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.
“Slowly walkin’ down the hall, faster than a cannonball”
An oasis of calm as we fly through the final few weeks of the season, Gameweek 33 felt like a footnote in this hectic season with Harry Kane (£11.5m) leaving many teams on a high, Tyrone Mings (£4.7m) continuing his merciless run of returns and Kevin De Bruyne (£12.1m) going large.
The timing of Kevin’s brace will be enough to tempt a few who are looking to swim up the ranks with the bright lights of Double Gameweek 34 just ahead. Expect minus fours, a sprinkling of Free Hits and plenty of debate over which midfield combination is best before the deadline.
Elsewhere, picking your team based on social media became popular again when a picture of Bruno Fernandes (£9.4m) relaxing at home with his feet up prompted some owners to sell before his miraculous Thursday night recovery.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Plenty of light greens amongst The Great and The Good this week, led by Fabio Borges and FPL General scoring 76 points. Kane, Marcus Rashford (£7.1m) and choosing the correct goalkeeper were their main successes, with David Raya (£4.9m) coming good for General and Jason Steele (£3.9m) helping Fabio.
Let’s Talk FPL continues his streak with ten green arrows in a row, will he remain undefeated until the end of the season? FPL Harry had the smallest of reds but remains on top, Mark Sutherns unfortunately sunk to the bottom and there is a midtable bulge where seven managers from Neale to Pras are separated by only 14 points.
TRANSFERS
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Rashford (Martinelli)
- LTFPL Andy – No transfer
- Ben Crellin – Haaland, Grealish (Kane, Saka)
- Fabio Borges – No transfer
- Finn Sollie – No transfer
- FPL Harry – No transfer
- Joe Lepper – No transfer
- Geoff Dance – Isak, Salah (Kane, Fernandes)
- FPL General – No transfer
- Magnus Carlsen – Haaland, Grealish (Saka, Kane)
- Mark Sutherns – No transfer
- FPL Matthew – No transfer
- Neale Rigg – No transfer
- Pras – No transfer
- Suvansh – Salah, Lindelof (Fernandes, Henry)
- Tom Freeman – No transfer
- Tom Stephenson – No transfer
- Zophar – No transfer
The majority held their nerve by rolling a transfer and having something up their sleeve for Double Gameweek 34. Geoff and Suvansh navigated a different path, taking minus fours to secure the services of Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) who immediately let them down – especially for Mr Dance, who stuck the armband on him.
Magnus Carlsen and Ben Crellin played copycat by both bringing in the Manchester City duo of Erling Haaland (£12.3m) and Jack Grealish (£7.3m). The two also have a Free Hit in hand, so it will be interesting to see if these moves were to clear the way for using the chip this week. In other news, Az kept it straightforward by purchasing in Rashford – sometimes keeping things simple is the best way.
TEMPLATE
After the kerfuffle of Blank Gameweek 32’s Free Hit, the template went back to normal and we lost the likes of Sam Johnstone (£4.4m), Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m). I suspect the Liverpool pair will be back amongst the pack next week.
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 (12), Raya (11)
Trippier (17), Botman (13), Shaw (13), Chilwell (9), Estupinan (7)
Rashford (16), Mitoma (14), March (14), Fernandes (13), Grealish (10)
Haaland (18), Watkins (18), Kane (11)
TOP OF THE POPS
Now for a look at the most popular picks of 2022/23 amongst The Great and The Good, with the table below showing the players who have starred most often for each manager during the season (up to Gameweek 32).
If anything, this demonstrates how template the choices have been this season, with little variety. Haaland and Kieran Trippier (£6.2m) are in everyone’s top five picks and Gabriel Martinelli (£6.8m) features in the majority.
Salah topped last season’s equivalent but he’s had a drop in popularity this time, although Andy remains his biggest fan with the Egyptian appearing 25 times for him. He has only made two appearances in Suvansh’s team.
There’s even an appearance from Joao Cancelo, to remind us all of how quickly he went from being deemed essential to falling out with Pep Guardiola and joining Bayern Munich.
CONCLUSION
It’s a big weekend ahead with this bumper double. I suspect we will see a few swings in fortune with some preparing to take hits and some still trying to work out how to fit in Salah, Fernandes, De Bruyne, Rashford, Grealish and two Brighton and Hove Albion midfielders – I sense a bit of disappointment.
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.
