilst affordable, some extra cash may help boost your supporting cast.
Whatever you do, one piece of advice is to avoid fiddling during the World Cup as it may impact both team value and also will count to your transfer count, which may get gain you those extra few ranks.
CONCLUSION
The last dance is here before the trips to Qatar are made, and on paper there look to be high scores possible with the last round of fixtures.
So have a bit of fun before the World Cup in the sun as it will be a long time before Gameweek 17 on Boxing Day.
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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