How ‘The Great and The Good’ managers did in Gameweek 34

Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead analyses 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.

“Being on the right side of history”

Where were you when the first man landed on the moon? The Berlin Wall came down? Obama became US President? Marathon chocolate bars became Snickers chocolate bars? Well, we can now add to this list: where were you in the great FPL Gameweek 34 swing?

After some disappointing Double Gameweeks in 2023/24, this one delivered and the Free Hitters feasted. A number of differential picks went big, including Jean-Phillipe Mateta (£5.1m) on 29 points, Ben White (£6.0m) on 26 points and Jordan Pickford (£4.7m) on 18 points.

For others, there were some big red arrows with a collective pity party forming for those now activating their Wildcard in Gameweek 35 and looking at Spurs and Chelsea players more in hope than expectation.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

The Famous Five Free Hitters (maybe they should form a superhero group?) were Zophar, FPL Gunz, Andy North, FPL General and Marko Miseric, all scoring over a hundred points and flagged in yellow in the league table below:

Marko, last year’s winner of the feeder league, The Next Great and The Good, led the way with Mateta, Pickford, Kai Havertz (£7.4m), Eberechi Eze (£6.1m) and Michael Olise (£5.6m) all in his team meaning a score of 139 points for the week.

However, Zophar was not far behind and his scored of 132 points puts him into the top 10,000 for the first time this season. He is the second-highest point scorer over the last four weeks, triggered by his Wildcard in Gameweek 30. A lesson to us all that it’s now how you start but how you finish in FPL.

The most in-form manager over the last few weeks has been FPL Harry, who without the safety net of a Free Hit scored 134. He will remember fondly his transfers back in Gameweek 31 for Pickford and Mateta. Harry is our reigning Great and Good champion and looks like he is determined to put up a fight, although Ben Crellin looks strong sitting at the top with a Wildcard in his pocket.

As for captaincy, well let’s give those BlackBox pairing of Az and Mark their time in the sun as they both opted for the non-Salah option. It came good with Eze getting Az 28 points and Bukayo Saka (£9.0m) delivering 18 points for Mark.

TRANSFERS

For those not on the Free Hit, transfers were key this week. Pras should hold his head up high with his ballsy move to take Erling Haaland (£14.1m) out for Mateta, as his injury status was not clear before the deadline. Maybe he is in the Haaland family WhatsApp group?

Eze was the other popular move that came off: congrats to Jon Ballantyne, who doubled up on Palace midfielders with Olise.

There was disappointment all round for those who went in on Liverpool players, particularly Jan Kepski. He had not put a foot wrong all season and then went and bought that Liverpool striker, who I won’t name as I am currently denying his existence, having been another victim of his xG related charms.

All the moves are below for you to point and stare at:

• Ben Crellin: Son > Eze, Taylor > Virgil
• Harry Daniels: Doughty > Virgil, Son > Eze
• Zophar: Free Hit
• Jan Kępski: Mubama > Darwin, Son > Eze
• Andy North: Free Hit
• Mark Sutherns: Bailey > Eze
• FPL General: Free Hit
• Seb Wassell: Gvardiol > Virgil
• Fábio Borges: Gusto > Robertson, Son > Eze
• Joe Lepper: Son > Eze, Kelleher > A.Becker
• Pras: Haaland > Mateta, Son > Luis Díaz
• Tom Freeman: Son > Luis Díaz, Palmer > Eze
• Andy LTFPL: Son > Eze, Bradley > Virgil
• Jon Ballantyne: Son > Olise, Maddison > Eze
• Marko Miseric: Free Hit
• Finn Sollie: Hee Chan > Luis Díaz, Son > Eze
• Az: Bradley > Robertson, Son > Eze
• FPL Gunz: Free Hit

TEMPLATE

Here is the template for The Great and The Good with the % ownership within this group in brackets:

Neto (50%), Pickford (33%)

Gabriel (100%), Virgil (50%), Zabarnyi (50%), Saliba (33%), Munoz (28%)

Salah (100%), Eze (100%), Saka (100%) Palmer (67%), Sarabia (38%)

Solanke (94%), Darwin (67%), Haaland (61%)

A bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of a squad with the strong influence of the Free Hit, we saw Eze come in for Son, a move I suspect to be reversed once those Wildcards are played this week.

In a similar vein, I expect swing doors for Pedro Porro (£5.8m), who left temporarily for Virgil van Dijk (£6.7m) and Daniel Munoz (£4.5m).

Meanwhile, Jordan Pickford is probably still celebrating the fact he made the template this week.

SEASON STATS

Due to the quick turnaround, a glance at the season stats. It’s worth it just to see the huge discrepancy in hits between cautious Joe and Ben (two) and FPL Gunz, who has taken 15 so far!

Mark still has the comfort of knowing he is the richest manager amongst The Great and The Good. Jan Kepski is still the king of captaincy, despite Salah fluffing his Mo-ment.

CONCLUSION

For those who prospered, bask in the glory as weeks like this don’t happen too often. For those who faltered, keep the faith as there are still four more rounds to go and then we can all have a rest.

Plus, with the FA Cup announcement, we may soon not have as many Double Gameweeks to enjoy/endure, so let’s embrace the ones we have left.

As always, if you want to dig further into the data then do have a read of the Mini-League Mate dossier Click here 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. 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.