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’ve been the G.O.A.T. for so long I guess it’s not excitin’ when I win”
There was excitement this week as grime artist Stormzy (yes, I know who he is), came out to a dinosaur as an FPL manager. It would be harder to make this up, yet it was another ‘GOAT’ who made The Great and The Good headlines.
The key decision this weekend was who was your favourite out of the famous Geordie double act – no, not Ant or Dec, but Callum Wilson (£7.2m) or Alexander Isak (£7.0m). The answer was Wilson, who goes by other names depending on whether you put the armband on him or not.
Defenders also had their moment to shine with Pervis Estupinan (£4.9m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.7m) and free-scoring Dan Burn (£4.5m) performing well, while everyone came to the realisation that Ilkay Gundogan (£7.4m) was the best City midfielder to own.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Az, you may want to look away.
Mark Sutherns was this week’s highest scorer with 135 points, but he was not the only centurion with FPL Matthew not far behind on 118 and Pras and Magnus also joining in the hundred club fun.
The Wilson captaincy, plus a little Pervis magic, gave Mark a 57-point swing over Az in the battle for FPL Blackbox bragging rights. FPL Matthew also had the Newcastle striker to thank for his green arrow, which sees him into the top 100,000 for the first time since Gameweek 12. Timing is everything.
The captaincy was obviously key this week. The majority went Isak and aside from the Wilson wonders, there was a sprinkling of Kieran Trippiers (£6.1m) and even an Alexis Mac Allister (£5.6m), although I suspect Az regrets that one.
Some bench jam came into play, and we should form an orderly queue to throw rotten fruit at FPL General, Zophar and Tom Stephenson who all had Estupinan’s points come off their woodwork.
Elsewhere, Magnus is still doing Magnus things, although his decision to double up on the Liverpool defence continues to pay off with his fifth green arrow in a row. He also appears to be entertaining himself by changing his team name on a weekly basis – this time to Gunnstein Akselberg, who turns out to be a Norweigan cunning linguist. If anyone has a view on the relevance, then pop a letter in the post.
TRANSFERS
The copy and paste function came in handy this week as six of the managers did exactly the same couple of moves: Isak and Mac Allister were seen as the no-brainer transfers, with Ollie Watkins (£7.4m) Solly March (£5.2m) moved on. Yet, the real smarts belonged to the Wilson purchasers.
Geoff deserves credit for doing things differently with Jack Colback (£4.1m) not entering many templates, and speaking of differentials, Tom Freeman picked a good one in goal-scoring Julio Encisco (£4.6m).
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Mac Allister (March)
- LTFPL Andy – Mac Allister (March)
- Ben Crellin – Isak, Mac Allister (Toney, March)
- Fabio Borges – Mac Allister (March)
- Finn Sollie – Isak, Mitoma (Toney, March)
- FPL Harry – Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
- Joe Lepper – Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
- Geoff Dance – Colback, Stones (March, Zinchenko)
- FPL General – Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
- Magnus Carlsen – Isak, Trippier (Toney, Henry)
- Mark Sutherns – Wilson (Watkins)
- FPL Matthew – Wilson, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
- Neale Rigg – Isak, Mac Allister (Darwin, March)
- Pras – Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
- Suvansh – Isak (Darwin)
- Tom Freeman – Encisco, Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March, Greenwood)
- Tom Stephenson – Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
- Zophar – Isak, Mac Allister (Watkins, March)
TEMPLATE
A slight tremor in the template as Isak came in for Watkins and MacAllister saw off March.
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 (11), Raya (8)
Trippier (18), Alexander-Arnold (16), Botman (13), Shaw (11), Estupinan (10)
MacAllister (17), Mitoma (17), Rashford (17), Salah (15), Fernandes (13)
Haaland (18), Isak (15), Greenwood (7)
BENCH WARFARE
Plenty of jam around this week, particularly when it came to auto subs as Marcus Rashford’s (£7.0m) injury led to a few players coming in from the cold of the sidelines.
Having a quick look at the season’s stats, we first have to disqualify FPL Harry due to several heinous acts of bench wizardry, which explains his 20 autosubs garnering over a hundred points.
Looking at the averages, LTFPL Andy has done the best here at 6.3 points per substitute appearance. If this is a measure of variance, then Fabio and FPL Matthew have been the least fortunate with an average of less than two points per autosub.
Moving onto points left on the bench, this is often a good indicator of those more prudent, risk-adverse managers who like to ensure enough squad depth – so it’s maybe no surprise to see Ben Crellin top here on 336 and maverick Magnus on only 171.
CONCLUSION
This week was the first one in a while where a 50/50 call proved decisive in the colour of arrow, providing some fantastic jumps up the ranking. I suspect we will be back to reality this week with most teams on template autopilot but never fear, the last weekend of the season is differential party time, so it might be worth saving that transfer.
Be prepared for the fact that your last transfers of the season could well see some retro moves with Jamie Vardy (£9.1m), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£7.9m) and Michail Antonio (£6.9m) not completely ridiculous suggestions. I wonder which one Stormzy will go for?
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
