“All I want for Christmas is….”
Merry Xmas everyone! All The Great and The Good wanted for Christmas was guaranteed starters and double-digit hauls. Some received presents from Santa, but others must think they are on the naughty list!
So, who are The Great and The Good? They are Jay Egersdorff, Ville Ronka, The Scout-casters (Joe, Andy, Az, David, Granville, and Mark), Eliteserien’s expert Niemi, and the last man standing Torres Magic.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Double the fun this week in this festive update with a look back at both GW18 and GW19.
In the words of Eric Morecambe, The Great and The Good played “all the right big hitters but not necessarily in the right order” over the gameweeks with mixed fortunes all round. Sterling and Sané are not been invited round for mince pies again.
GW18 was like the incident at the work Christmas party and was one to forget for all the managers. They all suffered red arrows.
The Christmas no.1 was Ville Ronka despite suffering two red arrows. In fact, over the two game weeks there was only 4 green arrows across the whole group which shows what challenging time it has been for all FPL managers. All The Great and The Good have lost ground on their GW17 position.
Joe was the top scorer with a combined 128 points with his decision to keep Salah, Kane, and Anderson proving wise as well as the smart purchase of the new “must have” Pogba. I will spare a tinselled comment for David who was above the most heralded Mark in GW18 but fell behind in GW19.
Picking over the leftovers Torres Magic has had a Christmas to forget with only 95 points, he has dropped from 5,000 to 26,000 in the overall rankings. He was one to suffer due to the Martial disappearance as well as the misfiring City midfielders. Yet, Jay Egersdorff has had the biggest fall over the two weeks going down by 174,000 places. Can he make his way up off the canvas again?
TRANSFERS AND HITS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week:
Andy
GW18 Fabianski, Sané, Hazard (Ryan, Son, Salah)
GW19 No transfer
Az
GW18 Sané, Ings (Brooks, Lacazette)
GW19 No transfer
David
GW18 Snodgrass (Hojbjerg)
GW19 Ings (Mitrovic)
Granville
GW18 Fabianski (Ryan)
GW19 Martial, Son (Hazard, Diangana)
Jay
GW18 Ings, Kamara, Hazard (Wilson, Lacazette, Hojbjerg)
GW19 No transfer
Joe
GW18 No transfer
GW19 Ings, Pogba (Mitrovic, Fraser)
Mark
GW18 No transfer
GW19 Pogba, Ings, Shaw (Anderson, Wilson, Balbuena)
Niemi
GW18 Martial (Sigurdsson)
GW19 Fabianski, Son (Ederson, Anderson)
Torres Magic
GW18 Hazard, Kamara (Aubameyang, Hojbjerg)
GW19 Martial (Anderson)
Ville Ronka
GW18 Aubameyang, Sterling (Kane, Sigurdsson)
GW19 No transfer
*transfers out are in brackets
The ghosts of Christmas past came back to haunt quite a few of the managers in GW18 with Andy the roughest of the rough. He took an eight-point hit to say goodbye to Son, Salah, and their 33 points.
Torres Magic and Az were also punished immediately by Aubameyang and Brooks respectively in GW18 for transferring them out. This must have hurt Az as Brooks’ goals were against his beloved Brighton.
A couple of The Great and The Good were drawn to the United presents in GW19 under the tree but whilst Martial proved to a dodgy pair of socks for Torres Magic and Granville, Pogba proved to be the best present ever for Joe and Mark.
Son also proved better than a gift voucher for Niemi and Granville although the latter did have to sell Hazard to free up the funds.
Despite Andy’s hitting the doubles hard over Xmas, he now has taken seven over the season, Mark is still the head hitman on nine.
TEMPLATE
After those transfers the template now looks like this:
Fabianski, Hamer/Patricio
Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Doherty, Alonso, Alexander-Arnold/Schindler/Digne
Sane, Richarlison, Sterling, Anderson/Hazard/Salah
Kane, Jiménez, Ings
The template appeared to be drunk and disorderly staggering from big hitter to knee jerk. Hazard arrived and Salah, one of the original ten out ten members, was kicked out in GW18 despite 47 points in the last 4 weeks. He only regained his spot thanks to a couple of transfers out for Anderson and Hazard in GW19.
Elsewhere, we saw Ryan and Balbuena leave the squad and up front we saw Ings cement his place as the third striker. Wilson, Aubameyang, and Mitrovic have left the party early. Ings did face competition from Kamara who was the preferred choice briefly in GW18 before a surge from the Saints forward.
TEAM INVESTMENT AND VALUE
Average Cost of Player looks like this across the teams based on week 1 prices:
Goalkeeper – 4.4
Defender – 5.0
Midfielder – 8.6
Forward – 7.6
ITB – 0.8
A big swing in the budget towards midfield over the last couple of weeks and its now at its highest point over this season. Granville has retaken the total value Christmas crown at 105.3 but Mark and Torres Magic are not far behind.
FORMATION AND BENCH
Much talk before Xmas of the return of the “power five” midfield and it proved to be the case with 3-5-2 deployed 55% of the time over the two game weeks. This is a comeback for this formation which had previously been ignored by the majority apart from Ville who has deployed it 53% of his season.
GW19 saw the first signs of the feared rotation with Torres Magic, Granville, Niemi and Joe having to use the magic plank. Joe, David and Az probably wished more rotation had occurred with Digne’s 17 points staring at them in GW19.
CAPTAINS AND DIFFERENTIALS
The big news was that GW18 proved that when it came to captain choice David was “not the messiah but just a very naughty boy”. His choice of Sané proved his undoing but he was very unlucky in a City/Palace result that few would have predicted. He was quick to go back to his non-blanking ways in GW19 with Salah.
In fact, it was a pattern that repeated itself for the rest of the managers with blanks for all in GW18 as they split themselves between Sterling and Sane. GW19 saw them all returning to form with Kane, Salah and Hazard the favourite picks. Mark now leads the way in terms of average captain’s score at 20.1.
On the differential picks I still think Aguero could have a big impact for Niemi and Mitrovic showed enough versus Wolves to make me believe Mark is right to keep hold.
CONCLUSION
So, with part one of the festive game weeks out of the way and the next ones just around the corner there is barely time to get indigestion from the turkey before we ponder our next moves.
Christmas is a time for friends, family, and FPL: with many casuals losing track of GW deadlines and the latest team sheets now is the time for many to make their move up the rankings.
However, the FPL picture is at its most baffling and The Great and The Good appear to be arguing amongst themselves as to who are the best big hitters. In GW18 whilst Ronka bought Aubameyang Torres Magic was busy selling him. Even the previous untouchable Salah has been kicked out the template but then come back a GW later.
In addition, the United bandwagon appears to be a fully-fledged locomotive waiting to sweep aside anyone to dare to go out without one of their attacking assets.
Yet rather than chase after the latest new shiny toy perhaps now is the best time to be patient and wait for the points rather than overindulging on the latest knee jerk. Let’s see how The Great and The Good approach the new year sales?
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, remember don’t have nightmares and have a very happy new year!
