“Kanexit” was the headline move over the past two Gameweeks, with current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff, taking a -12 hit in Gameweek 18 to remove Tottenham’s Harry Kane and redistribute the funds saved.

Clearly the Gameweek 21 blank and tricky fixtures for Spurs were uppermost in his mind. Later on I’ll examine the success or failure of this move so far.

In spite of this bold move Jay was the highest scorer in the top five for Gameweek 18. Double digit returns from those he kept hold of, Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino helped absorb the hit and help him one up to 126th overall.

Elsewhere it’s been a good couple of gameweeks for Mark Sutherns (aka Mark), who has scored 120 points in total. This moves him up to 34,134 in the overall rankings, 76 points behind Jay. Sterling, Burnley’s Nick Pope, and clean sheets from Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen have helped him make steady progress.

Career Hall of Fame number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony), continues to hold resolutely onto the wooden spoon. Although his transfer dealing has brought 17 points in immediate returns, with Everton’s Jonjoe Kenny coming in for Liverpool’s injured left back Alberto Moreno.

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. Between them these managers have achieved nine top 1,000 finishes in the past three seasons and have ended up in the top 10,000 a whopping 37 times over the course of their FPL careers.

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

POINTS & RANK

The graph below shows the ranks of the Top Five managers over the Gameweeks so far. The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 3m. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 181pts between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 83pts between 100k and 1m. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit

CAPTAIN

So far this season nine different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five. Kane is the most popular having been chosen 50% of the time followed by Lukaku on 24%. Lukaku has proved the more reliable choice averaging a 14.2 point return when chosen as captain compared to Kane’s 9.4 points.

In the graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks.

Salah, Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard complete the most popular captain picks so far. Salah has been chosen 8% of the time and averages 13.8 points as captain,  Hazard has been chosen 7% of the time, averaging 14.8 points, while Aguero averages 22 points for the 3% he has been chosen.

TRANSFERS GAMEWEEKS 17 & 18

TRANSFER SUCCESS

KANEXIT EXAMINED

Here we take a look in detail at Jay’s -12 hit.

Hennessey to de Gea

Points gained/lost so far -3

Although David de Gea outscored Hennessey, as Jay had both Crystal Palace ‘keepers it prevented him from getting Julian Speroni’s six points from his bench.

Loftus-Cheek to Richarlison

Points gained/lost so far -4

A logical upgrade perhaps, but it hasn’t worked for Jay this week. Watford enter a run of good fixtures so this should become a positive return soon.

Groß to David Silva

Points gained/lost so far -2

Jay gambled correctly that Manchester City would beat Spurs, and they did so quite comprehensively. But he was very unlucky in that David Silva was unexpectedly absent. He ended up having Bony’s 1 point replace Silva’s 0. In terms of immediate points it would have been better to have held onto Brighton’s Pascal Groß. This is very unlucky though.

Kane to Bony

Points gained/lost so far 0

Jay guessed correctly that Spurs would struggle against Manchester City. He brought in Swansea’s Wilfried Bony as downgrade to enable upgrades elsewhere in his side. Bony was brought in to rotate with Everton Dominic Calvert-Lewin and was earmarked to only play the Gameweek 19 fixture before in all likelihood he would be upgraded to Kane in Gameweek 22. A move which would also involve Chelsea’s Eden Hazard being downgraded to a West Ham midfielder. Jay has been incredibly unlucky with the injury to Bony with this move.

Jay also planned to use the money in the bank to upgrade his defender Swansea’s Kyle Naughton to a premium defender in Gameweek 19. It remains to be seen whether he will make this move or choose to swap David Silva, who remains a doubt this weekend, for another heavyweight midfield asset. 

Total Points Gained/Lost So Far = -21

Verdict – brave move but so far unlucky.

If he hadn’t of made these moves those extra 21 points would have given Jay a total of 1,142 points, with a rank of 20 overall.

Jay’s Top Tips

Jay has been very revealing about his thought process in his recent videos, and I think it might be helpful to look at two aspects of how he plays the game:

Avoid Players at Risk of Rotation or Injury

Jay has stated in a couple of his videos that he prefers players who aren’t at risk of rotation or are injury prone. For instance he sounded a note of caution when answering a question about whether to buy Philippe Coutinho in a recent video of his. He described the Brazilian as the kind of player “Liverpool like to wrap in cotton wool”, highlighting his rotation risk and “not brilliant” injury track record. The same applies to United’s Phil Jones, and perhaps helps explain why he chose David de Gea over the centre back despite, as Mark points out, the greater chance of bonus points for the former Blackburn player.

Have Money on the Pitch, Not on the Bench

Jay focuses on making the most efficient use of his budget. It’s fairly logical to expect a higher points return from higher priced players, it’s the main reason FPL makes them more expensive at the start of the season. So his transfer policy tends to focus on his higher priced players.

As he explains in preview video for Gameweeks 19 to 21 he likes to make calculated gambles if one of his expensive players is out. This was the reason behind the Morata to Firmino move in Gameweek 17. Had he not made the transfer a budget player would have subbed in for Morata. Following the logic of player value, he wouldn’t expect a huge points return from that budget player.

In his opinion it is much better to have money on the pitch rather than sitting on your bench. The reason being is that there’s a much better chance the higher value player will return a decent number of points. And so it proved with Morata to Firmino. The Liverpool player has returned 14 points over the past two gameweeks compared to the two points Jay would have received from his bench.

Expecting higher points returns from more expensive players is a trait Jay shares with HoF legend Ville Ronka. Aside from also making the Morata to Firmino transfer recently, Ville keeps his cheap budget players benched. Even last season when the likes of Watford’s Etienne Capoue, Swansea’s Jordi Amat, and Stoke’s Joe Allen were enjoying their fine runs, he still expected greater returns from his higher priced players. This influenced his decision on who to start each week.

Of course there is nothing wrong with having a strong bench, to cover for unexpected injuries and rotations.

Jay looked at his highest priced player, Harry Kane, and decided that with a definite blank in Gameweek 21 preceeded by fixtures he didn’t think would bring great returns, it was the right move to re-invest that money his squad. Not only the right move but, a move that would cover the 12 points in hits.

This is where he is really gambling. His logic of ‘focusing on your most expensive players and making your budget work for you’ makes perfect sense, but any move which involves a 12 point hit is a risk. As I believe Triggerlips once wrote “with a hit the points spent are certain but the points gained are uncertain“.

We will have a better idea of how successful Jay’s “Kanexit” move has been at the end of Gameweek 21.

Total Immediate Gain From Transfers

Caveats to this table – It doesn’t reflect that:

• Transfers aren’t made with only one fixture in mind
• When Patience in an underperforming player finally pays off
• Points from newly transferred in players left on the bench are included.

Peter has taken 12 hits already this season, a total of 48 points. This continues his pattern from last season when he took 25 hits for a total of 100 points. Last season his dealings in the transfer market brought him 258 immediate transfer points after subtracting the cost of the hits. This year he is on -11 as his hits are yet to pay off.  

However this is a trend that is reflected across our top five. The average points gained from immediate transfers after hits is only 10 compared to 130 at Gameweek 22 last season. While the festive period may boost this season’s average, it would seem that timing our transfers correctly is proving much harder this year.

Matthew Jones (aka Numb) remains the worst decision maker in the transfer market with his moves costing him dearly in terms of immediate returns. His decision to remove Manchester City’s top scorer and current Captain Poll leader Raheem Sterling in Gameweek 17 is indicative of this veteran’s struggles this season.

TEMPLATE – Gameweek 18

Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more

Speroni, AN Other

Christensen, Otamendi, Naughton, Mee, Dunk

Salah, Hazard, Richarlison, Sterling, Loftus-Cheek

Kane, Morata, Calvert-Lewin

PLAYERS – Gameweek 18

AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER

*based on GW1 prices

Goalkeeper – £4.3m

Defender – £5.0m

Midfielder – £7.8m

Forward – £8.6m

In The Bank (ITB) – £1.4

FORMATION

A 3-4-3 formation was the most popular choice this week as it has been for the majority of the season. It has been chosen 61% of the time with 3-5-2 second most popular on 17%.

Some formations changed due to injury and rotation:

Peter started with a 4-4-2 in Gameweek 17 but Morata was replaced by Bournemouth’s Charlie Daniels.

Jay started with a 3-5-2 in Gameweek 18 but David Silva was replaced by Swansea’s Wilfried Bony.

Mark started with a 3-4-3 in Gameweek 17 but Morata was replaced by Crystal Palace’s Ruben Loftus Cheek.

GAMEWEEK 19 FORECAST

So far Peter and Matthew have made two transfers each. Mark has made one – Burnely’s James Tarkowski replaced by West Ham’s Angelo Ogbonna. Although Mark hinted earlier today that he may make further moves to shift to a five man midfield. 

Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) and Jay are yet to make their moves.

After his dramatic moves in the transfer market in Gameweek 18 Jay has a tough act to follow this time around.