Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead analyses 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.
“Remember the 5 D’s of the Double and Blank season: Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.”
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No not that one, it’s chip strategy season as the doubles and blanks start to appear and the more enthusiastic managers seek solace in their fixture spreadsheet.
Plenty of head-scratching then, as the consensus seemed to be finding a route through the Gameweek 25 double and Gameweek 26 blank without the need for a safety chip was deemed the best course of action.
Needless to say, Man City players were therefore en vogue, although we forgot the perils of Pep Roulette, where Mr Guardiola toys with our FPL affections with wilful abandon.
Erling Haaland (£14.0m), he of the never falling price, and Kevin De Bruyne (£10.7m), he of the rapidly increasing price, gained most of the attention before the deadline leaks around Kyle Walker (£5.5m), he of the many lurid newspaper headlines. It caused much annoyance with some not privy to the information that a good benching was in order.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
One of the Walkergate five, Ben Crellin, benched Kyle and scored an impressive 80 points. However, this was mainly down to his astute Julian Alvarez (£6.9m) armband and also his smart move for Eberechi Eze (£6.0m) – that’s four greens in a row for the Excellence of Excel and takes him just outside the top 10,000.
It was another big green arrow for Tom Freeman with a score of 75. That move for Diogo Jota (£8.0m) last week continues to look like a good investment, particularly if the much-talked-about Liverpool double in Gameweek 25 becomes a reality. In the last two weeks, he has moved from 430,000 to 163,000.
Jan Kepski reaches his highest rank of the season and moves to 38,000 – remember he has finished in the top 1,000 in three of the last four years. Interesting to note the depth of his bench right now, he had the luxury of leaving Cole Palmer (£5.8m), Walker and Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.7m) on the sidelines.
It was an open week for captaincy with the comfort blankets of Mohamed Salah (£13.1m) and Haaland removed leading to five different captain picks. With the City cyborg still not guaranteed a start at the weekend I suspect the same lethal lottery in Gameweek 23.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TRANSFERS
De Bruyne with his flowing locks drew many a Great and Good admirer as he was the most popular transfer into their squads.
Salah’s injury was deemed too serious to retain him and he was the majority move out – only three of them now own the Egyptian.
- Andy LTFPL – Salah > Foden
- Andy North – No transfers
- Az – Son > De Bruyne
- Ben Crellin – Salah > Eze
- Fabio Borges – Salah > Eze
- Finn Sollie – No transfers
- FPL General – No transfers
- FPL Gunz – Salah, Jesus > De Bruyne, Pedro
- FPL Harry – Salah > Eze
- Jan Kepski – Taylor, Salah > Walker, Eze
- Joe Lepper – Salah > De Bruyne
- Jon Ballantyne – No transfers
- Mark Sutherns – Lascelles > Walker
- Marko Miseric – Saka > De Bruyne
- Pras – Salah > Jota
- Seb Wassell – Son > Foden
- Tom Freeman – Salah > De Bruyne
- Zophar – Salah, Gordon > De Bruyne, Richarlison
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Here is the updated template for The Great and The Good:
Areola (14), Dubravka (13)
Gabriel (15), Porro (15), Alexander-Arnold (11), Estupinan (9), Taylor (6)
Foden (17), Palmer (17), Saka (16), De Bruyne (6), Richarlison (6)
Watkins (18), Solanke (14), Alvarez (11)
One big hitter made way for another with Salah out for De Bruyne, as predicted by our very own FPL Soothsayer Joe Lepper in his latest video. Will Alvarez still be the next to go?
SEASON STATS
A quick glance at the key performance indicators for The Great and The Good shows that Mark Sutherns still leads the way in team value on £106.3m.
Fabio Borges is worth watching when it comes to captaincy as he has 344 points and as for transfers FPL Gunz continues to be the most active in the market with 29 and seven hits so far.
CONCLUSION
Unfortunately, Walkergate dominated the FPL airwaves this week. Whatever the rights and wrongs it’s a great shame it’s led to the likes of Mark stepping away from doing what he does best and talking FPL. Much love to him, and whilst I hope he returns, I just hope he does what is right for him. Remember it’s only a game.
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 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
