Following his recent “Kanexit” transfer current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff was the lowest scoring manager in the top five career Hall of Fame (HoF). His third red arrow in two weeks, Jay slips to 310th in the overall rankings.
Later on in this article I give a detailed breakdown on how Kanexit is progressing. The bad news for Jay, who has taken Kane’s hat-trick in good humour, is that had he not sold Harry Kane he would currently lie 6th equal in the overall rankings.
Joining Jay in jettisoning the Spurs goalscoring sensation is Career HoF number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony). Despite using the funds from Kane’s sale to bring in and captain Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling, Peter slipped to 803,363 overall with a gameweek score of 71.
Remarkably Peter hasn’t improved on his Gameweek 1 rank (283,827) and he now faces the unwelcome headache of what do with Kane – buy him back before the double Gameweek or hope that Southampton will join the list of teams to have frustrated Spurs at Wembley?
This week’s highest scorer was career HoF number four Matthew Jones (aka Numb). His impressive 98 points came courtesy of returns from all but three of his players. Liverpool’s attacking trident of Mohamed Salah, Philippe Coutinho, and Roberto Firmino all delivered, as did Sterling and that man Kane.
Matthew moved into the top 100k for the first time this season, an impressive turnaround given that he was ranked nearly 3m overall in Gameweek 5.
Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) is now only 16 points outside the top 100k. His score of 82 points saw him move up to 173,598th place overall.
Career HoF number five Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) also scored well with 85 points, moving up to 25,699 overall. However he remains 76 points behind early season pacesetter Jay.
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 at the half way stage of the season. The vertical scale is from rank one to three million. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 190 points between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 90 points between 100k and one million. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit
So far this season nine different players have been handed the armband by our top five. Kane is the most popular having been chosen 47% of the time followed by Lukaku on 23%. 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.
Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard complete the most popular captain picks so far. Salah has been chosen 7% of the time and averages 13.8 points as captain, Hazard and Sterling have both been chosen 6% of the time. Hazard averages 14.8 points while Sterling averages an impressive 24.8 points.
Despite his impressive haul away to Burnley, Kane wasn’t captained by Graeme, Matthew or Mark. The problem with Kane this season is that he has been very unreliable. Managers have found it hard to predict when he will do well. His 9.4 points average reflects just how much he has let managers down so far this season.
TRANSFERS
TRANSFER SUCCESS – GAMEWEEK 19
Both Peter’s and Matthew’s decision to transfer in and captain Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling left them with positive immediate transfer points even after factoring in the cost of their hits.
Mark was less fortunate – despite transferring out two non-starting players his third transfer out, Crystal Palace’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek, scored more points than his three new players combined.
Timing transfers correctly remains a problem for our elite quintet this season. The average immediate transfer points after hits is much lower than last season (130 v 14). Why is it proving so much harder to time transfers correctly this season?
PETER’S GREATEST HITS
Last season Peter became known for successfully taking 25 transfer hits. This cost him 100 points but he made back 358 in immediate transfer points leaving him with a healthy balance of 258 points gained after hits.
This season, while he promised it would be different, is in fact proving very similar; 13 transfer hits made so far costing him 52 points. However he’s been less successful this year with only 50 immediate transfer points leaving him with a negative balance of -2.
When on his recent Scoutcast appearance, Peter was asked about his awful run of transfers between Gameweeks 14 and 16 in which he lost 42 points – this included the infamous Scott Dann to Marvin Zeegalaar debacle – Peter responded (see 15:22 on the Scoutcast):
“The key thing is that I looked at my team and I had four or five areas where I thought – I need to change this, and I was thinking if I do this step-by-step-by-step I’m going to be looking at a month of enforced transfers, which was certainly fire-fighting and I’m not going to enjoy. So I thought if I make the changes now, I know it’s going to hurt me in the short term but at least it sets my team up. That was the theory. Enter of course Moreno, Zeegelaar, Morata and co, but I think the reasoning behind it was sensible and last season when I was taking those hits it was paying off so it certainly can do. It is a sign of frustration, it’s a sign that things aren’t going well but it can pay off.”
There are signs that his Midas touch is returning. In the three Gameweeks following he has managed 15, 2, and 9 points – a respectable 26 point return on immediate transfers after hits.
However this includes removing Harry Kane, a player he described on the Scoutcast as a ‘comfort blanket’. Peter will no doubt be feeling a little chillier after Saturday’s events.
Intriguingly Peter also suggested that it wasn’t worth doing the hokey cokey with Kane, and that the Free Hit chip is an option.
With Kane now aiming to beat Alan Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record for a calendar year, will we see a sudden volte-face from the Nottingham Forest fan? Or will Peter become the first of the top five managers to use his Free Hit chip in the upcoming double Gameweek?
For now last year’s Career HoF number one is joint bottom of the Fantasy Football Scout mods and cons league. He shares last place with the FPL reigning champion Ben Crabtree. Both these elite managers will be hoping for a much stronger second half of the season.
TRANSFER SUCCESS – SEASON SO FAR
Caveats to this table:
It doesn’t reflect that Transfers aren’t made with only one fixture in mind
It doesn’t reflect when Patience in an underperforming player finally pays off
Points from newly transferred in players left on the bench are included.
Players transferred in and captained have their points counted double.
Matthew’s excellent 23 immediate transfer points this week was not enough to move him off the foot of the Overall Transfer Success table. He remains 17 points behind Peter, but at least he’s taken a step in the right direction.
KANEXIT EXAMINED
For the second week running Speroni, who would have played had Jay not sold Hennessey, out pointed David de Gea. However with Manchester United’s upcoming fixtures there’s every chance of de Gea getting a clean sheet soon.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek again did better than Richarlison. This is looking like a dubious transfer given that both Watford manager, Marco Silva, and player of the season, Sebastian Prödl, public stated the 20-year-old’s need for a rest.
The fixtures turned in Brighton’s favour just as Jay sold Pascal Groß. Jay understandably jumped ship this week from David Silva to teammate Kevin de Bruyne given the doubts about the Spaniard’s playing time. However it made no difference as Groß decided to rub salt in Jay’s wounds with his first double digit haul since Gameweek 12.
Kane to the now injured Wilfried Bony. Oh dear. Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin managed a point from the bench, Jay correctly identified that this would be a tough match for Everton and brought in Bony to cover this fixture. So he’s unlucky that Bony got injured but the less said about Kane’s transfer the better.
It’s not worked out so far for Jay. He’s still in the top 1,000 but with the extra 51 points if Kanexit hadn’t happened he would have 1,238 points and be 6th overall.
Let’s hope Brexit isn’t as bad as Kanexit, and the economy doesn’t suffer like Jay’s points total. Still, at least Jay can change the colour of his kit easily enough on FPL.
The TEMPLATE – Gameweek 19
Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more
Speroni, AN Other
Christensen, Otamendi, Ogbonna, Mee, Dunk
Salah, Hazard, Richarlison, Sterling, Loftus-Cheek
Kane, Firmino, Calvert-Lewin
PLAYERS – Gameweek 19
AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER
*based on GW1 prices
Goalkeeper – £4.3m
Defender – £5.0m
Midfielder – £8.3m
Forward – £8.0m
In The Bank (ITB) – £1.4
Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino and double gameweek player West Ham’s Angelo Ogbonna enter the top five template this week. There are 13 players in three or more teams, with the goalkeeper and 5th midfielder where our managers don’t see eye to eye.
For the first time this season the average price of a midfielder is higher than the average price of a forward. ‘Magic bean’ Calvert-Lewin is now the most selected forward. Peter is the only top five manager who doesn’t own him, having selected now out-of-favour teammate Oumar Niasse before Sam Allardyce’s appointment.
FORMATION
3-5-2 was the most popular choice this week with managers banking on returns from their midfield assets. It has been chosen 20% of the time, although 3-4-3 is the most popular by some margin on 58%.
Peter would also have used 3-5-2 had Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata not picked up a yellow card during his side’s midweek League Cup match. The Spaniard was replaced by Burnley’s Ben Mee in Peter’s starting eleven.
GAMEWEEK 20 – FORECAST
Suddenly Kane is back on the radar and appears the obvious captain choice for those who own him.
Double Gameweek 22 is also looming large on the horizon. Jay is the only manager not to own a single double Gameweek player, while Matthew and Mark both own two – West Ham’s Angelo Ogbonna and, of course, Kane.
Peter is another to own Ogbonna, which might indicate that he is not planning on using his Free Hit chip just yet. Managers have three free transfers available before the Gameweek 22 deadline and it will be intriguing to see how they use them.
Thank you for following these articles so far this year, I hope they have proved useful.
Good luck with your boxing day transfers, and above all – have a wonderful Christmas.
