Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns for the 2023/24 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 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, from the Hall of Fame, Fabio Borges, Finn Sollie, Jan Kepski and Jon Ballantyne and of course last year’s mini-league winner Marko Miseric.
“Keep on moving”
Blink and you missed it, as another Gameweek flies past and another one arrives that seems to pre-determine our next moves. Now, we move from frenzied discussion about cheap goalkeepers onto Bryan Mbeumo (£7.0m) replacement options. Heads up: it’s probably Anthony Gordon (£6.1m) or Cole Palmer (£5.4m).
The good news is that we won’t fall into the Reece James (£5.4m) trap, which seemed ready set due to the delicious set of Chelsea fixtures; his benching reminded us that he is as reliable as that email I kept getting from a Nigerian prince a few years back.
The rotation of Darwin Nunez (£7.7m) and Konstantinos Tsimikas (£4.9m) was at least predictable. Maybe we should’ve all been keeping an eye on our old friend Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.1m), who is quietly turbo-charging a few FPL managerial fortunes.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
41 points was the highest tally in what was a troublesome midweek melee. Only seven of the managers scored more than the overall average of 35 points, and it was Ben Crellin and Fabio Borges who topped the charts with Palmer and Pedro Porro (£5.3m) the common differential-ish denominators.
Mark Sutherns did slip back into the no.1 spot as Jan Kepski had a week to forget, but I suspect a bigger dosage of amnesia will be needed for FPL Gunz and Az, who continue to have rotten luck this season. This week, it was the late wrist injury (insert your own joke here) for Alphonse Areola (£4.3m) which meant they, like many others, were down to 10 men.
The scores are a reflection of a poor week for captaincy, with the three favourites of Mohamed Salah (£13.1m), Erling Haaland (£14.0m) and Son Heung-min (£9.6m) all fluffing their lines.
TRANSFERS
Now we know what the best way is to excite The Great and The Good. The prospect of a £3.9m goalkeeper for one of the best defences (subject to change) was enough to start a stampede, with 10 of them moving for Martin Dubravka (£4.1m).
- Mark Sutherns: Areola > Dubravka
- Jan Kępski: Turner > Dubravka
- Seb Wassell: No Transfers
- FPL General: Cash > Pedro Porro
- Joe Lepper: Turner > Dubravka
- Finn Sollie: Turner > Dubravka
- Zophar: Turner > Dubravka
- FPL Harry: Turner > Dubravka
- Andy North: Turner > Dubravka
- Ben Crellin: Turner > Dubravka
- Andy LTFPL: No Transfers
- Jon Ballantyne: No Transfers
- Marko Miseric: No Transfers
- Pras: Strakosha > Dubravka
- Fábio Borges: Fernandes > Son
- Tom Freeman: Strakosha > Dubravka
- Az: Adingra > Gordon
- FPL Gunz: No Transfers
TEMPLATE
The pretty template picture shows us that it’s that man ‘MDubz’, to use a nickname that won’t catch on, who enters the main squad, with the forgotten man of Matt Turner (£3.9m) making way.
SEASON STATS
A quick canter now through the Season Stats reveals Jan Kepski continues to be quite good at the captaincy picking larks, whereas I would steer clear of following Az’s choices with his luck so far.
Mark will be delighted to know he has gone back to being the cash king with a team value of £104.3m and when it comes to transfers, it’s his Blackbox buddy and last year’s FPL winner FPL Gunz who has been most aggressive. Seven of them are yet to take a hit.
CONCLUSION
Moving on, brace yourself for more bench pain, lots of discussion around Mbeumo’s backfill and that your midfield will probably look like everyone else’s come Saturday deadline.
As always, if you want to dig further into the data, then do have a read of the Mini-League Mate dossier. 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 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.
