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, the BlackBox pair of Az and Andy North, Scouts FPL General, Tom Freeman and Joe Lepper, the FPL Wire’s Pras and Zophar, the defending Great and Good champion Huss E, FPL ‘celebrites’ FPL Harry and LTFPL Andy, Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Thomas Brønsby, Ben Crellin, Elevenify and Tom Dollimore, last year’s mini-league winner Andrew McKinnon and invitational champ Ben McCrum.
“I am just going outside and may be some time”
The Great and The Good have stumbled into the FPL wilderness, where the chips are wasted, the points are dehydrated and João Pedro (£7.7m) has already been carried off into the dark unknown.
And just when we thought we could finally relax, Brighton’s Pascal Groß (£5.8m) and Maxim De Cuyper (£4.9m) are emerging like two essential oasis mirages, shining again in the cup before the Seagulls went full blizzard and dismantled Arsenal.
Most benched them, some had them as auto-subbed; either way, the FPL community self-combusted.
This was also the last Gameweek before a three-week international-break wasteland, meaning plenty of time to stare blankly at your FPL team and wonder where it all went wrong.
Naturally, the chips were still flying around the desert. We saw a Wildcard, three Free Hits and a Bench Boost activated this week.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Tom Freeman played his carefully planned Bench Boost and will be pleased with the 19 points coming off the sidelines. It gave him a score of 63 and puts him top of this group of managers. It’s worth noting that they have all now slipped out of the top 100,000.
In fact, it continues to be a very turbulent time, with only 17 points separating the top 10 in this league and 325,000 places in overall rank. The various chip strategies continue to distort (see below). FPL General has splurged all of his, whilst Fabio continues to hold fire with just one used so far.
There was very little green this week as the standard Arsenal defence and Chelsea attack didn’t pay off. Instead, it was all about whether you had Gross in your team.
Three of them hit the Free Hit in Mark Sutherns, Ben McCrum and Huss E, with the latter two getting green arrows. Last year’s winner has yet to have a red arrow.
Our new boy, Andrew McKinnon, also had a good week with 56, thanks to not only Gross but also Diego Gomez (£5.0m). He may have had a bit of luck here, thanks to the absences of Pedro and Ben White (£5.5m).
Control-Alt-Delete and captain Erling Haaland (£15.6m) was the order of the day. Ben Crellin and Tom Dollimore decided to go a little wild, delving into the Forest with Morgan Gibbs-White (£8.0m), and they were left with little wood to speak of.
WILDCARD
FPL General’s Wildcard started about as smoothly as a Sunday roast in a washing machine.
Double Arsenal defence immediately looked questionable as Brighton dismantled them, while Gross and De Cuyper watched from his bench, presumably wondering what they’d done to deserve such betrayal.
His double Forest punt of Gibbs-White and Neco Williams (£5.0m) then laboured against Coventry, because apparently “easy fixture” is now FPL code for “prepare to suffer”.
And yes, Antonin Kinsky (£4.5m) is still there. Some things in FPL simply cannot be killed. At least the big guns are loaded, with Bukayo Saka (£9.5m), Haaland and Cole Palmer (£9.7m) forming a rather terrifying £35m-ish midfield/attack triumvirate when they all start firing.
This squad will do better over the coming weeks but certainly ticks off the phrase, “A Wildcard isn’t just for one week”.
TRANSFERS
The Great and The Good have been busy… well, some of them.
Gibbs-White is the big winner, with Dominic Szoboszlai (£7.0m) and Christos Tzolis (£6.3m) dumped. It was a surprise to see João Pedro shown the door by some; the likes of Elevenify and Ben Crellin usually show more patience.
Elevenify was certainly the wheeler-dealer this week as his moves for Thierno Barry (£5.6m) and Harvey Barnes (£6.1m) paid off.
TEMPLATE
More tweaks to the template as David Raya (£6.1m) enters the squad and many now opting for the safety-first Arsenal defence. To be fair, they won’t play Brighton every week.
Hall has now thrown his name in the ring for the 4th/5th defender spot, while Gibbs-White replaces Bryan Mbeumo (£7.9m).
CAPTAINCY
A quick look at captaincy for the season:
Thomas Bronsby leads the way with 113 points, after his decision to deviate to Joan Pedro in Gameweek 4 gave him the edge.
Overall, Haaland remains the default option despite a number starting without the Norwegian at the beginning of the season.
Unsurprisingly, LTFPL Andy has picked Bruno Fernandes (£11.9m) the most this season…
CONCLUSION
Time to step away from our teams and consider our options.
Some will no doubt Wildcard, but I suspect this will be perilous over what is already looking like an injury-strewn international break.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, and remember: don’t have nightmares.
For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article, you can find me on Twitter/X here.
