Gameweek 30 was another excellent week for our elite quintet with green arrows for everyone bar career HoF number one Ville Ronka, who dropped outside the top 10,000 by a single point.

The headline news this week is that we have our first post Christmas wildcarder in the HoF Top 5.

David Meechan decided to roll the dice over the international break, changing nine players in his squad. This resulted in him having a high Gameweek score of 68, earning instant reward for his tinkering. One interesting omission from his purchases is Double Gameweek favourite Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I will look in detail at all his transfers (and non-transfers) later on.

This article focuses on the moves and strategies employed by the five elite managers who grace the upper echelons of this site’s Career Hall of Fame.

Members can see the latest top five via our Live Hall of Fame update.

To help out I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.

Before we look at their teams in more detail, here’s why they are the best FPL managers:

POINTS & RANK

*from GW6 onwards

Only one of this quintet qualified for the cup (David #5), he went out in GW19.
All apart from David still have their Wildcards, all apart from David have played their Triple Captain chip, and three have also played their AOA chip.

David’s clever use of his Wildcard saw him re-enter the top 10,000 for the first time since Gameweek 22. As mentioned last week should he finish inside the top 10,000 it would be the seventh time he has done so in seven seasons. Only Ville has more consecutive top 10,000 finishes.

Regular poster in the comments section Peter Kouwenberg (aka MyPrettyPony) achieved a season-high FPL rank for the fifth Gameweek in a row as his fine run of form shows no sign of abating. He is now only 8 points outside the top 1,000 with an overall rank of 1,441. He is getting ever closer to a hat-trick of three digit finishes, after ranks of 289 and 129 in the past two seasons. This would be a magnificent feat should he achieve it, something not even the great Ville can boast.

Steve Poulsom is at 101,482 and will be hoping to finally get back to a five digit rank and salvage something from a disappointing season for him. He is now only 24 points behind number-two Marlen Rattiner as he attempts to avoid the career Top Five wooden spoon.

The American moved back up to 58,830 as he continues to steadily climb the ranks. With two heavy hitting South Americans in his team in the shape of Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez and Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero, he will be hoping to maintain his upward trajectory.

CAPTAIN

What a gutting week for Hall of Fame A-lister Ville; not only did he captain Chelsea’s Diego Costa who managed nine shots and no goals, but to rub salt in the wound Christian Benteke decided to find the net against the Blues.

The Belgian, you may recall from my ‘Table of Stubbornness’, was in Ville’s team for 21 matches this season averaging a lowly 3.7 points per appearance. A penny for Ville’s thoughts – there’s no rhyme or reason to football sometimes.

After a week to forget for the Finnish Enigma he has made a single transfer already this Gameweek. His funds in the bank have reduced from £4.1 to £2.1, suggesting that Liverpool’s injured Saido Mané has made way for FPL leading points scorer Sanchez.

It was only a mildly better week for the other four managers in the Top Five with a slightly below average captain score of 12 from both Mané and Tottenham’s Dele Alli.

Over the season Sanchez has been picked as captain 30% of the time, averaging 15 points when chosen. Aguero follows in popularity having been handed the armband 26% of the time, averaging 15.9pts as captain or triple captain, with Everton’s Romelu Lukaku chosen 11% of the time averaging a mighty 21.8pts.

Below I’ve had a go at creating a graphic displaying this information for the five most popular captain picks. It shows that Lukaku has performed best when chosen as captain, and also perhaps that our elite quintet have known when to pick him as well. Clearly they all knew this week wasn’t it.

You could argue that the trolls on this graphic are Tottenham’s Harry Kane and United’s Ibrahimovic. They have not performed as well as expected on the few occasions that they have been chosen as captains, averaging 11.4 and 12.8 points respectively.

CAPTAIN POINTS

One reason Peter is currently the best performing manager out of the Top Five is his ability to pick the right captain. Peter also leads the way in immediate transfer success however the difference is less pronounced (see ‘Transfer Success’ section).

Comparing captain points to current FPL leader, Knut Hebæk, it becomes even more evident how important this metric is. The Norwegian has garnered a staggering 554pts from his captain picks alone. Nearly 29% of his total score.

To help you make this crucial decision be sure to read YMA’s Form and Fixture analysis together with the Captain Sensible articles.

TRANSFERS – Gameweek 30

The top transfer target this week was Manchester United’s Antonio Valencia. The Ecuadorian rewarded his managers with a clean sheet and two bonus points against a determined yet blunt West Brom team at Old Trafford.

Otherwise Spurs, who don’t have a double in Gameweek 34, provided the rest of the players purchased this week. With Son Heung-min, Dele Alli, and Ben Davies picked by our famous five.

DAVID’S WILDCARD

It has been fascinating to see who David transferred in and who he didn’t. Another notable absentee, in addition to Double Gameweek favourite Zlatan Ibrahimovic, is Chelsea’s combative frontman Diego Costa. Though the Spanish star together his with club and international teammate Pedro, clearly entered David’s thoughts; both were transferred in and then ultimately out of his team over the international break.

Despite not owning Ibrahimovic, there’s no reason why the big Swede couldn’t come into David’s team for DGW34. However, at present it would require two transfers to facilitate it, as he doesn’t have enough funds available to upgrade a forward in a straight swap.

Perhaps one reason for omitting the former PSG star is that he foresaw potential rotation with United competing in the latter stages of the Europa League. No doubt Mourinho confirming as much in Monday’s press conference wouldn’t have surprised him. Yet one Red Devil did make it into his team in the guise of former Wigan winger Valencia.

In addition to the Ecuadorian, Englishman David clearly had one eye on the upcoming Double. Former United players Valdés and Fabio, now both at Middlesborough, also made the cut.

Liverpool’s little Brazilian Philippe Coutinho was another to play the Hokey Cokey in David’s team. However when the music stopped the little magician found himself back in the team, rather than joining teammate Mané in being shown the door. A wise move as it turned out.

The other five players to remain following the Wildcard reshuffle include those currently offering excellent value and potential. Perhaps only Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso can count himself lucky to have escaped the chop. Though with so much money gained on the Spaniard it is hardly surprising – it would prove very costly to buy him back should Chelsea remember how to keep a clean sheet.

The other key point to mention is that David has opted for a 3-5-2 formation going forward, as evidenced by his purchase of our favourite bench fodder forward Burnley’s Ashley Barnes. He therefore hasn’t gone for a strong front eight, an option picked up on in last week’s articles on the Live HoF top ten. Preferring instead to invest the cash in his starting eleven players.

TRANSFER SUCCESS

For Ville the eight-point return from Valencia was matched by the eight points from the outgoing Gareth McAuley, resulting in a net total of zero points gained. Sods Law in evidence again this week for the FPL legend.

As ever Peter was kind enough to share his transfer plans ahead of the deadline. If you’d followed his advice since I started tracking the crème de la crème of the fantasy football world, you’d be in pretty good shape. Thank you Peter!

This week he has already made two transfers, taking a 4 point hit. His money available in the bank has dropped from £4.3 to £0.7, which would perhaps suggest the purchase of a certain Chilean?

Even taking hits into account, Peter has mustered more immediate transfer points than any of his fellow bosses at the HoF’s top table or indeed the current FPL number one Knut. The overall leader for a total of 15 Gameweeks this season, Knut has managed ‘just’ 181 immediate transfer points minus hits.

The contrasting way the game can be played is highlighted in the table above. Perhaps surprisingly the number of transfers made does not appear to be a significant factor in determining success. If anything Peter’s 80 points in hits compares favourably to Ville’s paltry 8 points, given that he has amassed over 50 points more than the Finn based on this measure.

FORMATION

Prior to Fernando Llorente’s injury

End of the Gameweek

The standard 3-4-3 formation was again popular this week with three managers originally setting up their teams this way. However Fernando Llorente’s absence meant 3-5-2 became the most prevalent formation by default as auto-subs came into play.

Over the course of the season 3-4-3 has been favoured 57% of the time by the career HoF Top Five, with 3-5-2 second with 22%. 4-4-2 is the third most popular on 11%.

PLAYERS – Gameweek 30

Robert Snodgrass remains in Ville and Marlen’s teams, they purchased him back in Gameweek 25 when it appeared he was about to assume the role of West Ham’s talisman from the departed Dimitry Payet.

Perhaps they also thought he would do well against his former club last week. Frustratingly for them it just isn’t happening for the Scott at the moment and after yet another disappointing return it will be interesting to see how long he remains in their teams. Budget players with Double Gameweeks on the horizon include the on-fire Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha and Southampton’s James Ward-Prowse.

Fellow budget option in the sub 6.0 category Bournemouth’s Josh King, was sold by David over the international break. Despite having offered such good value recently his upcoming trio of fixtures against three of the current top four teams must have proved a deterrent.

TEMPLATE – Gameweek 30

Goalkeepers – Heaton, Pickford

Defenders – Valencia, Alonso, Brunt / McAuley, (Chambers)

Midfielders – Mané, Eriksen, Sigurdsson, Alli / Son, Coutinho / Firmino

Forwards – Lukaku, Llorente, (Costa / Barnes)

With Sanchez already in two teams and possibly four now after purchases by Peter and Ville, it is likely the Template will alter a little for Gameweek 31. I expect the Arsenal number seven to replace the injured Mané.

At the back Valencia is owned across the board, with Alonso failing to return to Marlen’s team following his sale in Gameweek 27.

Otherwise we wait to see how much the Double Gameweek will affect the template.

I hope these articles are useful in helping you make decisions. One thing I’ve noticed is how quickly fortunes can change for better or worse. With eight Gameweeks to go, including a possible three Double Gameweeks, Bench Boost and Wildcards to play, there’s every chance this quintet will finish the season very strongly.