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.
“Up the Junction”
Everybody was Wildcard fighting, twice as lightning this week with not one, not two, not thr… oh, I can’t be bothered with this. There were 13 overhauls this Gameweek, as we enter the happy or bitter ending of the FPL season, depending on your rank and outlook on life.
If you weren’t playing the mother chip, then you were taking hits – unless you are Zophar, in which case you can successfully see into the future and plan your way around any such minus four situations. Or minus 12, in the case of Seb Wassell and Andy North.
Gameweek 35 was actually another double but, admittedly, this was the double that was probably left with his hands on the wall at the side of the school disco whilst the cool Double Gameweeks 34 and 37 got picked to dance.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Marko Miseric did the best of the Wildcarders with 95 points thanks to his choice of Josko Gvardiol (£5.0m) and super-sub Kai Havertz (£7.5m), who came on for the absent Phil Foden (£8.4m). That’s now six double-digit hauls in 11 matches for the much-maligned Arsenal midfielder.
Tom Freeman wasn’t far behind on 94, again thanks to Gvardiol – a popular transfer this week I’d imagine. He was also one of many to have Erling Haaland’s (£14.1m) goal come on from the bench. This helped our differential king move into the top 50k for the first time this season.
Meanwhile, Ben Crellin still leads the way and looks destined to be crowned our champion this year. Although I suspect his bigger goal is to finish in the top 1k for the first time ever.
WILDCARD-MANIA!
Yep, we have 13 Wildcards to go through but, fortunately, a lot of them looked the same, so it turns into a fun game of FPL Spot the Difference. Despite some close calls, only two were completely identical, those of Pras and Joe Lepper.
The template midfield quintet of Cole Palmer (£6.2m), Anthony Gordon (£6.3m), Son Heung-Min (£9.9m), Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) and poorly sick Foden were all present and correct, plus they also went with a double Arsenal defence.
The only tense point was over who’d be their fifth defender. But a mutual love of Harry Maguire (£4.2m) bonded them together and condemned them to be clones of each other, along with another 4,548 other FPL managers according to LiveFPL.
Front threes picked themselves with Haaland, Alexander Isak (£8.3m) and Nicolas Jackson (£6.9m) in every Wildcard, apart from FPL Gunz. He saw Rasmus Hojlund (£7.1m) as a potential differential.
The lure of the safety of starts meant many were drawn to the FPL mermaid of Ederson (£5.5m). Naturally, he quickly left his new owners crashing on the rocks with a half-time injury that initially looked to rule him out for a few games. Therefore keep a close eye on Pep Guardiola’s press conference. To be fair, it will probably tell you absolutely nothing useful.
So, did anyone decide to be different? Mark Sutherns stepped up with his picks of Rayan Alt-Nouri (£4.8m) and Martin Odegaard (£8.6m), with FPL Gunz joining him on the Norwegian.
In fact, the latter did his best to live up to his maverick tag by avoiding all Manchester City players. Ben Crellin was the only one to pick Richarlison (£6.8m), whilst Fabio Borges continued his rotten luck by picking up Jan Paul van Hecke (£4.1m) just as his hamstring went twang.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TRANSFERS
In a desperate attempt to gain our attention and stop us from looking at those bright and shiny Wildcards, a few managers who had played their chip earlier went mad with hits.
Mohamed Salah (£13.5m) was sold by all five managers below. The Egyptian was allegedly quoted as saying there’d be fire if he spoke of how the Scoutcasters, Seb and Andy kicked him out their squads via a minus 12.
Overall, the hits seemed to pay off, with Gordon’s double-digit return doing much of the heavy lifting.
- Andy North – Salah > Gordon, Neto > Petrovic, Udogie > Schar, Toney > Isak
- Az – Salah > Son, Darwin > Watkins, Eze > Foden
- FPL General – Salah > Gordon, Lascelles > Schar
- Seb Wassell – Salah > Son, Darwin > Jackson, Solanke > Isak, Eze > Foden, Gusto > Burn
- Zophar – Salah > Gordon
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Here is the current Great and the Good template, with their group ownership percentage in brackets:
Petrovic (78%), Ederson (50%)
Porro (89%), Gabriel (78%), Burn (62%), Schar (50%), Dalot (22%)
Son (100%), Palmer (100%), Gordon (73%), Foden (67%), Bruno (50%)
Isak (100%), Haaland (94%), Jackson (78%)
With all of those overhauls, the template certainly shifted. Salah has gone from being essential to unwanted, moving from 100% ownership to zero amongst these managers.
The template does look very secure for now, with only the fifth defender spot – currently occupied by Diogo Dalot (£5.2m) – being open to question. Moving late up the ranks in this mini-league suddenly looks like a tricky task.
OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
A couple of weeks ago, I did a comparison between the last two seasons of performance. One area that stood out was the drop in success when it came to captaincy.
When I looked back, the leading score amongst these for captaincy was 644 points (Finn Sollie), whilst this year it’s currently at 548 (Jan Kepski). So what has changed?
FPL 2022/23
FPL 2023/24
In terms of captain picks, Haaland has remained the go-to all season at 44% and there has been a general reluctance to look elsewhere. Those that have, such as last year’s winner FPL Gunz, often get punished.
The reigning champion has frequently strayed from the template here, with 10 different players claiming his armband, only picking Man City’s talisman seven times from a possible 35. Whilst not the lowest scorer here, his high-risk strategy has not paid off like it did last year.
However, despite everyone playing it safe with Haaland, this has brought overall scores down because his average points have decreased from 18.8 to 16.0. And when The Great and The Good have been forced off the well-trodden Norwegian path, they’ve been less successful.
Last year, Marcus Rashford (£8.4m), Ivan Toney (£7.8m), Kevin De Bruyne (£10.5m) and even Alexis Mac Allister (£5.9m) all averaged over 15 points when picked, whilst this year only really Julian Alvarez (£6.4m) delivered when Erling was busy WhatsApping about his toe.
What this brings into sharp focus is that captaincy still has a major impact on overall rank. You can play it safe but if you really do want to win FPL, that armband devil needs to exist inside, if you’re prepared to face the consequences of this higher-risk strategy.
CONCLUSION
Right, there’s no time to waste as we jump straight into Gameweek 36 which is an amuse-bouche before the oncoming juggernaut of Double Gameweek 37. Buckle up, as I suspect the final weeks will be a wild ride.
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 above, you can find me here on Twitter.
