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.
“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So, when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake up and Live!”
Some things in life are so obvious that they don’t need repeating. This week, that ‘thing’ was the captaincy and Erling Haaland (£14.4m) was the ‘obvious’.
In fact, it was so straightforward that pretty much everyone used the Triple Captain chip on him. Whether it was deemed a success or not is debatable, particularly for those with Dominic Solanke (£6.9m) on their minds for Double Gameweek 28.
Outside of this easy decision, we just had to stack our teams with Double Gameweekers. This task was made more difficult for Trent Alexander-Arnold‘s (£8.5m) owners, as his injury meant another transfer was needed and then there was the looming return of Mohamed Salah (£13.0m). But he wouldn’t get much game time, would he?
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Fabio Borges stole the headlines with his decision to go into the double with no Liverpool players – clearly he’s an Everton fan! Well, whatever the reason was, it once again proved that he must own some sort of FPL ‘Back to the Future’ DeLorean, as injuries to popular targets Darwin Nunez (£7.6m) and Diogo Jota (£8.3m) blunted their returns.
However, he was not the best-performing manager. That honour belonged to the century of league leader Ben Crellin, who was joined in ‘The 100 Club’ by Jan Kepski as these two attempt to turn The Great and The Good into a personal duel.
Whilst Ben did invest in Jota and Darwin, he had his defence to congratulate. Kyle Walker’s (£5.5m) dozen contributed, as did doubling up on Arsenal via William Saliba (£5.7m) and Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.2m).
Meanwhile, Jan had a certain Virgil van Dijk‘s (£6.4m) goal to thank. Looks like both managers will have to take hits to field 11 this week, though.
In amongst all this, Jon Ballantyne shocked – well, at least made me raise my eyebrow – the community by pressing his Free Hit button. The Hall of Famer had nine doublers and it’s an indication of how rotten the Gameweek was that he scored 89, as I’m sure he expected more.
As for captains, well it was Haaland all the way, with everyone Triple Captaining. Guess who was the one manager not to side with the Norwegian? FPL Gunz, of course, went against The Great and The Good massive by plumping for Kevin De Bruyne (£10.8m). Unfortunately, that fickle Lady Variance is not with last year’s champion, as the ginger maestro failed to show in the second game.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TRANSFERS
Plenty of hits again this week, with eight managers gambling on the double. Yet caution turned out to be the best strategy, as Jan Kepski and Tom Freeman made the biggest gain from simply trading Alexander-Arnold to van Dijk.
De Bruyne was the popular purchase, with 39% bringing him and licking their lips in anticipation of the mega-haul which… erm… didn’t happen.
Also, a flurry of goalkeeping switches with not one, not two but five transfers in for those men between the sticks. Joe got so giddy, transferring in Alisson Becker (£5.8m) only to take him out again six hours later when injury news broke, quickly replacing him with Caoimhin Kelleher (£3.7m).
- Andy LTFPL – Richarlison > De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold > Bradley
- Andy North – Palmer > De Bruyne, Porro > Bradley
- Az – Turner > Kelleher
- Ben Crellin – Alisson > Kelleher
- Fabio Borges – Bowen > De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold > Saliba
- Finn Sollie – Bowen > De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold > Maguire
- FPL General – Palmer > De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold > Gabriel
- FPL Gunz – Alexander-Arnold > Reguilon, Joao Pedro > Toney
- FPL Harry – No transfers
- Jan Kepski – Alexander-Arnold > van Dijk
- Joe Lepper – Dubravka > Alisson, Alisson > Kelleher
- Jon Ballantyne – Free Hit
- Mark Sutherns – Strakosha > Kelleher
- Marko Miseric – Porro > Bradley
- Pras – No transfers
- Seb Wassell – Palmer > Jota, Alexander-Arnold > Bradley
- Tom Freeman – Alexander-Arnold > van Dijk
- Zophar – Palmer > De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold > Saliba
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Now the template has veered towards Manchester, with De Bruyne replacing Richarlison (£7.1m) and they seem to have cottoned on to the idea that a double Arsenal defence may be prudent, as Saliba joined Gabriel and Alexander-Arnold made way.
FORM
A quick look at the form guide in this race of FPL thoroughbreds, before we turn our attention to Blank Gameweek 26.
No surprise to see Jan and Ben leading the way. Mr Crellin has had seven out of eight green arrows while Mr Kepski has managed six – can anyone stop them? Meanwhile, some crumbs of comfort for Az as his momentum means he’s only five points fewer than Mark over recent weeks.
CONCLUSION
The D in this Double Gameweek was silent and now The Great and The Good face the prospect of navigating a blank, so expect a hit or two. Unless they want to rely on my personal hero Charlie Taylor (£4.0m) turning up.
Once we get past Gameweek 26 I suspect more of us will be in a position to finalise our chip strategies, with plenty of eyes on that Chelsea v Leeds United FA Cup game. If that goes the way of the Blues, I see a lot more Gameweek 29 Free Hits than publically advertised.
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 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.
