In ‘The Great and The Good’, community writer Greyhead analyses the Gameweek 3 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, 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.
“Everything. Everywhere. All at once”
If Gameweek 2 was all about keeping calm and sticking to the plan, Gameweek 3 was about letting your hair down, putting on some snazzy shirts and getting down and dirty with chips flying.
It was a busy week for ‘The Great and The Good’, as all 18 managers got their hands on a chip. Yes, all of them. The most popular weapon of choice was the Triple Captain, with Erling Haaland (£15.5m) handed the special armband. 27 points is better than a blank, right?
Elsewhere, four Wildcards and three Free Hits were deployed, as managers attempted to navigate the standout fixtures facing Manchester City, then Chelsea, along with the early-season price swings and transfer window fallout.
But, above all else, there was Rayan Cherki (£7.8m). The excitement was palpable, with a staggering 2.1 million managers transferring him in and then being disappointed by his three-point return.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
We’re seeing a strong start continue for ‘The Great and The Good’. Tom Dollimore and FPL General lead the way, although both Free Hit users had red arrows this week. Ben Crellin was the third to activate it, achieving a small green.
Tom Freeman led the way by recording a brilliant 72 points. He was one of the majority who chose a Triple Captain, but also benefitted from Alexander Isak (£9.0m) and Bryan Mbeumo (£8.0m) rather than getting carried away with all those Man City midfielders.
And then there were the Wildcard users below. Initial results were not good, with an average of 43 points….
WILDCARDS
With chips flying around like confetti at an FPL wedding, four pressed the big red WILDCARD button: Pras, Zophar, Elevenify and LTFPL Andy.
Three of the squads looked very similar, allowing conspiracy theorists with their tin foil hats to speculate that this is an FPL Cartel conspiracy.
Although maybe, just maybe, these top managers independently identified many of the same players as being good at football.
No, no. That can’t be true. Bring out the angry mob and pick up your pitchforks.
All four settled on a 3-4-3, which was interesting given all the pre-season theorising that an early Wildcard would lead to a 3-5-2.
Yoane Wissa (£6.2m) made all four squads, as did Haaland, Cole Palmer (£9.6m), Dominic Szoboszlai (£7.0m), João Pedro (£7.7m) and Ezri Konsa (£4.4m). They also all agreed on getting rid of Isak. Which is exactly the sort of thing that guarantees someone an immediate haul. Because, you know, this is FPL.
PRAS
Starting with Pras, he went heavy on the big clubs, with triple-ups from Man City, Brighton and Hove Albion and the Arsenal defence, alongside a Newcastle United duo.
Having both Pascal Gross (£5.5m) and Mamadou Sangare (£5.7m) ensures midfield depth, but there will be a concern about the latter’s half-time substitution.
LTFPL ANDY
Blink, and you’ll miss any differences between Pras and Andy’s team. Only their mothers can tell them apart. However, they do have a different £4.0m goalkeeper. So there.
Both have money in the bank to presumably buy Morgan Rogers (£7.5m) this week.
ZOPHAR
Morgan Gibbs-White (£8.0m) is Zophar’s standout selection, which means he went slightly cheaper in defence. But you can’t blame him, as the Nottingham Forest midfielder has both form and fixtures. Maybe he has seen the tree for the wood.
ELEVENIFY
The rebel of this group. While the other three loaded up on Man City, he went with just one of Enzo Maresca’s men, splashing out on Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka (£9.5m) and Gabriel Magalhaes (£8.0m).
Additionally, he doubled up on Chelsea through Palmer and João Pedro, while adding a Brighton triple-up and two Newcastles.
TRANSFERS
For those who didn’t Wildcard or Free Hit, Cherki was the most popular move, with Joe, Mark and Huss E all bringing him in.
Mark took things further by also buying Phil Foden (£7.0m), giving him a double Man City midfield. That did not end well.
Meanwhile, Fabio Borges went full Geordie, bringing in both Wissa and Harvey Barnes (£6.0m) – the latter giving immediate returns.
‘THE GREAT AND THE GOOD’ TEMPLATE
Ignoring those Free Hit squads, the new template below has undergone a little makeover.
Cherki and Palmer have replaced Mbeumo and Christos Tzolis (£6.4m), while Konsa and Maxim De Cuyper (£4.8m) replace Ben White (£5.5m) and Dan Ballard (£4.9m).
And then we look at Haaland. The Norwegian comfort blanket is back at 100% ownership.
FAST STARTS
In the dark days of 2025/26, many big content creators were briefly around the four million rank and saying, “the only rank that matters is the final one”.
This time last season, the average ‘Great and Good’ rank was around 5.59 million. Currently, it’s 580,586.
Not one of them was amongst the best two million a year ago, whereas now 16 out of 18 are in the top million, with three inside the top 100k.
So, is it an easy game this year? We shall see.
CONCLUSION
Well, that was action-packed, and all the signs point to more excitement in Gameweek 4. We may see a Free Hit or two, plus a few to play their Wildcard. Cool heads will prevail, I fancy.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, and remember: don’t have FPL nightmares.
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