Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns for the 2023/24 season with his series of Great and The Good articles, analysing the transfers and strategies of some well-known Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
This season’s names 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, FPL ‘celebrities’ LTFPL Andy and Ben Crellin, FPL champion FPL Gunz, Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Finn Sollie, Jan Kepski and Jon Ballantyne, and last year’s mini-league winner Marko Miseric.
“Where’s Ollie?”
In the words of Noddy Holder, it’s Christmas! The time of year that brings joyous festivities along with an unpleasant dollop of benchings, a flurry of flags and those ever-unpopular one-point cameos.
This weekend it was the lovely game of “Where’s Ollie?” that kicked off proceedings, as he vanished before a European adventure and then Unai spoke in riddles when it came to his playing time. I particularly loved the double negative of “He is not completely not available”. As clear as my own head after a couple of mulled wines, Mr Emery.
Unfortunately, some were left so confuzzled that they brought in serial non-finisher Darwin Nunez (£7.7m) to replace Ollie Watkins (£8.4m).
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Tom Freeman was our highest scorer this weekend, with his cheap defensive enablers getting ideas above their stations. Both Charlie Taylor (£4.0m) and Tino Livramento (£4.3m) delivered for our differential king. He also kept Watkins, as this Villan became a hero.
It’s tight at the top, with only five points separating the top trio of Jan Kepski, Mark Sutherns and FPL General. Jan keeps the number one spot despite his decision to bench Son Heung-min (£9.6m) in favour of a Burnley defender but, in the end, their hauls cancelled each other out.
Cole Palmer (£5.3m) and Matty Cash (£5.0m) will probably not be getting Christmas cards from members of The Great and The Good, as their reduced minutes from the bench meant that auto-sub hauls were blocked. FPL General could only sit and wonder what might’ve been at Jordan Beyer’s (£4.0m) 11 points.
As for captains, FPL Gunz continues to be the maverick by going with Darwin. Seb Wassell is ploughing through the non-Haaland route alone and went with Mohamed Salah (£13.0m), as Jon Ballantyne admitted defeat and brought in the Norwegian goal-machine.
In terms of form, Zophar is the one to watch. Although he had a red arrow this time, his score is the highest over the last five Gameweeks, moving from the low 900,000s to 267,000.
TRANSFERS
It was a swing week when it came to transfers, with some making gains through the simplicity of their moves. For example, FPL General upgraded Eberechi Eze (£6.1m) to Bryan Mbeumo (£7.0m). On the other hand, the highest loss belonged to Jon Ballantyne as he sold the Watkins and Son double-digit hauls.
Also, plenty of hits took place this time. Five of them took the transfer penalty, taking Az up to -12 for the season as he tries to get his FPL train back on track.
The collective wisdom voted for a Darwin transfer to replace Watkins – proof indeed that the popular vote is not infallible. I won’t point at and mock the managers who made such a move, as you can just check below:
- Andy LTFPL – Watkins > Darwin
- Andy North – Eze > Palmer, Cash > Saliba, Bowen > Mbeumo
- Az – Watkins > Darwin, Diaby > Mbeumo
- Ben Crellin – Watkins > Darwin
- Fabio Borges – Cash > Gabriel, Watkins > Darwin, Eze > Palmer
- Finn Sollie – Watkins > Darwin, Alvarez > Semenyo, Chukwuemeka > Mbeumo
- FPL General – Eze > Mbeumo
- FPL Gunz – Adingra > Trossard
- FPL Harry – Diaby > Saka, Bowen > Palmer
- Jan Kepski – Watkins > Darwin
- Joe Lepper – Watkins > Darwin, Bowen > Mbeumo
- Jon Ballantyne – Watkins > Haaland, Son > Palmer
- Mark Sutherns – Watkins > Darwin, Diaby > Mbeumo
- Marko Miseric – Watkins > Isak, Eze > Mbeumo, Cash > Tsimikas
- Pras – Cash > Saliba
- Seb Wassell – Watkins > Alvarez, Fernandes > Palmer
- Tom Freeman – Adingra > Palmer, Martinelli > Mbeumo
- Zophar – Botman > Gabriel, Watkins > Darwin, Diaby > Mbeumo
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
The pretty template graphic is below and shows Darwin in for Watkins, Taylor in for Pedro Porro (£5.3m) and Palmer in for Jarrod Bowen (£7.6m). The latter may soon be reversed, with the Hammer making a recovery from his injury.
BENCH POINTS
After a week of benches creaking under the strain of all the points left on them, it’s as good a time as any to see who has taken the meaning of squad depth a bit too seriously.
Seb still leads the way with a massive 147 points on his bench and yet not one auto-sub point has come his way. Whilst you could argue he has been unlucky, Marko Miseric has been rather more fortunate with 19 points coming from his pine. Interestingly, Jon Ballantyne only looked to his substitutes once and it cost him minus two points.
CONCLUSION
There’s simply no time to mourn missed auto-sub points, as we jump straight into midweek action. The bad news is that I don’t think it’s going to get any easier, as more rotation is on its way. So just sit back, relax, grab a mince pie and blame the variance.
As always, if you want to dig further into the data, have a read of the Mini-League Mate dossier. Under ‘Join an existing league’, just enter your name and email address alongside the league code MLM0001. It’s all free!
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, but remember – don’t have FPL nightmares.
For those affected by any of the topics raised above, you can find me here on Twitter.
