Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns for the 2023/24 season with his series of articles analysing the transfers and strategies of some well-known Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
The Great and The Good this season are the BlackBox pair of Mark Sutherns and Az, Scouts Joe Lepper and Tom Freeman, Scoutcasters Seb Wassell and Andy North, Pro Pundits FPL General, Pras, Zophar and FPL Harry, plus FPL ‘celebrities’ LTFPL Andy and Ben Crellin, FPL champion FPL Gunz, Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Finn Sollie, Jan Kepski and Jon Ballantyne, alongside last year’s mini-league winner Marko Miseric.
“Patience you must have, my young Padawan. Have patience and all will be revealed”
Injury, injury, they’ve all got an injury! Our defensive options were dropping quicker than Kai Havertz‘s (£7.3m) opening price, with Luke Shaw (£5.4m) the next name on the casualty list. Meanwhile, the arguments between Gabriel Magalhaes (£4.8m) and William Saliba (£5.2m) owners rumbled on.
Fortunately, for some including members of The Great and The Good (hello FPL General), there was plenty of bench jam on offer, as Destiny Udogie (£4.6m) and Malo Gusto (£4.1m) were called into action for those who inexplicably still thought Gabriel would play.
In other injury news, James Maddison (£7.7m) pulled a dummy, feigning a yellow flag, before providing a masterclass against Bournemouth and there was the return of Raheem as the Chelsea winger gave a Sterling performance on Friday.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Cometh the hour, cometh FPL General with a whopping 3.1 million green arrow and a score of 72. The Gusto bench jam no doubt helped yet it was a strong overall performance with the United midfielders finally showing up and his three strikers all chipping in. Remember he is the only one of these managers to stick with 3-4-3.
Mark Sutherns was not far behind on 65 and a 2.5 million rise, with Moussa Diaby (£6.6m) his star turn. No bench jam here as he put Gusto straight into his XI and missed out on Matty Cash’s (£4.6m) 17-point haul as the Villan sat firmly on his bench.
It was greens for the majority with Joe, Seb and FPL Gunz all jumping over a million places. Well done to the latter who showed balls of steel by captaining Bukayo Saka (£8.7m) over Erling Haaland (£14.0m), a question of heart over head as he was at the Emirates claiming his FPL winner’s prize this weekend.
In the midst of all this Finn Sollie calmly pocketed 54 points and stays atop the magical mini-league, the less said about who dwells in the basement the better.
TRANSFERS
It was all action for Nicolas Jackson (£7.1m) this week with 10 of the managers swooping for the super seven-point scoring Senegalese striker, quite the tongue twister. However, it was who made way for him that brought the variety.
Some saw it as a way of moving on Joao Pedro (£5.5m) due to his insecurity of starts, others kicked out Ollie Watkins (£8.0) which was perhaps surprising after his European hat-trick, whilst Seb went for bench depth by using his extra cash to bring in the Chelsea man for Divin Mubama (£4.5m).
Top marks this week to Fabio Borges, Mark Sutherns and FPL General who no doubt felt a new zest for life after bringing in Gusto. Slightly more deflated was Az who went Phil Foden (£7.6m), taking out Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m), ouch, very ouch.
All this and Tom Freeman made a £4.0m goalkeeping transfer, steady as you go there Tom.
The full list of transfers is below:
- Finn Sollie: Jackson (Watkins)
- Fabio Borges: Gusto (Gabriel)
- Tom Freeman: Areola (Turner)
- Jon Ballantyne: Dias (Shaw)
- Andy LTFPL: Jackson (Watkins)
- Harry Daniels: Jackson (Watkins)
- Seb Wassell: Jackson (Mubama)
- Pras: Jackson (Pedro)
- Zophar: Jackson (Watkins)
- Andy North: Jackson (Pedro)
- Az: Foden, Jackson (Fernandes, Pedro)
- Jan Kepski: none
- Ben Crellin: none
- FPL Gunz: Udogie, Jackson (Shaw, Pedro)
- Mark Sutherns: Gusto, Alvarez (Gabriel, Pedro)
- Marko Miseric: Foden (Salah)
- FPL General: Gusto, Jackson (Shaw, Pedro)
- Joe Lepper: Dias, Ferguson (Gabriel, Pedro)
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Jackson was the new entrant into the squad this week with the love for Pedro short-lived. There was also a shuffle in defence with cheap but cheerful Issa Kabore (£4.0m) coming in for the injured Shaw and the unreliable Gabriel.
Turner (17), Pickford (9)
Estupinan (18), Chilwell (17), Saliba (12), Baldock (8), Kabore (6)
Rashford (18), Saka (17), Bruno Fernandes (14), Mbeumo (10), Martinelli (9)
Haaland (18), Jackson (15), Archer (9)
SEASON STATS
A quick look now to see who are the Kings of KPIs in this mini-league. FPL Gunz leads the way on captaincy points (46) thanks to his bold Saka play this weekend, with the majority on the eat, sleep, captain Erling score of 38 for the season.
From a transfer perspective, it’s been steady so far with no hits from any of The Great and The Good. In fact, patience has been key. For example, this week Ben Crellin and Jan Kepski played the long game rolling their transfers with an eye on the two moves needed this week with those double United and Arsenal midfields in need of surgery.
Team values have been steadily rising, with Finn Sollie and Tom Freeman the richest of the rich at £101m. Hopefully, they can lend a couple of quid to FPL General on £100.4m.
Expect plenty of big money moves this week, with Zophar, LTFPL Andy, Finn and Harry all with more than £1.0m in the bank, but this pales in comparison to Marko Miseric who has £4.9m burning in his back pocket.
CONCLUSION
Patience will be the buzzword this week, with many pointing to the mid-week cup action and the closing of the transfer window, yet with prices fluctuating wildly right now if you are to follow this path, then I would suggest a contingency plan. The other approach is to ride the FPL price market and just hope Phil Foden doesn’t have another dodgy stomach.
As always if you want to dig further into the data then do have a read of the Mini-League Mate dossier. Click here https://www.minileaguemate.com/membership and under ‘Join an existing league’ enter your name and email together with league code MLM0001. It’s all free!
Anyway, that’s all from me for now and 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 at Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19
