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.
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality”
Every FPL manager’s least favourite real-world manager Dean Smith was back but could do little to stop the fantasy landslide that is Erling Haaland (£12.2m), as the striking machine churned out another brace.
Leading up to the weekend, we also spent time in dictionary corner as defining “a small number of” caused way too much debate amongst the community as they had to decide whether to hold or sell Marcus Rashford (£7.1m).
Keeping with the game show theme, Pras beat the countdown clock and won the ‘fastest finger first’ round as he was first to proudly activate his Free Hit chip on FPL Twitter. All this and an appearance on Sky Sports with his Burning Questions pal Sonaldo – is that a call from Strictly Come Dancing I hear?
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Well, well, well. FPL Harry appears to have stolen Fabio Borges’ magic lamp as he continues his outstanding run with the highest score of 95 and the best rank of the season at 263rd.
The only blemish on his record is his continued bench wizardry, with Dominic Solanke (£5.5m) this week coming off the bench to replace groin-holding Rashford.
In other news, Joe Lepper narrowly missed out on a second successive grey arrow in a row with a small red one of just 129 places, whilst Ben Crellin had a Haaland-shaped hole in his squad, Andy soared to his eighth green arrow and Mark Sutherns drew level with Magnus Carlsen, who has apparently given up.
WILDCARD
Az played his Bench Boost – sorry, I mean Wildcard – as he overhauled his team but left 29 points on the sidelines.
His overhaul tripled up on Manchester City and Brighton and Hove Albion, along with a sprinkling of defensive differentials like Pedro Porro (£4.8m), Lewis Dunk (£4.7m) and Alex Moreno (£4.5m).
He looks well set for future doubles and has gone ‘threemium’ but he’ll be hoping that Harry Kane (£11.7m) shows a little more form in the coming weeks as Spurs have stuttered.
Here are his full moves:
IN – De Gea, Iversen, Ake, Porro, Moreno, Dunk, March, Martinelli, Grealish, Kane
OUT – Steele, Kepa, Botman, Chilwell, Henry, Zinchenko, MacAllister, Maddison, Rashford, Toney
TRANSFERS
At last, some variety amongst The Great and The Good as the majority looked to use up their transfers before a Gameweek 32 Free Hit.
We had the adventurous, as FPL Harry took a hit to bring in a pair of Reds, the unusual, as Michael Keane (£4.2m) was drafted in by Tom Freeman and the thrifty, as FPL General saved some pennies with Daniel Iversen (£3.8m).
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Wildcard
- LTFPL Andy – Ederson (Raya)
- Ben Crellin – Alexander-Arnold (Chilwell)
- Fabio Borges – Grealish (Maddison)
- Finn Sollie – Ake (Chilwell)
- FPL Harry – Salah, Alexander-Arnold (Maddison, Henry)
- Joe Lepper – Grealish (Maddison)
- Geoff Dance – Porro (Mee)
- FPL General – Iversen (Kepa)
- Magnus Carlsen – no transfer
- Mark Sutherns – Haaland, Andreas, Salah (Kane, Rashford, Maddison)
- FPL Matthew – Grealish (Maddison)
- Neale Rigg – Grealish (Rashford)
- Pras – Grealish (Barnes)
- Suvansh – Grealish, Darwin (Maddison, Felix)
- Tom Freeman – Keane (Henry)
- Tom Stephenson – Dias (Chilwell)
- Zophar – Grealish (Saka)
TEMPLATE
The template remains as unyielding as ever with only the switch of Jack Grealish (£7.2m) for penalty missing Bukayo Saka (£8.6m) being of note.
The full details for The Great and The Good is as follows, with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:
Kepa (12), Raya (11)
Trippier (17), Shaw (13), Botman (13), Shaw (11), Chilwell (10)
Rashford (15), Fernandes (15), Mitoma (14), March (14), Grealish (8)
Watkins (18), Haaland (16), Kane (14)
CAPTAIN CALLS
A look now at the armband picks of The Great and The Good and an insight into how difficult it has been for those veering away from the auto-select Haaland captaincy.
The Norwegian goal-getter has been the armband of choice for 48% of the last 31 weeks, his nearest rival being Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) on a mere 24%.
There have been over 37 different armband selections this year, with some odd ones including Philippe Coutinho (£6.6m), Raheem Sterling (£9.7m), Andreas Pereira (£4.3m) and even Danny Ward (£3.9m)
I wonder whether we will see anyone roll the dice this weekend during the torrential downpour of Free Hits, or will everyone now just go with Mo?
CONCLUSION
The paint-by-numbers approach to FPL continues, as the Wildcards of Gameweek 26 now reach the Free Hit 32 stage of a grand plan.
Expect lots of drafts that look the same, containing triple Liverpool, triple Arsenal, Ollie Watkins and a slice of Crystal Palace at the core.
Perhaps the biggest gamble is taken by those who choose to be without the well-owned Kane and Kieran Trippier (£6.2m). Rank satisfaction will decide how dangerously a manager will play.
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 here on Twitter.
