Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns with his series of ‘The Great and The Good’ articles, analysing the Gameweek 1 strategies of some well-known Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
‘The Great and The Good’ this season are the FPL Godfather Mark Sutherns, BlackBox duo Az and Andy North, Scouts FPL General, Tom Freeman and Joe Lepper, defending Great and The Good champion Huss E, FPL celebrities FPL Harry, LTFPL Andy, Pras and Zophar, plus Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Thomas Brønsby, Ben Crellin, Elevenify and Tom Dollimore.
Alongside these, of course, are last year’s mini league winner Andrew McKinnon and invitational champ Ben McCrum.
“Great Expectations”
Well, well, well… we’re back!
After months of pretending we don’t care about FPL while checking each Coventry City defender’s pre-season minutes, being secretly chuffed that your draft got over 90% on the new Rate My Team (RMT) draft tool, and having weird psychedelic dreams about fixture tickers at 2am, Fantasy returns for another season of questionable decisions, knee-jerk transfers and the occasional reminder that “it’s only a game”.
Over the summer, there was a World Cup distraction. A period of countless unnecessary TV cutaways to Gianni Infantino counting his money, the inevitable England cycle of expectation, a poor second match, misplaced optimism, frustration, and…
…there will now be a three-minute hydration break.
Sorry about that, I was parched for a cup of tea. Where were we? Ah yes, some semi-satirical ramblings about the World Cup.
Thankfully, we were soon back to filling up our photo rolls with FPL drafts. No new chips, to the relief of some, but they did bring in live updates and price rise visibility. I wonder where they got that idea? (#LiveFPL4Life)
Anyway, Gameweek 1 brought its usual mix of disappointment and more disappointment. It turns out that we should’ve been targeting Manchester United, not Hull City.
Antonin Kinsky (£4.5m) and Igor Thiago (£8.0m) owners experienced the worst scenario on the Brazilian’s missed penalty, and Erling Haaland (£15.5m) lost both his hair and his goal-scoring boots.
WHO, WHAT, WHY ARE THE GREAT AND THE GOOD?
Back by whatever is the opposite of popular demand, ‘The Great and The Good’ returns.
If you’ve discovered this article for the first time, then fair enough, but it’s been eight years, guys and gals! Basically, each week I stalk a bunch of FPL managers, some of whom are good, prominent content creators and others who are truly great Hall of Famers with too many low-digit finishes for the angry mob not to be considering burning at the stake.
Between them, this lot have 161 finishes inside the top 50k. 92 of those were actually top 10k, and we also have five double-digit ranks – so quite great and good?
We may learn something along the way, we may not, and some of us want to just make ourselves feel better about our own rank when one of them has a bad week.
INTRODUCING….
Funny, charming and beloved by the FPL Community. But enough about me, let’s meet the class of 26/27:
Mark Sutherns
Only one name won’t be starting a comments section argument about their inclusion. Well, not a big one. Boasting 10 top 10k finishes and nearly an 11th last year, Mark Sutherns was playing FPL before xG was a thing, before content creators existed, and before everyone blamed variance for their terrible transfers.
Quite simply, Mark walked so the rest of us could rage-transfer. He is now the man behind the man behind FPL Towers, so at least we have someone to moan to when an assist isn’t given.
Fabio Borges
Ladies and gentlemen, the GOAT. He has seven top 10k finishes, a career record that would make most FPL managers immediately delete their accounts, and the remarkable achievement of never finishing outside of the top 100k.
While he came dangerously close to doing so last time, it was presumably just to keep the rest of us interested.
Ben Crellin
The Fixture King. The man who looks at the Premier League schedule and sees things the rest of us simply cannot.
Ben is locked in an eternal battle with Fabio Borges and Tom Dollimore for the title of greatest FPL manager of all time. And with eight top 10k finishes – six of them in the last seven seasons – he has a pretty compelling case. Somewhere right now, Ben is looking at a fixture ticker and calculating his rivals’ demise.
Tom Dollimore
Speaking of Tom, he is, quite simply, ridiculous. His level of consistency should probably be investigated by the FPL authorities. During the last seven seasons, his worst finish was 12k. Not a single stinker. Most of us would celebrate one season like that. But Tom apparently considers it a baseline.
Elevenify and Thomas Brønsby
Quite possibly the most terrifying new additions to the roster, as they are both chasing their fifth consecutive top 10k finishes. Four digits this season will continue the streak. Five digits mean the prediction models may need to be sent back to the lab.
Huss E
The Australian Wizard of Oz has returned, bringing the magic with him. After triumphing in the feeder league, Huss went on to win ‘The Great and The Good’ last season, finishing 1,828th after an outrageous 41st-place finish in 2024/25.
Two seasons, two trophies and a passport full of green arrows. The question is whether this was the beginning of a dynasty, or the greatest two-season hot streak ever seen.
Andrew McKinnon
Andrew is one of our qualifiers, fresh from an outstanding finish of 424th, which won him the open-to-all feeder league.
Thankfully, he doesn’t go by Andy. Given that the FPL community appears to operate under a strict ‘one in every five managers must be called Andy’ policy, that’s a small mercy for the rest of us.
Considering that Huss E followed one victory with another, Andrew will no doubt be hoping history repeats itself. The other competitors will be hoping that history fancies a year off.
Ben McCrum
Ben earned his place by winning the Invitational League with a top 2k finish, but that’s almost the warm-up act. For him, the headline achievement remains a remarkable 32nd-place worldwide rank during the season before.
Before becoming an FPL menace, Ben was one of Sky Sports Fantasy Football’s leading names, even managing a double-digit overall finish there too. Apparently mastering one game wasn’t enough.
FPL Harry
The man who proves that you can make a living talking about FPL while simultaneously being annoyingly good at it. Harry has five top 10k finishes throughout the last six seasons, winning ‘The Great and The Good’ in 2022/23. If the question asks whether he can add another trophy to the cabinet, he’ll ask “Who, Mee?”.
Andy North
Up next, the Scoutcast host who quite literally gambled his way into ‘The Great and The Good’ via a dodgy bet.
Since then, Andy has somehow managed to justify his place through a string of consistent finishes. He appears to have the survival instincts of an FPL cockroach or maybe, just maybe, he is quite good at this Fantasy lark after all.
Az
Four top-10k finishes, host of FPL Blackbox and one of the community’s most recognisable faces. Unfortunately, Az’s glory days are starting to feel like ancient history. The redemption arc has been so long that it now needs its own sequel.
Pras and Zophar
Veterans of the FPL content scene, they bring macro analysis, chip expertise and enough strategic depth to make a simple decision like “Haaland or Bruno?” feel like a UN Security Council meeting.
Before you ask, Lateriser is taking a year out following his disappointing season. But we’ll keep a side eye on the upside-chasing legend.
Joe Lepper and Tom Freeman
Two veterans of these articles, Tom has five top 1k finishes while Joe has 8 in the top 10k, so they know their onions. Very rarely do they have a bad season.
FPL General
Despite the name, FPL General has never actually served in the military, although surviving a ‘no Haaland, no Salah’ season probably counts as active service. He’s one of the big names, due to the astonishing record of three top 500 finishes in four seasons.
LTFPL Andy
Yep, he’s back. After a season or two away from ‘The Great and The Good’, LTFPL Andy returns fresh from his best-ever finish – 588th.
He’s undoubtedly one of the biggest content creators in the FPL world, and back to remind everyone why they were relieved when he left.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
You can’t win FPL in Gameweek 1, but you can certainly lose enthusiasm for the entire season before the opening weekend has even finished.
Gameweek 1 Bench Boosters were determined not to do that, and flew out of the traps with all the excitement of a teenage boy who has just discovered certain websites for the first time. Although, as ever in FPL, these results reminded us that this is a game of both judgement and an alarming amount of luck.
While the benches of LTFPL Andy and Joe Lepper both smashed 24 points, the likes of Elevenify, Pras and Thomas Brønsby were left scratching around in single digits. Another gentle reminder that the gap between genius and looking like you’ve never played FPL is a very fine line.
You see, both Andy and Joe benefited from unlikely double-digit bench hauls. Andy had Maxim De Cuyper (£4.5m) to thank, while Joe struck Gameweek 1 gold with Mamadou Sangaré (£5.5m).
Andy North enjoyed the Brentford debutant’s unveiling less than most. A Sangaré owner, he placed him on the sidelines while the Bench Boost was safely tucked away for another day. Ouch!
As for Zophar, he had the highest bench (32 points), although I’m not entirely convinced everything was above board. After all, three Arsenal players lurked amongst his substitutes. Some tomfoolery going on? I’ve alerted the relevant authorities.
FPL General is our overall leader, though. What set him apart was that he picked the right Arsenal triple-up, going with Martin Odegaard (£6.5m), Ben White (£5.5) and Riccardo Calafiori (£5.5m). All this despite a rather anticlimactic ending to his ‘no Haaland’ rule.
CHIP PLANS
There appear to be three main early-season strategies emerging, headlined by the Gameweek 1 Bench Boost. 10 of 18 chose this route, with the main variation being whether to chuck Haaland into the mix. FPL Harry, FPL General, Joe Lepper and Thomas Brønsby said yes to both.
Meanwhile, Mark Sutherns, Andy North, Az, Drew McKinnon and Huss E appear to be lining up a Gameweek 2 boost. Drew is taking the most aggressive approach, tripling up on Coventry. I wish him well, mainly as I have the same West Midlands wager.
The remaining three – Fabio Borges, Tom Freeman and Ben McCrum – have perhaps wisely decided to do absolutely nothing and see what happens.
It’s also worth noting that Fabio and Thomas Brønsby were the only participants to go for the holy trinity of Haaland, Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) and Gabriel Magalhaes (£8.0m) in Gameweek 1. That’s basically the FPL equivalent of going missionary and keeping your socks on.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Template is a dirty word in FPL. Nobody wants to admit they’re following it, but everyone mysteriously ends up owning the same players by deadline. Those who stick close to it do tend to do pretty well, though.
Thanks to Premier Fantasy Tools for this nice graphic. It’s a strong-looking squad, although no player has the group’s 100% ownership.
Not only did almost a third of Gameweek 1 Bench Boosters go without Haaland, but there was a swerving of Fernandes — arguably FPL’s most obvious midfielder pick — by Mark Sutherns and Huss E.
Still, the foundation is triple Manchester United, with Bruno joined by Harry Maguire (£5.0m) and Bryan Mbeumo (£8.0m). That suddenly feels shaky after their rather underwhelming performance in Hull.
Further up, the forward line lacks adventure, because Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.0m) and João Pedro (£7.5m) both break the 80% ownership barrier.
RATE MY TEAM
Points projections are currently the little black dress of FPL. They’re everywhere. Everyone’s wearing them. And nobody really knows whether they actually look good.
With Scout having revamped its tools – a massive shout-out to Reece – I’ve fed ‘The Great and The Good’ teams into the mighty projection machine to see what this algorithm thinks will happen over six weeks.
According to the machine, Ben Crellin and Tom Dollimore are the men to beat. Both benefit from the strong projected returns from Cole Palmer (£9.5m), who is something of a differential amongst this group. How long will this last?
They also possess several of the RMT darlings: Fernandes, Mbeumo, João Pedro, David Raya (£6.0m) and Dominik Szoboszlai (£7.0m), all of whom have an algorithmic thumbs-up for future returns.
Interestingly, both Ben and Tom are sans Erling.
So, apparently the great big calculators in the sky have decided that the optimum strategy is to spend your Haaland money elsewhere and hope the Maresca effect is a negative. Seems foolproof.
Huss E isn’t far behind, which makes sense given that he appears to be holding his Bench Boost for later and hasn’t splashed the cash on his substitutes.
At the other end of the table, Ben McCrum and Pras have received the lowest RMT ratings. They’ll therefore be hoping the calculation is spectacularly wrong.
We’ll check back later to see how close the mighty machine in the sky did.
CONCLUSION
The opening act of Gameweek 1 is over. Just remember that, whether it went well or badly, there are another 37 to go.
Before I disappear for another week, here’s a little plug for ‘The Next Great and The Good’ mini-league. You can join via this code 2bp4vb, and the winner will join this lot next season.
Therefore, if you want the Z-list fame of being involved here, like Huss E and Andrew McKinnon, then join up. I’ll give updates on the leading pack throughout 2026/27.
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.
