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.
“Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a Double Gameweek!”
It’s a double edition of ‘The Great and The Good’, in the midst of Double Gameweek season written at double speed due to the rapid turnaround (…and published after the deadline). That’s a lot of doubles!
Yes, we have entered that stage of the season where spreadsheet superheroes appear, predicting the probability of twin fixtures. We then get carried away, trying to cram players into our squads because they play twice. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, plenty, if Gameweek 19 is anything to go by, with yellow cards (Aleksander Mitrovic, £7.2m), red card debuts (Joao Felix, £7.5m) and injuries after four minutes (Raheem Sterling, £9.7m).
Still, we all love them so let’s see how ‘The Great and The Good’ handled the hot twin action – probably best not to Google that!
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
The high flyer over the last two weeks has been Ben Crellin, the fixtures soothsayer himself, with a combined tally of 123 points continuing his soar up the ranks to a lofty position of 3,620th. However, FPL General and Joe were the only ones to achieve two green arrows.
So, what has Ben done right? Well, all the big decisions, like preferring Ederson (£5.4m) over Joao Cancelo (£7.2m), having triple Arsenal, Marcus Rashford (£7.0m) and, of course, he went early on Luke Shaw (£5.1m). However, he is human and owns Darwin Nunez (£8.9m), who I suspect will be exiting due to injury rumours, I just hope it wasn’t his shin.
Joe had a particularly strong Gameweek 18. Eddie Nketiah (£6.6m) was a nice little differential, although he has since sold him whilst keeping Dejan Kulusevski (£7.9m) with one eye on this week’s double. He joins Az in hoping the Swede recovers from his injury in time.
FPL General deserves a mention after being the top scorer in Gameweek 19. He has had a good start to the second-half restart, leading the way with 221 points since the World Cup and moving up 500,000 places.
Finally, the FPL Godfather himself Mark Sutherns must’ve been in fine spirits – not only did his beloved Nottingham Forest win a key game but then his gamble on Matt Doherty (£4.6m) paid off with a 14-point haul. Az must feel the warm breath on his neck as Mark is chasing down his Blackbox co-host, slowly but surely, with a gap of 83 to make up.
TRANSFERS
There has been plenty of transfer market activity over the last couple of weeks but, fortunately for the word count on this article, it can all be summarised by saying that Shaw and Mitrovic were key targets.
Away from this, Az’s rock n roll move for a goalkeeper he’d previously rallied against, Kepa Arrizabalaga (£4.6m), deserves a footnote, as does the unfortunate Magnus move for Mason Mount (£7.6m), which must have made him feel like resigning from this FPL board when he didn’t show up for the first game.
Probably more interesting were those who didn’t make moves in Gameweek 19 or at least rolled a transfer with the likes of Crellin, Fabio Borges, Finn Sollie and FPL Matthew all keeping one back in preparation for the upcoming Double Gameweek 20.
The full moves are below:
Az
GW18 – Shaw (James)
GW19 – Arrizabalaga (Iversen)
LTFPL Andy
GW18 – Mitrovic (Wilson)
GW19 – No Transfers
Ben Crellin
GW18 – Shaw (James)
GW19 – No Transfers
Fabio Borges
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic (Darwin)
Finn Sollie
GW18 – Shaw (James)
GW19 – Mitrovic (Wilson)
FPL Harry
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic, Shaw (James, Darwin)
Joe Lepper
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic, Shaw (James, Nketiah)
Geoff Dance
GW18 – Shaw (James)
GW19 – Mitrovic (Martial)
FPL General
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic, Shaw (Darwin, James)
Magnus Carlsen
GW18 – Mitrovic, Willock (Solanke, Trossard)
GW19 – Mount (Foden)
Mark Sutherns
GW18 – Mitrovic (Wilson)
GW19 – Shaw (James)
FPL Matthew
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic (Martial)
Neale Rigg
GW18– Cucurella (James)
GW19 – Mitrovic (Wilson)
Pras
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic, Shaw (James, Martial)
Suvansh
GW18 – Mitrovic (Wilson)
GW19 – Digne (James)
Tom Freeman
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic, Bueno (Greenwood, James)
Tom Stephenson
GW18- Mitrovic (Wilson)
GW19 – Shaw (James)
Zophar
GW18 – No Transfers
GW19 – Mitrovic, Shaw (James, Martial)
TEMPLATE
The template has had a strong restart so there are just a few tweaks from last time, with the injured Reece James (£5.7m) being replaced by Shaw and Anthony Martial (£6.6m) moved on for Mitrovic.
The full details for ‘The Great and The Good’ are as follows, with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:
Kepa (14), Ward (13)
Trippier (17), Cancelo (14), White (12), Shaw (11), Patterson (8)
Rashford (16), Andreas (14), Martinelli (13), Salah (11), Saka/De Bruyne (7)
Haaland (18), Mitrovic (17), Darwin (11)
CAPTAIN CALLS
Captaincy decisions over the last few weeks have thrown up a couple of surprises. Magnus decided to Triple Captain Mitrovic this week, so suffered the yellow card and suspension heartache.
The Chess Grandmaster was the only one brave enough to go against Erling Haaland (£12.2m) by putting the armband on Mohamed Salah (£12.9m) in Gameweek 18 but that also didn’t end well.
Meanwhile, Az showed his maverick side with his Andreas Pereira (£4.6m) captaincy in Gameweek 19. In the end, it equalled the popular Mitrovic pick but wasn’t enough to stop him from losing his place at the top of the captaincy points table, overtaken by Finn’s 308 for the season.
It’s worth pointing out that Finn’s success has been based on a successful rotation between Salah and Haaland, before this week’s dalliance with Mitrovic. Those who have spread the net a little wider have not fared so well. No names mentioned.
It has been a pretty boring season for captaincy, maybe that’s why Magnus is finding it tough, with Haaland picked 52 per cent of the time by ‘The Great and The Good’ and Salah on 32 per cent of occasions. Not much room for differential picks here.
CONCLUSION
Before I vanish back to pour over the upcoming fixtures and Double Gameweek delights, it’s worth bringing out the old cliché of “play your own game”, there are multiple routes over the next few weeks so make sure you focus on your own team.
Some will take multiple hits, some will Triple Captain, some will plan weeks ahead and some will gamble on ropey Spurs defenders and Crystal Palace attackers. Or is that last one just me? Whatever route you take, own your own decisions and make sure to have fun along the way.
Enjoy the chaos over the next few weeks. We will be back next time to celebrate the success and/or conduct the autopsy of ‘The Great and The Good’ performances.
For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article, you can find me here on Twitter.
