In the latest article from our team of Hall of Famers and guest contributors, FPL General reflects on Gameweek 27 and reveals his big team decisions for Double Gameweek 28 and beyond.
GAMEWEEK 27 REVIEW
It’s been a frustrating few weeks with three red arrows on the bounce and the overall rank dropping from 43k to 98k. Hits have been taken in each of those three Gameweeks and there’s likely to be a few more taken for Gameweeks 28 and 29. The ground I’m losing now will hopefully be made up in a sprint finish from Gameweeks 30/31 onwards when the Wildcard, Free Hit and Bench Boost are deployed. Despite the red arrows, the gap to the top 50k is relatively small, just 20 points.
The transfers last week involved selling Kevin De Bruyne (£10.6m) and the injured Hwang Hee-chan (£5.5m) for the Tottenham Hotspur duo James Maddison (£7.9m) and Son Heung-min (£9.8m). Both new signings delivered while De Bruyne blanked, which is always satisfying. I switched the armband from Erling Haaland (£14.5m) to Son to mark the occasion of my little boy’s first birthday. The South Korean made me sweat for the goal and thankfully Haaland missed that glorious chance!
It felt quite liberating to go against the crowd with the captaincy and it has me tempted to do it more often. Like most others, I get bored of seeing the same teams, transfers and captains on the timeline each week in this current landscape of FPL. My enjoyment of the game is probably at the lowest it’s ever been because of the similarity of teams and the way the game has gone with most managers now making the ‘optimal’ moves each week. If it’s a game that should be fun, maybe we need to stop obsessing over doing well in the overall rankings and inject some excitement into our playstyles to make watching the football at the weekend more enjoyable, or at least the build-up to it before it all inevitably goes wrong! When I see ‘we’, I mean ‘I’, but I’m sure plenty of you reading this feel the same way.
I’m striving for another top 50k finish but who really cares where I end up? To me, there’s not much difference between finishing 11k and 99k. When I get to the end of the season and reflect on it, will it have felt like a slog or will it have been a fun final 11 Gameweeks? I feel like I hit a brick wall around this point every year and lose some interest in the game and I’m now at a crossroads where I need to decide whether to continue with the slow and steady approach or be more adventurous and back against the template from time to time.
Double Gameweek 28 Bus Team
Best of luck this weekend everyone and check out this week’s General’s Orders video and the latest episode of the 59th Minute Podcast.
