Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns for 2025/26 with 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 FPL Godfather Mark Sutherns, the BlackBox pair of Az and Andy North, Scouts FPL General, Joe and Tom, the FPL Wire trio of Pras, Lateriser and Zophar, FPL celebrities FPL Harry, Martin Baker, Pingreen, FPL Frasier and Luke Williams, Ben Crellin, Fabio Borges and Tom Dollimore from the Hall of Fame, plus of course, last year’s mini league-winner Huss E.
“Things can only get better”
No pain, no gain. Yet maybe just a little gain would be nice. Nothing too dramatic. All we are asking for is a week without injuries, the previously impenetrable 24/25 version of the Nottingham Forest defence and Florian Wirtz (£8.4m) actually doing something, anything, to justify his pre-season hype. And whilst we are at it, where are all these defensive contribution (DefCon) points?
Still the international break is upon us and more importantly transfer deadline day, which as I type this, is already causing chaos with the aforementioned Marc Guiu (£4.4m) no longer the Bench Boost gift we hoped for, Jorgen Strand Larsen (£6.5m) refusing to get off the team bus and now Alexander Isak‘s (£10.4m) move to Liverpool no doubt leading to plenty of FPL column inches over the coming weeks.
Amongst all this, chips are being played as we all adjust to this new world of FPL. General went all in with a Wildcard, whilst Fabio Borges showed a reckless side as he played his Free Hit.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Joe Lepper was this week’s star performer, accumulating 72 points from some less obvious places, including Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (£5.0m) and Tosin Adarabioyo (£4.5m). These contributions complemented his sensible transfers of Bruno Fernandes (£9.0m) and Joao Pedro (£7.7m).
Yet, he is not top of The Great and The Good as that honour goes to new boy Huss E, who won last year’s open to all feeder league and now takes top spot in the senior competition with his secret weapon of Lucas Paqueta (£5.9m).
In other news, there was much excitement as Fabio Borges played his Free Hit (see below). It wasn’t an overwhelming success with a triple up on Nottingham Forest reaping very little, and he would’ve fared better had he captained one of his Manchester United midfielders, well apart from Matheus Cunha (£8.1m).
FABIO BORGES FREE HIT
In fact, Cunha was as popular as a well-aged eggnog as he was handed the armband by five of The Great and The Good, and then hobbled off in the first half. There was quite a variety in armband picks this week, with the Bruno band being the smuggest, although no doubt Andy North will have awarded himself a chufty badge for going with Joao Pedro.
FPL GENERAL WILDCARD
No one has had a great start; however, FPL General saw enough to press the overhaul button in Gameweek 3. No doubt the injuries had a part to play as well.
He is sticking admirably to his no Mohamed Salah (£14.5m)/no Erling Haaland (£14.1m) mandate, which gives him a very healthy-looking squad and bank balance as he leaves £4.6m in reserve. He kept only Tijjani Reijnders (£5.7m), Pedro Porro (£5.6m), Chris Wood (£7.7m), Joachim Andersen (£4.5m), and, of course, everyone’s favourite £4.0m keeper Martin Dubravka.
He has gone strong at the back with Daniel Munoz (£5.5m), Marc Cucurella (£6.1m) and Virgil van Dijk (£6.0m) joining Porro. I suspect 4-3-3 will be his preferred formation as Wood and Pedro are joined by a suddenly very popular Viktor Gyokeres (£9.0m) – the algorithm has spoken. As for his midfield, well, he will have nightmares about Cunha over Fernandes.
TRANSFERS
There was plenty of transfer activity this week, with Tom and Mark even taking hits. Neither made any gains, so it was left to Joe to take the wheeler-dealer title as his moves for Fernandes and Pedro provided immediate returns.
Cunha and Gyokeres were the most popular picks, whilst Az went his own way, going with Anthony Elanga (£7.0m) and Morgan Gibbs-White (£7.5m), which on their day were smart moves, but just not this day.
The full list of transfers is below.
TEMPLATE
A little judder in the template, which let’s be clear, doesn’t appear to be working very well this season, with Cristian Romero (£5.0m) in for Chris Richards (£4.5m) and Cunha in for the injured Cole Palmer (£10.4m), who then got injured.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
A quick look at the cash flow now, as remarkably we already see a £1.3m difference in team value between the lowest, Joe Lepper (£99.6m), and the highest, FPL General (£100.9m).
As always, Mark Sutherns seems determined to keep a high team value. He made all three of his transfers on the Monday night, which sees him up to £100.6m. It just didn’t translate to any points.
CONCLUSION
Another challenging weekend for many then after some aggressive moves across the board. Maybe the increase in chips and ongoing ability to roll transfers favours the risk, but as of yet, there doesn’t appear to have been much reward.
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 or here on BlueSky.
