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.
“So many tears we’ve cried. So much pain inside, but baby, it ain’t over ’til it’s over”
The call for last orders may have come yet there is still one final hurdle around the corner, as we prepare ourselves for the carnage of Gameweek 38, where there’s a good chance that some FPL managers will be playing Fantasy five-a-side with all the talk of rests and rotation.
Yet before we start to think about our final weekend flings, we had the excitement of Double Gameweek 37 which became less exciting as events unfolded. Many had put faith in Manchester City players but Arsenal’s loss at Nottingham Forest meant that Mr Guardiola gave a bit of extra welly to the Pep rotation wheel.
Once we had stopped fretting about whether Marcus Rashford (£7.2m) was on the team bus or not we had some unlikely heroes. I don’t think many recommended Casemiro (£4.9m), Stefan Ortega (£3.7m), Christian Eriksen (£6.2m) or Evan Ferguson (£4.6m) before the action started. It makes you wonder who will be the stars on Sunday, knowing Gameweek 38 can be the most random set of results.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Let’s jump into how The Great and The Good fared. Tom Freeman was the top dog and moves back into the top 50k, having made good progress over recent weeks with his combination of template picks and differentials – this time round it was Julio Enciso (£4.6m) that helped him up to 83 points.
Fabio Borges was slightly behind with 82 points – his pick of Julian Alvarez (£6.1m) was a popular one and he rises to 37k. I suspect the target will be to see if he can get above 17k which, unbelievably, is his lowest final overall ranking to date.
At the top of the table, it looks as though FPL Harry will be crowned the greatest of The Great and The Good. Ben Crellin did his best this week by finally playing his Free Hit – which I thought he had forgotten – but it was to no avail, as 62 points now separate them.
Elsewhere, there was a clear split between the chasers and consolidators when it came to captaincy, with those happy with their ranks going with Erling Haaland (£12.4m) and those looking to make a move plumping for Bruno Fernandes (£9.5m), whilst the very aggressive Magnus Carlsen went with Antony (£7.3m) – he was in good company as Lateriser made the same decision.
I suspect tensions are high in the Blackbox household as there are now just six points separating Mark and Az. With Mr Sutherns just ahead, will Mr Phillips risk it all to overtake the Godfather of FPL in this final week, or just go for Dwight McNeil (£5.1m)?
TRANSFERS
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Fernandes, Lewis (Grealish, Moreno)
- LTFPL Andy – Alvarez (Isak)
- Ben Crellin – Free Hit
- Fabio Borges – Alvarez (Watkins)
- Finn Sollie – No transfers
- FPL Harry – No transfers
- Joe Lepper – No transfers
- Geoff Dance – Estupinan (Trippier)
- FPL General – Alvarez (Isak)
- Magnus Carlsen – Antony, Martial (Isak, Rashford)
- Mark Sutherns – Mahrez, Alvarez (Johnson, Rashford)
- FPL Matthew – Mahrez (Grealish)
- Neale Rigg – No transfers
- Pras – No transfers
- Suvansh – No transfers
- Tom Freeman – Shaw (Trippier)
- Tom Stephenson – Ederson, Shaw (Kepa, Trippier)
- Zophar – Shaw (Henry)
A split in approach here, with the likes of FPL Harry, Finn, Joe, Pras and Neale rolling their transfers for a bit of final-day fun whilst we saw some take hits to take advantage of the double. Az’s minus four for Fernandes was well judged, Magnus’ hit didn’t quite pay off because of Rashford and Tom Stephenson probably isn’t on speaking terms with Ederson (£5.4m) anymore.
TEMPLATE
It’s as you were for the template, although I imagine the Brighton and Hove Albion contingency will be sacrificed ahead of the weekend and we may even see Haaland finally leave if early team news tells us he is being rested ahead of back-to-back cup finals.
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 (7)
Shaw (16), Alexander-Arnold (16), Trippier (12), Estupinan (12), Botman (10)
MacAllister (17), Mitoma (16), Rashford (15), Salah (15), Fernandes (15)
Haaland (18), Isak (11), Greenwood (7)
TRANSFERS IN FOCUS
A canter now through the transfers made during this season, analysed by position to give us a sense of where The Great and The Good have focused their trades.
Az and Geoff have been the most active in the market with 44 moves over the season, driven by the need to gain rank after some poor starts. However, what’s interesting-ish is that the majority of overall transfers have been used in midfield and defence.
Typically, we see the forward lines shuffled the most and the back five left alone but, with the dominance of Haaland, we have seen little need to change attackers. Therefore, the defence has been the best form of attack, with many of us having to rearrange ourselves once the normal defensive darlings of Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.8m), Chelsea and Man City options repeatedly let us down.
CONCLUSION
So, there you go. One more weekend before we head off to our own FPL beach with plenty of options to choose from before we apply the suncream – will it be McNeil, Eberechi Eze (£5.7m) or Harry Kane (£11.4m) that takes our fancy?
The main final-day tension amongst The Great and The Good will be who has the Blackbox bragging rights and, of course, I will be starting the lengthy selection process for next year’s intake – which unfortunately looks like it will include FPL Mode.
Whatever the outcome of this weekend and whatever your final pick is, remember it will all be over soon so enjoy the last hurrah and I’ll be back next week to hand out the ‘end of term’ report cards for The Great and The Good.
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.
