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.
“I need a little time to think it over
I need a little space just on my own”
Gameweek 24 provided an unnecessary distraction to our thinking time ahead of a Liverpool-dominated double, Blank Gameweek 28 and a shopping spree down Brighton and Hove Albion way, subject to train strikes.
It still managed to bring its own drama, reminding us of the potential rotation ahead, as last week’s hero Riyad Mahrez (£7.8m) missed out, along with an injury-prone Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.9m) and of course Reece James (£5.8m) – who some of us still inexplicably own.
So, this week’s adoration went to the Manchester United triumvirate of Bruno Fernandes (£9.8m), Marcus Rashford (£7.3m) and Luke Shaw (£5.4m), just before the majority make plans to sell them ahead of their blank. We are a fickle bunch!
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Mark Sutherns had two reasons to celebrate this week, as his beloved Nottingham Forest hung onto a point against Manchester City and he was the leading scorer amongst The Great and The Good, with a Rashford captaincy helping him to 85 points.
This gave him a green arrow of over 700,000, keeps him nibbling at the toes of Magnus Carlsen and Suvansh Singh, plus he’s now just 70 points behind Az. The gap was over 120 in Gameweek 20. He couldn’t, could he?
FPL Harry still leads the way but Ben Crellin has closed the gap, thanks to his patience in holding Fernandes and an autosub which saw James Tarkowski (£4.3m) come in for Mitrovic.
TRANSFERS
Most decided to keep their powder dry when it came to transfers, saving up for those supposedly ‘must-have’ Liverpool players, although Finn Sollie and Magnus got ahead of the game by purchasing Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.3m).
The more frugal went for bargain Tarkowski, who will be the enabler of choice for many over the next few weeks, as the Sean Dyche dynasty is built at Goodison Park.
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Gnonto (Martial)
- LTFPL Andy – No transfer
- Ben Crellin – No transfer
- Fabio Borges – No transfer
- Finn Sollie – Alexander-Arnold (Doherty)
- FPL Harry – No transfer
- Joe Lepper – No transfer
- Geoff Dance – No transfer
- FPL General – No transfer
- Magnus Carlsen – Alexander-Arnold (Trippier)
- Mark Sutherns – Tarkowski (Doherty)
- FPL Matthew – Tarkowski (Doherty)
- Neale Rigg – No transfer
- Pras – No transfer
- Suvansh – No transfer
- Tom Freeman – No transfer
- Tom Stephenson – Tarkowski (Shaw)
- Zophar – No transfer
TEMPLATE
The template is braced for some impact ahead of the double and there’s little change here, apart from that man Tarkowski. Kieran Trippier (£6.1m) is losing his essential status, as Magnus joins Fabio Borges in seeing the Newcastle United bonus point magnet as surplus to requirements.
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:
Ward (13), Kepa (13)
Trippier (16), Shaw (14), White (11), Patterson (7), Bueno/Tarkowski(5)
Rashford (18), Saka (17), De Bruyne (13), Odegaard (11), Andreas (10)
Haaland (18), Mitrovic (12), Kane (8)
TARGETING YOUR TRANSFERS
A glance now at how our merry band have spent their money this season. The below outlines the transfers made by position:
Unsurprisingly, there has been little movement in the forward line as it’s been Erling Haaland (£12.2m), Mitrovic and one other for most of the season. Finn, Mark and Geoff have been the most adventurous in this position with their moves.
Therefore the majority of the action has been in midfield, with all of us being spoilt for choice in this area because of form players such as Miguel Almiron (£5.6m), Kaoru Mitoma (£5.4m) and Martin Odegaard (£7.0m) all catching the eye. Our current leader FPL Harry has built his success on jumping onto the right one at the right time.
At the back, it’s been a case of reducing investment and Az has spent most of his trades trying to balance the books in defence.
CONCLUSION
Up next is a Gameweek which will tell us a lot about the type of FPL manager we are. The double lovers will go all in with plenty of Liverpool hits, the more cautious will worry themselves over rotation and the fixtures ahead, whilst the less engaged will probably wonder why their Newcastle and Man United triple-ups aren’t playing this week.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, but remember: don’t have FPL 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
