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.
“You copy me? what? you copy me?”
A duplicate-dominated Double Gameweek 34, as debate off the FPL field was fuelled by claims of content creators having their teams copied. Not that you would find me encouraging such a thing…. now, let’s look into what The Great and The Good did this week and copy – sorry – learn from their mistakes.
Moving swiftly on, with remaining transfers for the season already well signposted, it was good to see the likes of Callum Wilson (£7.0m) and Julian Alvarez (£6.0m) messing around with our Fantasy SatNav and tempt us ahead of Double Gameweeks 36 and 37.
Elsewhere, it was a week of highs and lows, but mainly lows if you owned Kevin De Bruyne (£12.2m) or even, God forbid, Ederson (£5.4m). I mean, who had even heard of Stefan Ortega (£3.8m) before this weekend?
In amongst all the chaos, Big Sam returned – no really, he did. I bet no one copies the Leeds United manager selection policy.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Step forward all those who hit a century – not so fast Geoff and Neale. Although it’s fair to say there were some high scores amongst The Great and The Good this week.
Best of the best was Mark Sutherns’ 132, sealed by that last-minute Alexis Mac Allister (£5.5m) penalty and a double-down on Brighton and Hove Albion’s defence. It gave him a 200,000 green arrow and lifted him off the bottom of this fictional fantasy league.
Finn Sollie did well with a score of 128 and now sits just outside the top 5k. It would be even higher had he not understandably benched Nathan Ake (£5.0m). His steady, efficient approach is something to be marvelled at, with this potentially his sixth top 5k finish.
The Aly Ezzat copycat FPL Harry continues to lead the way and is 214th overall, meaning Ben Crellin will have to nail his Gameweek 38 Free Hit to make up the 51-point gap between them.
Meanwhile, the LTFPL Andy streak continues with 11 green arrows in a row.
TRANSFERS
Plenty of movement took place on the transfer disco floor with the majority doing the Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) salsa and the Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.6m) tango but let’s feel sorry for Az and FPL Matthew who attempted the Diogo Jota (£8.9m) jive when all the Portuguese striker wanted to do was some kung-fu fighting.
FPL Harry lost his golden touch when buying Ederson, while Suvansh decided to roll and Geoff went his own way with De Bruyne. It looked to be a great move until the Belgian suffered his niggle.
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Jota, Alexander-Arnold (Kane, Ake)
- LTFPL Andy – Isak, Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Greenwood (Kane, Watkins, Chilwell, Odegaard)
- Ben Crellin – Akanji (Gabriel)
- Fabio Borges – Greenwood, Salah, Alexander-Arnold (Kane, Grealish, Zinchenko)
- Finn Sollie – Greenwood, Alexander-Arnold (Watkins, Henry)
- FPL Harry – Ederson, Estupinan (Raya, Chilwell)
- Joe Lepper – March, Alexander-Arnold (Mac Allister, Chilwell)
- Geoff Dance – Martial, Wan-Bissaka, De Bruyne (Watkins, Saka, Chilwell)
- FPL General – Greenwood, Salah, Alexander-Arnold (Kane, Saka, Henry)
- Magnus Carlsen – Estupinan, Greenwood, Salah (Gabriel, Watkins, Maddison)
- Mark Sutherns – Estupinan, Rashford, Alexander-Arnold (Saka, James, Chilwell)
- FPL Matthew – Jota, Alexander-Arnold (Kane, Chilwell)
- Neale Rigg – Darwin, Rashford, Alexander-Arnold (Kane, Martinelli, Chilwell)
- Pras – Greenwood, Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Ederson (Kane, Grealish, Chilwell, Pope)
- Suvansh – No transfers
- Tom Freeman – Greenwood, Salah, Alexander-Arnold (Kane, Saka, Gabriel)
- Tom Stephenson – Salah, Greenwood, Alexander-Arnold (Shaw, Kane, Saka)
- Zophar – Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Greenwood, Ederson (Raya, Kane, Grealish, Chilwell)
TEMPLATE
The template reflected the need for Liverpool over this double, as Salah and Trent entered the building. There was a reluctant goodbye to Harry Kane (£11.4m), who is probably a bit peeved at being replaced by Sam Greenwood (£4.0m).
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 (9)
Trippier (17), Alexander-Arnold (16), Botman (13), Shaw (12), Estupinan (10)
Rashford (18), Salah (15), March (15), Mitoma (14), Fernandes (13)
Haaland (18), Watkins (14), Greenwood (9)
EVERYBODY LOOKS THE SAME
We all appear to be marching to the same FPL drum as the season heads to its climax, so it’s a good time to check the template rating of our managers, provided by the marvellous LiveFPL.net.
The numbers reflect what many of us have suspected: that we all have the same team heading into the final weeks. Only Magnus Carlsen sits below 70% but this is down to a more cavalier approach that he has adopted since the World Cup.
What’s interesting is the change throughout the season, as pretty much all of The Great and The Good have been slowly assimilated by the template. Az is a good example of this, as his rank rise has coincided with shifting from a 32% template in Gameweek 1 to the Gameweek 34 number of 89%.
At least Geoff has tried to stay slightly out of kilter, whereas Mark will need to reduce his rating and throw in a few differentials if he’s to continue climbing up the ranks.
CONCLUSION
There is only a couple of weeks left in a season that has been dominated by a strong template, therefore punishing the more maverick managers. Is there any wonder, considering we’ve had the combined forces of generous player prices, a default captain choice, more engaged managers, data models that seemingly decide your team and, of course, content creators popping up all over the place?
Maybe the bigger question regards what will be the next big thing that can give us an edge. If any of you do work that one out, please let me know so I can copy your answer.
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.
