Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead presents his series of The Great and the Good articles, analysing the transfers and strategies of some well-known Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
The Great and The Good this season are the BlackBox pair of Mark Sutherns and Az, Scouts Joe Lepper and Tom Freeman, Scoutcaster Andy North, Pro Pundits FPL General, Pras, Zophar, FPL Harry and Lateriser, FPL “celebrities” Ben Crellin, Luke Williams and FPL Fran, Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Jan Kepski, Markku Olaja and Seb Wassell, plus last year’s mini-league winner Geraint Owen.
“What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster? Is it a monster?”
It’s not a monster, it’s a blank Gameweek, which normally brings an opportunity for us engaged managers to rise because Maureen from accounts won’t have paid attention to the fixtures.
Mind you, in this challenging season it’s more than likely that Maureen keeps her captaincy on Mohamed Salah (£13.8m) and still beats us all, thanks to an unlikely double hat-trick from Jorgen Strand Larsen (£5.2m) – who she only picked as she had a lovely cruise around the fjords and therefore wanted a Norwegian in her team, not affording Erling Haaland (£14.7m).
Anyway, away from Maureen, Gameweek 28 brought its own drama, with some punished for choosing Cole Palmer (£10.9m) – who really did have a cold this time – over Salah for the armband.
Plus, in a truly remarkable turn of events, it turns out that Eddie Howe told the truth in one of his press conferences. Alexander Isak (£9.4m) was indeed fine. Of course, he blanked.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
A sea of red amongst The Great and The Good here, with only our top three of Pras, Ben and FPL Harry getting a green arrow, plus Seb Wassell who deserves one after suffering a turbulent season so far.
The key to getting these rank gains was centre-forwards, as Joao Pedro (£5.5m) continued his feast or famine approach and Ollie Watkins (£8.9m) again showing he’s a solid pick by adding a fourth attacking returns from the last five.
Ben was the highest scorer and owns Bruno Fernandes (£8.4m), an individual with 29 points in three matches to send this spreadsheet supremo into the top 10k for the first time this season.
You can see for yourself the fate of those who captained Palmer.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TRANSFERS
Meanwhile, it was an extremely quiet week on the transfer front because just three took place across The Great and The Good. Not one of them delivered but they’ve at least set managers up with a functioning striker for the blank.
Expect plenty more activity this weekend, as many have saved up their transfer pennies for this moment. Fabio Borges has five in his pocket but looks reasonably well set with nine players plus Lukasz Fabianski (£4.1m).
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
As for the template, it remains pretty solid, the only change seeing Jarrod Bowen (£7.5m) come in Dango Ouattara (£5.1m). The latter has been ousted by Evanilson (£5.6m) in the real-life Bournemouth template.
Only eight of these have a Gameweek 29 fixture, meaning there’ll definitely be changes to the next template.
CAPTAINCY CALLS
A look now at the captaincy calls, which is relevant because we’re reaching a turning point in our armband decisions. There’s the potential for Salah to not be the default decision, as Haaland looks tempting for Gameweeks 29 and 30, before we get to Double Gameweeks 32 and 33.
The story up to now has been Mo, Mo, Mo as he has been trusted with captaincy 47.8% of the time and is delivering an extraordinary average of 26 points. Joe, in particular, is enamoured by him, selecting him 18 times.
Dalliances elsewhere generally haven’t paid off, as was the case this weekend and who would’ve ever predicted in pre-season that Ethan Nwaneri (£4.6m) would be here?
CONCLUSION
It’s decision time. Do we sell Salah or Isak to fund Haaland? With Liverpool knocked out of the Champions League, expect the number of Egyptian-shaped sofa sales to rise if anyone is brave enough to ditch Mo.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember: don’t have FPL nightmares.
Those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article can find me here on Twitter or BlueSky.
