In ‘The Great and the Good’, Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead analyses 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, BlackBox pair 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, Hall of Famers Ben Crellin, Fabio Borges and Tom Dollimore, and last year’s mini-league winner Huss E.
“An invisible touch”
Dominic this, Dominic that. It was a long international week with an extraordinary amount of chatter about Mr Calvert-Lewin (£5.5m). For those who do not want to know the results, then look away now. For everyone else with any sense, yes, he blanked.
The mind boggles at what will happen when his immense talent meets the immense talents of West Ham United on Friday.
As we got closer to the weekend, Enzo Fernandez’s (£6.7m) fitness became a concern, Erling Haaland‘s (£14.6m) rest in the second international game guaranteed him captaincy dominance, and Jean-Philippe Mateta (£7.7m) scored his first international goal. We probably should’ve paid more attention to that last point…
The break also brought a splurge of Wildcards. An FPL Wire duo agreed it was a good time to jump. A certain Mark Sutherns, who spent the weekend no doubt answering questions on what an inadvertent touch is, also pressed the button.
There were also Bench Boosts active, with Martin Dubravka (£4.0m) guaranteeing a good week for those who did supersize on their substitutes.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Forget the big names, it is last year’s mini-league winner Huss E who is Happ E, as he tops The Great and The Good with a century this weekend. He was one of only two managers from this collective to own Mateta; Luke Williams being the other. Huss also had the triple-up on Arsenal and played his Bench Boost to give him a green arrow of over one million.
In fact, all the Bench Boosters did well with Luke, Martin Baker and Andy North getting healthy greens and an average score of 15 from the substitutes. More on the Wildcards later but Tom Freeman was the biggest winner with a massive rise of 1.9 million places.
Andy North had a good one overall, with 96 his highest score of the season. Along with his chip play, it was Nordi Mukiele (£4.1m) who proved to be his hero.
WILDCARDS
There was a fantastic four of Wildcards this week with Mark Sutherns, Tom Freeman, Lateriser and Pras all deciding it was clobberin’ time for their squads.
The basic ingredients for the Gameweek 8 Wildcard cake were triple Arsenal, Haaland, Enzo, Antoine Semenyo (£8.0m) and perhaps surprisingly, the out-of-form Joao Pedro (£7.6m), although his fixtures do look good.
Mark Sutherns
Mark’s variant sees him keep faith with the attacking wing-back Daniel Munoz (£5.6m) and was immediately rewarded, as was his call to spend a little more on his ‘keepers with Robin Roefs (£4.6m) coming in. The Sunderland stopper is now the highest-scoring keeper in the game.
Pras
Pras was the only one to go with a 3-5-2 formation, with Anthony Gordon (£7.4m) as the extra midfielder. He’ll hope that his fixtures and his penalty-taking duties see him flourish soon in the world of FPL, not just the Champions League.
Lateriser
Lateriser must’ve been copying Pras’s homework, or they’ve been spending way too much time together, with only two differences between their squads.
Crucially, though, he went for Nick Woltemade (£7.4m), who does have the form that Gordon is missing (at least when not in Europe) with 21 points in three games.
Tom Freeman
Tom lived up to his reputation as being more differential, choosing the right time to bring in Nordi Mukiele (£4.1m) and possibly the wrong time to double up on West Ham as El Hadji Malick Diouf (£4.4m) joins Jarrod Bowen (£7.8m). He is also the only one to have a twin Arsenal attack rather than rely on their clean sheets.
TRANSFERS
A quiet week on the transfer front, with a couple of them, Tom Dollimore and Frasier Crane, rolling to five transfers.
Andy North brought in the wrong Palace attacker in Ismaila Sarr (£6.5m), Huss E is the latest convert to Jurrien Timber (£6.0m) and Zophar probably hoped for more from Eberechi Eze (£7.6m).
TEMPLATE
Some light tremors in the template with Nick Pope (£5.2m), Timber and Sarr joining.
No player is 100%, which is understandable in the case of FPL General as he stoically resists Haaland – but it is surprising that he has also ignored Gabriel Magalhaes (£6.4m). Fabio Borges is the other one to give the triple threat appeal of DefCon, headers and clean sheets a cold shoulder.
SEASON STATS
A look now at the season stats.
The transfer activity tells a story in the variety of playing styles we are seeing this year, from a busy Tom Freeman to a hands-off Fabio Borges.
The captaincy shows us it was the wrong year, so far at least, to go without Haaland. Joe Lepper is on 150 points and the Erling-less FPL General lacks the armband ammo on 70 points.
All the team values are at least now over £100.0m after a difficult start in the FPL stock exchange. As always, FPL Harry seems determined to be the cash kingpin with a team value of £101.7m.
CONCLUSION
There are plenty of contrasting strategies in play as we approach Gameweek 9.
Amongst The Great and The Good, Pras and Martin Baker have played three chips, whilst Fabio Borges has played four. Compare that to Fraiser Crane, who has just used one of his trump cards so far.
The point is that there is still a long way to go, so hang on in there if you are in the millions, as you are only a Mateta-sized haul away from a big fat green.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, and remember: don’t have FPL nightmares.
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