Scout Notes

How Huddersfield were able to frustrate Wolves assets

Against Wolves on Tuesday night, Huddersfield got their first Premier League victory since the last time they faced the newly-promoted side.

It was a result that ended a 15-match winless run for the Terriers but for those who started Wolves defensive assets it was hugely frustrating.

We’ve taken a look at why Nuno Espirito Santo’s men struggled in such an appealing fixture on the opening night of Gameweek 28 in this latest Scout Notes article…

Huddersfield Town 1-0 Wolves

Goals: Steve Mounié (£5.8m)

Assists: Karlan Grant (£5.0m)

Wolves’ defensive problems were laid bare once again as they could not even keep a clean sheet away at struggling Huddersfield. The Terriers came into Gameweek 28 with the worst attacking record in the league and in the four matches prior to Tuesday night, they were bottom of the league shots in the box and 19th for efforts on target.

Despite that, Huddersfield were able to largely dominate the Tuesday night meeting, recording more than double Wolves’ totals for goal attempts and shots in the box. Meanwhile, the visitors did not manage a single effort on target, but the Terriers recorded three. For large spells of the game, Huddersfield were spending so much time on the front foot that Wolves could barely get out of their own half. It was reminiscent of the last time the two sides met, which also happens to be the last time the Terriers tasted victory in the league.

Jan Siewert will be pleased with the performance though as he actually made a huge eight changes from the side that lost 2-0 at Newcastle in Gameweek 27. The only players to keep their places from the trip to St James’ Park were Jonas Lössl (£4.4m), Christopher Schindler (£4.2m) and Jonathan Hogg (£4.4m). Siewert is now faced with a difficult decision ahead of the Gameweek 29 trip to Brighton as many of his supposed second-choice options made cases to be in the first XI.

“The lads deserve that so much; they left everything on the pitch tonight. We showed the different face we wanted to today. I have to make decisions and I believe in all the players. Tonight they showed why.” – Jan Siewert

Admittedly, Wolves were actually close to their first clean sheet on the road since Gameweek 8, because Huddersfield had spurned a whole host of chances in the game. Steve Mounié (£5.8m) was the key goal threat for the Terriers but had to wait a while before finding the net. In the second half, he missed a golden opportunity at the back post, heading into the side-netting and convincing half the stadium that he had actually scored. Later in the game, he was just wide with an effort from the edge of the box before prodding in a deserved winner at the death.

“Like everyone, Steve Mounié has a good game today. He deserved that goal. We’re all so happy that we did it.” – Jan Siewert

That goal was created by some hard work from January arrival Karlan Grant (£5.0m) who was another impressive performer. Mounié was the only player to shoot more often at the John Smith’s Stadium than Grant, who had three efforts on goal. But it was more than just his threat that the former Charlton Athletic forward brought to the side. He was a willing runner for much of the 90 minutes and dropped deep to apply pressure on Wolves in midfield. It was certainly a display that should keep him in the manager’s thinking for Gameweek 29.

Huddersfield were able to keep Wolves quiet for much of the evening as Alex Pritchard (£4.8m) was given strict instructions to mark Rúben Neves (£4.9m) out of the game. It was a role which he seemed to relish and, as a consequence, many other attacking players it restricted Wolves to just seven efforts on goal and, as already mentioned, none of which were on target. Despite registering more penalty box shots than any other player in the four Gameweeks preceding this one, Raúl Jiménez (£6.8m) had just one in West Yorkshire.

Also key to Huddersfield’s stifling of Wolves was centre-back Jon Stanković (£3.9m) operating in a defensive midfield role. It was his first start since the Gameweek 2 thrashing at Manchester City, which he actually scored in, but he did not look rusty on Tuesday night. The 23-year-old put in a commanding performance against Wolves, with no player winning more tackles than him in the match and Phillip Billing (£4.5m) his only colleague to better his Clearances, Blocks and Interceptions score of five. The Danish midfielder also put in an impressive display, often winning the aerial battles against Wolves’ central midfield players.

“Jon Stanković showed his quality tonight. He can play in midfield with a defensive mind and that was important tonight, as Wolves are very good in the transition game.” – Jan Siewert

For Wolves, this was the third match in a row in which they struggled to get going, and did not respond well to being pegged back. While it took Huddersfield until the closing stages to actually find the net, it was clear that they were the better side even from just the first 15 minutes. Nuno’s men have not done well this season in such circumstances and it was the same again on Tuesday.

“In the first half we weren’t able to play, we rushed our game too much. When we had possession it’s clear we could unbalance Huddersfield, but we didn’t too many times, we only had a couple of situations. We were not so clinical, had no shots on goals. We have nothing to complain about. Every time the play broke we allowed too much distance, so it’s harder, we have to play close to each other. We were trying to give energy and find other solutions. Sometimes things were OK, sometimes not so good, but the players tried. This is the most important thing.” – Nuno Espirito Santo

As already mentioned, Jiménez bucked his recent trend of good statistical form in Yorkshire, but it is starting to become a regular occurrence for Diogo Jota (£6.1m) to have a bad game. This was the third match in four that he failed to register a single shot on target and the third in a row that saw him withdrawn before the 70-minute mark. Crucially, Wolves have been chasing goals in each of those matches, Ivan Cavaleiro (£5.2m) turned to as a viable alternative in Nuno’s mind. That does not bode well moving forward, although it is, of course, Cardiff at home up next, making it hard to move Jota on.

“Consistency in football is very difficult. We have to try to the end. We came from a good run, today was not the best performance that we can have, but we have to bounce back Saturday.” – Nuno Espirito Santo

Wolves are starting to become something of an enigma in the Premier League this season, as their results become harder and harder to predict. They have caused the top six plenty of problems since returning to the top flight, drawing away with Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal, beating Chelsea and Spurs and knocking Liverpool out of the FA Cup. However, they have struggled when facing the so-called lesser sides, with Southampton the only member of the division’s current bottom five that Wolves have beaten. This sort of dilemma is even now making decisions about their assets hard to make, and Nuno doesn’t really know the answer to the conundrum either.

“If I had that answer… it’s very hard to explain. (We) prepare well and do the same things. It’s very hard to answer that question.” – Nuno Espirito Santo

Owners of Ryan Bennett (£4.2m) should be aware that he is now just one yellow card away from suspension, after picking up his ninth of the season against Huddersfield. If he collects another one between now and Wolves’ March 30 then he will receive a two-game league ban.

Despite all that doom and gloom about Wolves, Matt Doherty (£5.4m) provided one or two positive signs in Tuesday night’s defeat. He continued to be an attacking outlet for Wolves down the right flank and he was unfortunate not to come away with some points. In the first half, he met the ball at the far post but could only guide it wide. Doherty’s runs down the right flank offered a lot of threat but ultimately he was not quite given the service at the right time and found himself offside a lot.

Huddersfield Town XI (4-3-1-2): Lössl; Durm, Kongolo, Schindler, Duhaney (Bacuna 45′); Billing, Stanković (Kachunga 82′), Hogg; Pritchard (Mooy 78′); Mounié, Grant.

Wolverhampton Wanderers XI (3-5-2): Patrício; Boly, Coady, Bennett; Jonny, Moutinho (Gibbs-White 66′), Neves, Dendoncker, Doherty; Jota (Cavaleiro 66′), Jiménez (Costa 78′).

940 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Why are so many top managers struggling?
    MINUS FOUR
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 6 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Anyone got any theories about why big name managers like Ville Ronka and Jay Egersdorff are having such shocking seasons? Is there something markedly different happening in the game this season compared to previous seasons? Are they playing differently themselves / trying to be too different / feeling the pressure (in Jay's case with his FPL 'masterclass')?

    It's difficult to fathom how it can all go so wrong. Luck plays its part, of course, but it's not everything or we wouldn't bother playing this game in the first place.

    Can we learn anything from their experiences this season?

    1. MINUS FOUR
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Didn't mean to be top post. Awkward.

      1. Baps hunter
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Actually worthy of being top post, or how should that be phrased. Compare to any rmt or a/b/c question 🙂

    2. IRBOX ⚽
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      The information readily available now seems to have superseded even the most accomplished mangers

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        But surely it's got to be more than just everyone else catching up? That is a massive drop down the rankings and no fightback at all the way Mark did after a dodgy start to the season. There has to be more to it.

        1. IRBOX ⚽
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          It’s a numbers game.. more players means more quality players who know what they are doing.

      2. Pieterke30
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Their luck turned.

    3. Kiwivillan
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Don't sell Salah. Hazard and Rich are mercurial or fall off a cliff like last season. Not sure if applicable but possibilities

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Fair points. I just had a quick look at Jay's team and on his GW4 Wildcard he got a midfield including Walcott, Mkhitaryan, Neves, and Dilva. On Wildcard! Not sure I can make a case for the next few poor GWs being bad luck. That midfield reads like massive overthinking / going differential for the sake of it.

        1. Kiwivillan
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Those are awful picks. That's jumping the shark.

          1. MINUS FOUR
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 6 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            My thoughts exactly. Awful picks however you slice it. Smells like pressure.

        2. avfc82
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Easy to criticise now, but the players you mention above were good picks at the time, between them they'd returned 5 goals and had a got a few assists between them over the first 3 GW's. My midfield in GW4 included Walcott and Hughes.

          1. MINUS FOUR
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 6 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            I suppose. It might have been performing, but even so I don't think it's just hindsight that tells you it was risky midfield. Mkhi was never nailed, Walcott is Walcott. Take a punt for sure, but multiple punts on your midfield using your early Wildcard? I don't know.

            1. avfc82
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • Has Moderation Rights
              • 14 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              I'm not sure, who were the go to midfielders in GW4? If I remember rightly, Richarlison was banned, and his strategy was to back Mane over Salah which wasn't a terrible idea looking at his early season numbers. Difficult to say without analysing his team / moves in detail though.

    4. jia you
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      ...and funny how Mark has stepped back, letting his wife make his transfers for him half the time, and is still killing it!
      On another note, all managers that wave patreon about I wish the worst of luck to 😉

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Mark's fightback is really impressive. Not a fanboy or anything like that, I just like seeing a manager who knows what they're doing but is way behind in OR and mini-leagues then take an aggressive and attacking yet considered approach and turn it all around in half a season. He was a long way back. That's not luck.

        1. jia you
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Same, not a fanboy either as you say, but he does have a great understanding of the game and plays it in a fun way also! He was head and shoulders the one to listen to on the Scoutcast imo.

    5. The 5% Team
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Having Rico and Button as your keepers is just bad in general.
      And some bad luck with keeping Alonso, switching to Pereira. And double Wolves defense also didn't go to well the last months

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        But these are small issues and they don't add up to hundreds of points.

        When I look back at my 'bad' decisions and 'bad' luck, it is crazy how many points have been left behind that were there for the taking. The worst of them include: benched Digne (17 points); benched Rashford (12 points); benched Jimenez (12 points); benched Deulofeu (23 points); captained Sane DGW (1 point); didn't put the armband on Sterling purely due to irrational rotation fear despite great fixture (19 points lost).

        Everyone has some bad luck and does some stupid things over the course of a season. But being ranked 478k at this point is genuine casual level surely.

        1. diesel001
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          It is not 100s of points though to the Top 10k. It is about 150 at most.

          That is missing out on three captain hauls - one from Aguero, one from Salah and one from Aubameyang.

          The captaincy is massive and if you get it wrong then it hurts you bad, particularly early in the season.

          1. MINUS FOUR
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 6 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            You're right, big captaincy hauls can make a huge difference. Again I'll offer a counter argument (a reasonably unpopular one): if you know captaincy is such a key factor, why not use this knowledge and all the tools available (ownership, captaincy polls, etc) to attempt to protect yourself as much as possible? I'm talking about when there's a popular and obvious captain pick that you don't even have in your team and you know a big haul will crush your rank - buy that player for a hit and problem solved. This is where I don't believe in 'patience'. There's a lot to be said for trying to ensure no highly owned player absolutely burns you in one gameweek. It can't be done all the time, but it can be done a lot of the time.

            1. diesel001
              • 7 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Usually that works. This season has been more difficult for that IMO. Because timing of big hitters has been more important. All of Salah, Aguero, Hazard, Sterling, Auba etc. have gone through cold spots when not expected.

              FPL is a leader's game IMO - it is very hard to chase because the obvious transfers don't help you when you are behind as most are making them. Then you punt and it is much harder to get a punt right.

              1. MINUS FOUR
                • Fantasy Football Scout Member
                • 6 Years
                5 years, 1 month ago

                Agree with this. Chasing in FPL is very difficult.

          2. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
            • 10 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Yep that Man City DW cost me 100 points on my ML leader. Kun (C) /Sterling v Sane (C)/KDB

    6. Holmes
      • 10 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I guess their main weapon "patience" is not working this year.

      1. Anathallo
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I think this has definitely been a big factor.

      2. jia you
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        that is exactly it, patience doesn't work every season but when it does it's a powerful weapon!

        1. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          So then to play devil's advocate, isn't good management being flexible / adaptable to change? Are these famous patient managers the Sarris of FPL sticking rigidly to a formula that is not working?

          I've never played a season as a dedicated and patient manager, I don't know what that would be like, but clearly in the past it has worked. Maybe times are changing.

          1. Anathallo
            • 14 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            You could say that, but whose to say patience might not work from here on in?

            1. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              It may well turn out that way. You also don't have to be 'patient' or 'maverick' all of the time. Nothing wrong with mixing and matching depending on the situation.

          2. Holmes
            • 10 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Its hard to leave a strategy that has been working since years...

            1. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              True

      3. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        That's true. Maybe it is that simple. Perhaps this season is the massive exception to the rule.

        1. Pep bites Kun
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Agree that Walcott, Mkhitaryan, Neves, and Dilva were never going to be great decisions for the importance of WC. So unfortunately, no amount of patience would have paid off. Simply a bad call and every great mgr deserves one ...

      4. Mr. Hindsight
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I remember there was a question some time back in Q&A article about when does being patient turn into being stubborn.
        A lot of the time Mark would have stayed patient with a few players which would have worked out for him, a lot of times Jay or Ronka would have gone hell for leather with a couple of transfers & it would have backfired massively. Speaking of personal experience of this season.

    7. El-Kloppico
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I personally think the fact that all sort of applications and ready-cooked stats are given everywhere online, it gives others more data to close the gap on the best managers.

      1. El-Kloppico
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Even chip strategies are shared andgiven all possibilities now. Makes it boring and allows casuals to just copy & paste to get honorable scores.

        1. Gentle_Turks
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          'casual' must be one of the most pointless, dumb headed and overused words on here.

          1. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
            • 10 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            as is Gravless 🙂

            1. Pep bites Kun
              • 7 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              as is tasteless 😉

    8. Anathallo
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      There's obviously a luck element in the game and even if you make mostly 'right' decisions sometimes things are still going to go wrong. Mark has had less good seasons in the past, I think it's just going to happen. We can look to things like claiming to be a guru etc taking a toll (for me personally I can't see how it wouldn't add more pressure and affect decision making) but that is just speculative. There is more info out there for all but I think ultimately it's not a game where you can guarantee a great finish every time. While those that have that record are very good managers i still think that ultimately they are statistical anomalies and at some point they will have less good seasons too.

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I mostly agree with you. Although I still think if you're quite a strategic player and you keep eye on everything (eye test, underlying stats, form, fixtures, ownership percentages, gut feeling etc) it should be difficult to finish outside the top 100k. There are some pretty dodgy teams out there with a lot of poor decisions being made. Yes, finishing with an extremely high OR every single season must be so hard or almost impossible, but I'm genuinely baffled how a manager like Jay can end up at almost 500k.

        1. pingissimus
          • 5 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          But what is the distance between 500k and top 100k? It’s around 100 points - easy enough to make up with BGWs DGWs and chips.

          There are plenty floating around the 100k mark who will sink like a stone if my ML is anything to go by. Chips played, no subs and kiwis have team value

      2. Baps hunter
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I read "somewhere" that there are probably only about 20 managers with 3 consecutive seasons in top 10k. That suggests imo that statistically top 10k every season is not possible without good luck.

        1. goriuanx
          • 13 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Surely more than that. Not to call anyone out but some people have multiple teams and have finished top 10k in many consecutive seasons.

          Maybe you're referring to top 1k?

          1. GREEN IS GOOD
            • 7 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            If people have multiple teams then yes they can have lots of top 10k finishes, but they won't show up under the same team ID.

            All things being equal, luck comes into the equation.

          2. toystory2wasok
            • 10 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            i mean yeah, if you cheat at the game and stack your odds with multiple teams, you're going to do well...

        2. Kiwivillan
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Sure not top 1k? I'm 1k 11k and currently 7k and there's more consistent managers in the game longer. 4 seasons ago 58k massive leap since previous 7 seasons coincided with becoming a member and utilising stats tables heavily

        3. Gimli son of Gloin
          • 11 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Definitely not true.. possibly 1k. Seems more competitive this year though, and will be more so going forward with increased popularity of the league in the US

        4. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
          • 10 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Have to mean top 1k - I had 4 on the spin inside 7k...humble brag central this comment 🙂

        5. RedLightning
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 13 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Fantasy Football Geek always looks for such managers, and then monitors ten of them through the season.
          He found it particularly difficult to find them this season, so it must be getting more difficult to finish top 10k in 3 consecutive seasons.
          His website appears to be down for a couple of days now - anyone know what happened?

        6. RedLightning
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 13 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          FFG's comment was that he suspected only about 20 FPL managers had finished top 10k three times in the last three seasons, although many others might have done so in the past.
          If you look at our Live Hall of Fame, then the leading qualifiers are:
          Grant Barclay (3rd) (6/6 in top 10k, 2 of them in top 1k)
          Fabio Borges (8th) (3/3 in top 10k, 1 in top 1k)
          Mladen G (12th) (3/3 in top 10k, none in top 1k)
          Petteri Ylimaa (13th) (4/4 in top 10k, 2 in top 1k)
          Stuart Wright (14th) (4/4 in top 10k, 1 in top 1k)
          Hooky (19th) (4/4 in top 10k, 1 in top 1k)
          Mark Hurst (22nd( (3/3 in top 10k, 1 in top 1k)
          Cak Juris (25th) (3/3 in top 10k, 1 in top 1k)
          Harry von Behr (28th) 4/4 in top 10k, none in top 1k)
          Paul Williams (34th) (3/3 in top 10k, 1 in top 1k)

          None of these have had more than 2 appearances in the top 1k in the past three seasons, but FFG may have underestimated the number with 3 top 10k finishes in the last three.

          Others in the top 400 of our Live Hall of Fame with 3 top 10k finishes in the last three seasons have current Live Hall of Fame rankings of 53rd, 58th, 61st, 66th, 74th, 75th, 79th, 92nd, 110th, 136th, 159th, 166th, 184th, 216th, 238th, 265th, 280th, 282nd, 302nd, 388th.

    9. The Rumour Mill
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      You only need to misread a few situations and miss a few captaincies and you can easily find yorself way back.

      1. Kiwivillan
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Very true

    10. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      More interested in VR, who carries himself with some dignity, as opposed to a self proclaimed FPL expert.

      1. jia you
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Damn straight, Jay seems a nice guy but his 'FPL masterclass' come on, show some class and tone it down a bit 😉
        But at least he has a track record, there are clowns with no track record trying to con innocents out of coin...sickening imo!

        1. goriuanx
          • 13 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Haha very true.

          I'm a massive fan of Ronke though! Rarely hear from him and when you do, he's quite humble.

          1. Fitzy.
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            He's had a strange season for sure. Ranked 800 odd after GW16, and 12 red arrows since. Still inside the top 50k, so not a shocking season at all, but given his record, he would think it is.

            1. goriuanx
              • 13 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Yep, only 'shocking' by his own very high standards. Perfectly acceptable for the rest of us. Would love hear his thoughts on his own season.

          2. jia you
            • 7 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            agree, he's what I like about the game, unlike these podcasting jiveassing money-grabbing (ok, I'll stop now hehe)

          3. Kazza_
            • 12 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            where have u heard from VR - i thght he never posts online or anything?

            please share if there is anything from him please

    11. The Polymath
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Bad luck. Like myself I am doing everything right but player rotation and captain blanking is becoming harder to predict.

      1. Anathallo
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Do you genuinely think you're doing everything right? It can't all be bad luck surely? I say this as someone not doing great - so not throwing stones!

        1. The Polymath
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 8 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Mostly right, but I do feel my luck will change and so will the top players in the coming weeks.

    12. bigbudgie
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      How badly are they doing? Depends what you define as bad?

    13. Annie
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Ville isn't having a shocking season though is he. Could easily make top 10k, which wouldn't look out of place with his past few seasons.

      1. Fitzy.
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Exactly.

      2. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Fair point. I meant by his incredibly high standards that something is very different. Certainly not a 'shocking' rank.

        1. Annie
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 11 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          I'm surprised he's gone with no City/United cover in recent weeks, gamble just hasn't paid off I guess. May be the pressure with more competition.

    14. King Kohli
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Personally I'm finding this to be the toughest season in a very long time.
      Not sure why though, probably due to not being ruthless enough to remove the under performers after 3-4 blanks.

      1. Pep Pig
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I started the season ok then had a terrible time around October/November. I drastically went from 88k to 939k with red arrow after red arrow. I was trying to be too clever.... too different and it was hard to enjoy the game during that period. I actually gave my head a wobble and changed my thought process from GW15 to turn things around. What I was doing is looking at teams above me in my ML and tried looking for clever moves to outscore them. It was effecting my captain's choice and options.

        I did realise I was getting it all wrong and started building my team with players I thought would do well whether my rivals had them or not. That thrown in with a bit of luck along the way, I've climbed to 150k and been enjoying it much more.

        It's such a long season and I will make sure I don't repeat my early mistakes again next season. I have made this all about me, me, me! Though maybe the pressures of low rank on the better known FPL managers lead them to similar decisions in an attempt to beat the template more often than not.

        1. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          I definitely agree that trying to beat the template comes with a lot of risk. It's important not to follow it too closely just for the sake of it, but equally important not to pick massive differentials just for the sake of it. There's a balance in there somewhere!

          1. Pep Pig
            • 7 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Indeed mate. The template is there for a reason but it can be beaten by making just a few changes. I'm not overly template at the moment but I have a strategy and plan in place which is doing OK. I took a bit of your advice in earlier in the season to change my main focus on who I think will score the most points in a particular week. It sounds quite obvious, but doing that whilst not focusing on other elements such as rival teams seems to have paid off. I avoided Sterling due to the ML leader at the time owning him. I put him in despite that as he was such a threat and he since bizarrely took him out and I overtook him. (not just due to that but it was a factor)
            The Liverpool and Arsenal game is massive for us both tonight so I wish you luck.

            p.s. I also think Son is going to run riot at Chelsea mate I really do 😉

            1. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              It does sound obvious, yet for some reason it does seem to get all too frequently ignored. The easiest time to pick points is right before they happen, not 4 or 5 GWs in advance. That's why I like making late transfers based on players I have a good feeling about with excellent immediate fixtures. Points are everything.

              Yes mate good luck to you as well! Could go either way.

            2. RedLightning
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • Has Moderation Rights
              • 13 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Yes, template isn't everything - just go for the players you expect to score the most points.
              But if you are looking at templates, look at the right ones - the top 10k or the top 50, not your mini-league (except right at the end of the season) - and try to anticipate likely changes to the template between last week and next week.

      2. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        There are some players who folks held onto too long for sure, but It’s not as simple as removing players after blanks, what if you removed Salah after his blanks before bourenmouth hattrick? Or Sterling before GW23, Haz before Huddersfield etc

    15. Viper
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      This is my worst season for about 10 years. The amount of information been throwing around now is crazy. Its actually lead to me second guessing myself when everyone seems to have a theory to back up a certain player.

      The amount of information has also lead to a lot more managers been spoon fed the right choices. Attempting to break the mould has been costly

    16. Numb
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      It’s simple - the explosion in informed managers due to a much increased amount of readily available information, via things like Twitter, Reddit, etc. You don’t even need to spend much time finding it - follow a few key accounts on Twitter and the moves that most good managers are making each week become obvious. This seems to have really taken off this season so there are maybe 500k managers all doing pretty much the same thing (complete guess).

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I'm cynical about it being that simple. Simply following popular transfers every week sounds like a good way to have a terrible season as you wouldn't be maximising the potential of multiple transfers within your own squad. Maybe it's a good way to finish in the top 500k.

        1. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Agreed, I don’t think it’s much of a factor at all - it’s more to do with what the guys are doing/not doing his season, rather than what others are doing

          1. MINUS FOUR
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 6 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Agreed

    17. umerlfc
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      This is definitely one tough FPL season and I kinda like it since that makes it more challenging.
      We never really developed a stable template throughout the season, always changing.
      Missing most points from big hitters (Son, Auba, Kun Salah, Sterling) and sticking with some players for too long (Alonso, Richarlison, Fanderson). So majorly not getting players at the right time!
      Plus with loads of options performing, it poses a great challenge for managers to make the right moves.

    18. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      It’s very odd that Jay, Ville and FPL General are all simultaneously having very bad seasons relative to their usual standards.

      Many factors involved, the captaincy is a major one:

      - None of them captained Kun GW2 (20 points)
      - None of them captained Haz G5 (20 points)
      - None of them captained Kun GW25 (19 points)
      - None of them captained Kun GW26 (17 points)
      - They all captained Sané GW26 (1 point)

      That’s at least a 100 point swing right there which easily bumps them up massively in the OR’s

      It’s also still pre-chip usage, and a well used set of B.B., FH & TC can gain 100 point son the field easily enough so thy could yet come back, but not to top 1k type levels.

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Not that I don't see your point, because I do, but in terms of that captaincy criteria as a 'key factor', I personally got only 1 of those 5 correct myself (Kun C in GW2). I didn't captain any of the others, and I did captain Sane for 1 point in GW26. So by that logic, with an 80 point swing, I should be winning FPL.

        My point being that every manager has their own tale of woe as well as success stories. I've got loads of both. Overall my captaincy picks have been pretty underwhelming. But at the same time, after all the highs and lows, my feeling is that a good experienced manager should probably never be quite that far back in the rankings. You have to be able to manage luck to a certain extent, even though you'll never be able to control it.

        1. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Its certainly not the case that in order to have a good season a manager needs to have gotten those 5 captains right, but it does appear that captaincy is a major factor (amongst others) for the three specific guys we’re talking about.

          I think the other unfortunate thing is outliers - over a long period of time these guys have demonstrated countless top 10k’s & top 1k’s between them, yet are all outside the top 10k this year, and vice-versa where you have demonstrated a long history without a top 10k but are inside the top 100 this year which is fantastic.

          I think in a game as complex and as simple as FPL you will never get a one size fits all explanation that addresses every outlier, but for the three specific guys we’re talking about, captaincy certainly does appear to be one of the common threads contributing to their common uncharacteristically poor seasons

          1. MINUS FOUR
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 6 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            I take your point. The fact they all missed all of those is quite interesting, and probably not a coincidence. But even so, like I said, I got them all wrong as well except for one.

            In terms of history, it's potentially pointless getting into because I already know the obvious counter argument and we'll go round in circles, but whether or not anyone cares to believe it last season season was my first at playing FPL the way it should be played. I stand by that 25k rank as being the best I was able to achieve that season, with zero excuses. All the previous seasons however I was a genuine casual. I didn't know why prices changed, I didn't know about FFS or underlying stats, I didn't read or listen to any opinions at all. I simply logged in and made a transfer from an underperforming player to one of the top 10 scorers for their position that I could afford.

            Of course none of that means this season isn't necessarily my 'outlier' anyway. My point is only that in my opinion this season can't be judged against all my others in quite the same way. Easy to say, I know. But I will happily come back every season moving forward and hold my hand if it's a shocker, because I am very far from a casual these days.

            1. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Also if you looked at my current season I doubt you would suggest it was all about getting lucky. I don't think I've had abnormal slices of luck or flukey outcomes based on nothing. I've actually made an awful lot of errors / had some pretty unfortunate events happen.

      2. LosBlancos
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Woah, me too... maybe I should start an FPL tw account 😀

      3. Deulofail
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Just for information's sake:

        Jay: 350 captain points.171 pts behind top10k
        General: 396 captain points. 151 pts behind top 10k
        Ville: 432 captain points. 54 pts behind top 10k

        (Jay 352 if he swapped C with VC!)

        ZBloomers: 416 captain points. 15 pts behind top 10k
        Munday: 490 captain points. 10 pts inside top 10k
        Mark: 464 captain points. 52 pts inside top 10k

        No-one in the top 7 of mods and cons league has less than 400 captain points... (Spencer in 7th has 509! 32 pts Behind top 10k.)

        ...Until you get to TM in 8th (374 captain points. 43 behind top 10k)

        (I guess Gargatron takes into account yesterday's games which could throw it a bit, and it's not exactly conclusive with so few people. Just interesting to peruse, perhaps)

        1. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Interesting indeed. So my captain score total is only 402 points, which is behind Ville Ronka and way behind Mark and Munday, but I'd be well ahead in the mods & cons league. In fact if I had Munday's captaincy scores I would currently be winning FPL.

          Also had I swapped all C to VC I'd have 448, so 46 points than my actual captain total!

          What this tells me is that blaming OR on captaincy alone does not hold water. A lot goes into an FPL season, and no one thing or event is the reason for your rank imo. Good luck and bad luck are had by all, to varying degrees of course.

    19. the Penman
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Arguably FFS’s own Mark is an illustration of one factor I’ve not seen called out - over-exposure. The more high profile you get, the more difficult it seems to be to keep on playing the game you want to as opposed to the game you’re constantly being told to play by the people who are watching/listening/following you.

      1. the Penman
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Mark is demonstrating how he can get on with playing his own game with great success when he’s taken the step back from the spotlight and only has his own scrutiny in his decisions and plans.

        1. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          I totally disagree with this as well - Mark has had 4 top 1k finishes and 4 top 10k finishes whilst “in the limelight”

          He’s not even in the top 10k this year whilst “out of the limelight”

          1. MINUS FOUR
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 6 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            I think you and Joe are right. I was forgetting just how good his record was "in the limelight". That said, for others the limelight may well be a factor in a way it's not for Mark.

          2. the Penman
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Aye, I know, but for this season specifically he’s in a different place to a lot of the big managers we’re talking about. Previously he’s handled the spotlight well, others clearly aren’t this season.

            1. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
              • 14 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              I understand what you’re saying, but Ville Ronka has never even done an interview on FPL, let alone a website or a podcast and has gone from consistent top 1k to outside top 10k... how long have Jay & FPL General been doing media duties -it possibly could be a factor for them

          3. Fitzy.
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            He's actually in the top 2k

            1. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
              • 14 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Yes he is 🙂 but he has had much better seasons whilst in the spotlight is the point

        2. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Definitely. It would be tough having so many people telling you what you're doing wrong or about to do wrong. Hard to stick to your guns in the face of criticism unless you constantly get it right.

      2. J0E
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I'm not sure that's the case. Mark has a long track record of great finishes, in fact his best was very much in the limelight with media appearances. Alot of it has to do with perception of the game each season and designing a strategy around it. A key success with him is having a strategy of going light up top - but that was something he said very publicly on videos here at the start of the season.

        Some other seasons a strategy won't work, sometimes they will... but don't think it has anything to do with over exposure.

        The proliferation of FPL advice and correspondingly more managers knowing what they are doing has been over the last three years or so. Over that time I've been in the spotlight on the scoutcast etc and have had my worst finish - but also one of my best.

        There can be a danger in the spotlight of playing to the crowd with transfers, or not backtracking on a strategy even if it makes sense, as you have publicly aligned yourself with it. I've done that before and it can be costly...and do try not to now. It is something to be aware of though.

        1. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Yeah, that does all make sense actually. 'Over exposure' might have been an oversimplification. Mark's record does speak for itself, and if I were him I think I'd be proud of this season more than most others simply due to how it took a gigantic comeback, which is not easy when everyone is saying things like "I can't make any progress because of the template" and "everyone has access to all the info and good picks now".

        2. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Also Joe, I've never been able to personally thank you for calling me James Bond! My girlfriend, friends and family find it absolutely hilarious.

          1. J0E
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • Has Moderation Rights
            • 14 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Ha, that's you! I do hope you wear a tux and drink martinis when you make a transfer. 🙂

            1. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Well now I do, obviously.

        3. the Penman
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 12 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Thanks Joe. It’s your last paragraph that’s what I’m driving at. Mark (and you by now!) is well used to the spotlight, where other experienced managers who’ve only recently taken a step up in terms of public exposure this season might not have the same ability to stick to their guns and their good instincts to play their own game, but now to the pressure of the crowd of feedback they find themselves surrounded with.

          1. RedLightning
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • Has Moderation Rights
            • 13 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Some seem to thrive when newly in the spotlight though. David is having by far his best season ever.

    20. Chenku╰☆╮
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      The amount of information especially from FPL scout is just spoonfeeding a large community.. They already talking about planning for DGW and blanks well in advance and providing key picks which we all would be going for as well.. I am not against his information just that now a huge community has them which means going differential doesnt work too much unless you get super lucky.. stick to changing template and ride the points waves is the best approach moving forwards.

    21. Caravagio
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      is also the number of overall players going to be a factor? Its going up a lot every year, so getting top 10k place 3 years ago was easier than getting onee now?

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Not sure this would be much of a factor unless brand new players joining the game immediately start taking it seriously and know what they're doing. I've got mates who have played for a decade and would still be considered massive casuals on here. Two seasons ago I was one of them myself. So are many of these new players an instant threat to the top 10k or top 100k?

        1. Caravagio
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          As you say two seasons ago you were one of them yourself. So its the players who have now got experience to get into top 10k/100k as that's increasing every year along with the overall number of players.

          1. Gnu
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 14 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Good point well made.

    22. Now I'm Panicking
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Lots more players and lots more easily to obtain information = many hundreds of thousands more people who have the ability to be competitive with a bit of good luck, and on the flip side will slide down the rankings with a bit of bad luck. Not sure it is too much more complicated than this.

    23. joeydelucchi
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      from a slightly different perspective, only my 1st full season on FFS, I can say that FFS and community views helped me quite a lot last season but so far this season , or mainly the last 6-7 gameweeks i would say maybe a few more, i feel like the community views have been wrong (in hindsight of course) and because of following community ideas and players that are recommended...the dignes, sanes, dohertys, sticking with TAA due to info given, sticking with salah (when casuals havent hasn't been the best option i would say, at least recently), the DGW sane captaincy.

      obviously these arent picks everyone will have in this community but ive seen a massive drop in rank by sticking with all these when ive seen ML rivals flying high without any of these players (or even similar players i.e. rob instead of Taa , jota instead of jimi)

      conclusion for me is it has been very hard to find consistency, more so than the past couple of seasons.

    24. Pointless
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      With more & more players it gets harder to maintain a good rank. Simple maths. Top 50k is the Top 10k of a few years ago? I often feel frustrated when I spend ages doing my own research and come up with a “good” player - then hear them mentioned in a podcast or highlighted on FFS etc. But sometimes the more you read /listen the more confusing it gets because lots of contradictory views. I listen to just about every podcast out there (I drive a lot!) and sometimes I have less idea by the end of it all - but they’re mostly v entertaining. I’m pleased for Mark having a better season but he is desperately needed back on Scoutcast!!!! The rest are good but Mark (sparring with Jonty) is really the heart of that podcast... I think he should get back to his roots and return to weekly podcasts which would make Scoutcast my number one listen (which it no longer is - Suj and James are the best mix of info and banter now).

      1. MINUS FOUR
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        My opinion is that some managers spend too much time thinking about good picks and listening to podcasts for other people's views on specific players etc, and not enough time looking at their own squad and how to manage their own transfers and budget to target fixtures, captaincy, and 'haul potential', by which I mean getting players more likely to go big even if not consistent.

        An example is when some ML rivals got Bennett instead of Doherty early in the season and argued it was almost the same but cheaper. They weren't thinking about the haul potential, just the clean sheet factor.

        1. The Polymath
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 8 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          If Wolves were a hotel they'd be shut down. No clean sheets. 😀

        2. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          To elaborate, I spend most of my FPL thinking time on looking at my and shuffling around transfer ideas, always keeping in mind what my starting 11 will be over the next 2 GWs. I cherry-pick info from around the place in terms of stats, but I only use that to make a pool of potential targets in my head. I don't actually let the opinions of other managers influence who I pick from within that pool of options. The final decision comes down to the best combination of 2-3 players within my remaining budget for those 2-3 positions e.g. I might prefer Pereira to Chilwell, but if the 0.4 saving means I get the forward I believe is far superior the alternative then that's the move I'll make as a package deal. It's never about one player in isolation.

    25. Vobinho
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      To put all this into context, it doesn't really come to much. I can vouch for this from a personal perspective this year :

      Started well, got to 35K after GW7, 64K after GW10.

      Then it all went pear shaped. I did a punt on Mahrez (c) instead of Sterling (c) GW11 - lost out on 42 points.
      Because of this choice, it meant 120K instead of close to 10k, meaning you start to overthink things, I was catching up instead of consolidating and therefore making unnecessary moves instead of the obvious.

      I played my first wildcard in GW14 and got Alli in instead of Son. Over a 8 week period, Son scored 80 points to Alli's 26 and that's without counting any weeks I might have captained Son if I had him due to his great form.

      After GW21 (Son's great run) I was down to 350K OR (Between GW 11 and 21 the Sterling and Son punts have cost me a minimum of 100 points without even considering captaincy)

      Then, to this week. Just by owning Lascelles, Vardy and Maddison. I have jumped 100k places already from 480k to 380k (this shows how tight the standings are) - also shows that not much is required to jump rank if consecutive good weeks are had.

      Now in my view, this boils down to Son & Sterling picks not getting me very close to the top 10K. Now if you add in not having Aguero (c) for back to back hattricks, I can go to the extreme and compare my rank to Mark's. I am 209 points behind. Son & Sterling choices means I missed out on 96 minimum, could be up close to 120 if I captained Son a few times, add another 80 if I would have captained Aguero twice (thought about it, but went for Sane) then you are up to 200 points.

      Now, that's three 50/50 calls throughout the season (yes, THREE) meaning the difference between 1k OR and 480k OR.

      It's a game of fine margins in my view....

      1. XABI 15
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        completely agree and the margins are even finer with the less asymmetric information these days due to twitter, reddit, this website etc. Teams are so similar that it comes down to hitting on these 50/50 decisions.

    26. XABI 15
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      At the end of the day it is a game of luck. You play the game to increase your chances of luck at getting points. You play the game to reduce the risk of not gaining points. You gain exposure to teams with predicted good fixtures and you reduce exposure to those teams with bad fixtures. You generally captain the player with the lowest risk of blanking but this doesn't generally pay off.

      As posts above have mentioned a few key decisions here or there can cause massive swings when teams are more similar than ever due to the plethora of information everywhere. For example in early December I picked Martial over Pogba and Alli over Son at times when neither option was a stand out. That ended up costing me over 100 points.

    27. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      As a self confessed fan boy of some of these top managers I would suggest that Ronka is still having a pretty good season with the number of players now playing. I think anyone in the top 50k is doing pretty well. His moves have been strong all season aside from the Pogba transfer out which still appears a little odd but I guess even the best have an off day. I think the start this year has been really important with the ability to recover even more difficult due to the rising amount of information allowing players to follow the herd and maintain a decent rank. The gap between the top spot and 100k is now at 270ish compared to 130 back in GW8 so I think how Mark was smart was taking a lot of hits early knowing if he didn’t take risks early on he would struggle to make up for his poor start later. As for Jay he appears to have taken a lot more differential punts eg Redmond which has worked in other seasons but again with the number of players with more info taking safe moves this high risk approach has just not worked. Saying that I am sure he will be back at the top next season...

    28. tisza
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Interesting topic.
      I'm playing this season pretty much the same as most seasons. Last year top 100 this year will do well to make top 10-20k.
      Think information is a big part. So much available with little effort required. People being spoonfed. Templates form quickly and it's not easy to move a lot of the time when there's a strong template. Top 10k ownership this season seems not far of uniform.
      Captaincy crucial. Owned Kun for only 6 games last season - and captained only 4 but still brought me an average of over 26 points per game. Yet took a long time to trust Salah with regular captaincy even though had him since GW1.
      maybe those players prepared to adapt strategies more will prosper. maybe difficult for managers with a long string of successes playing a certain way can struggle to adapt. Would it kill VR to take a few more hits?
      Game certainly evolving - chip strategies are often pretty random in their successfulness. Until everyone has played them hard to gauge necessarily where teams lie.
      Cursory check of some top 1k teams sees a healthy mix of some experienced managers, some that have played for a while with little or no success and some relatively inexperienced managers.
      One thing that managers can't control and can have a big impact is the ever-increasing rotattion of big hitters in PL teams. man City mids a good example - having either Sterling or Sane at the right times worth huge amounts of points.
      Luck always plays a role. Last season that 3 or 4 Christensen "disasters" could have cost me a top 20 place. But then sure there's parts of that season where luck went my way.

    29. Syd.
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Spoon feeding

    30. Hotdogs for Tea
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      After a while the patreon type managers seem to believe in their own hype and rather than doing the basics they try to be a bit too clever ...

    31. The Rumour Mill
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I think this went a long way to explaining it too, the increased effect of luck as the general skill level increases amongst players:

      https://twitter.com/MarcRuby/status/1064214512205815809

    32. Demel
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      We aren't all struggling! 🙂

    33. Hughes the Daddy
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Don't start charging for your advice. Sods law dictates things will start going downhill.

    34. Burger
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Aren't we overreacting here, particularly when considering Ville? Over the last 10 seasons his average rank is 4,115 (currently needing 1,722pts to achieve this rank this season) and his current rank is 46,809 (1,643pts). So he's currently 79pts from his historical average rank with all chips left to play. There's every chance he could end the season with a respectable ending.

      As for Jay, i guess if you put yourself out to the public the way he has invariably you'll get burnt when it goes wrong, as it has now.

      Btw i don't think anyone has mentioned that the loss of form may also be related to personal change in circumstances, e.g. birth of a baby, etc. Some of us have been there, right....

      1. SADIO SANÉ
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        agree re:Ville - I went from 106K GW14 to 8K GW20 without any chips and didn't do anything differently to what I had/have been doing all season (I've also just had 6 red arrows in a row) - getting from 50k to 10k before the end of the season, with all chips available, shouldn't be too difficult (I hope)

    35. Business Cat
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      FPL is too much a template game now

      The sheer number of YouTubers and stats sites are leading to a well informed top echelon all of whom corale around maybe 20-30 players

      Groupthink

      If the template does well (which it normally does), if you dare defy the template you drop 100K places.

      Not that they ever will, but it'd be nice if FPL changed, for e.g. captaining Salah (which half the game does every week) pays less dividend than punting on captaining Arnautovic for e.g., who hardly anyone owns, let alone would captain.

      A gentle (not an extreme) measure to allow those chasing to catch up to the masses ahead of them. Something to reward non-template thinking, make trying different players/teams worthwhile.

      1. Burger
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        So by that definition, top 10k is the new top 1k in terms of achievement?

        1. Business Cat
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Top 1K isn't realistic for most people.

          Top 10K is still most manager's benchmark for what constitutes a good season

          I'd argue in these data-driven days with more players, better informed players, availability of stats, pundits to listen too and automated tools to recommend transfers/line-ups, top 20K is now a decent level to aim for.

      2. Deulofail
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I just think this is a myth. A myth that everyone buys into, which makes the template feel safe, but in reality, you still do better than another team, templater or otherwise, if you score more points than it does. And that makes up for any weeks in which you score fewer points than that team. The aim is to do better on average.

        Not that a template really exists in the first place. But that's another matter 😀

        I disagree that the game should help people catch up when they are behind, too. In other words, that's punishing you for doing well early on, like in Crash Team Racing.

        But I do agree that the saturation of FPL media has a homogeonising effect. It would be a shame if this meant all you ML teams were the same, though in my limited experience, it's the serious FFS teams that are more similar, so our main rivalsremain the same.

        If casual ML rivals are challenging you for the lead, then they are not unworthy of the position, because they've made successful decisions, even if the decisions were seemingly dodgy to begin with. It's a new challenge to beat the "informed" masses, and we should seek the oppotunity to exploit its weaknesses, for example by avoiding and jumping on the right bandwagons. For me, the game is more rewarding when you're exploiting poor decision making of others (rather than winning by the default of spending more time obsessed with the game or simply being more aware that blanks and doubles exist, and other little details like that). Bring it on!

        1. The Rumour Mill
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Lets not lose sight though of the fact that crash team racing was one of the greatest games ever made. Absolutely superb, especially multiplayer using the multitap!

          1. Deulofail
            • 8 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Never have we agreed more.

        2. Pep Pig
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Wise words again sir. I just did a nosey.... another 4 transfers this week you maverick of a man 😀

          1. Deulofail
            • 8 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Cheers Pep. Perhaps trying too hard to prove the above point. I'd be top 10k if I followed the advice of experts. 😆

        3. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          100% agree with all that. It's amazing how often the template theory gets thrown around, and yet the actual total points differences and ranks between everyone using the 'T' word are massive! How can it be that we all have the same team all the time for wildly different results? The trick is being fairly consistent, picking the right players at the right times completely ignoring external factors like whether or not your rival has that player already. There are so many ways to beat this non-existent template for anyone who wants to try.

          1. Deulofail
            • 8 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Yeah. It's easy to forget the differences between your team and the masses when fixating on who everyone else is buying (also as product of the sale price changes booooo). The combinations of players you own is relatively unique, perhaps literally unique, because there are differences, small or large between you an your rivals, you and the 'template'.

            Besides, I think small differences are fun. I get that people want to see massive gains, but I've always managed to find fun in tighter battles when just a couple of players can make a difference.

            Plenty of people here lament the relatively small gains from an EO 80% player they own scoring well. Wtf? That's excellent news. Your player scored well, and you're on the up! Even at 100%, it's good news that you made the right decision (assuming an alternative combination scored less). In fact, even the frustrating scenario of over 100% EO player scoring well when you haven't captained him can be seen as a win in the long run. After all you didn't sell the player and you may get your points from elsewhere this week.

            I think people forget that the game is about points. They/we can get blinkered by rank, forgetting that OR doesn't mean anything until GW38. At least, in my book. So that's where we might find an advantage - by letting groupthink take hold of the masses, and as you say, make decisions in isolation, ignoring external pressures if we can.

            1. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Exactly, I enjoy that challenge too of having only a few differences here and there but trying to maximise their potential. I have a ML rival and for large parts of the season we've both mentioned how similar our teams were. For a number of weeks we actually had between 9 and 11 of the same starting 11, with our biggest differentials using sitting on our benches! And yet my lead over him now is 230-odd points. I didn't get there with any huge gameweeks (I haven't scored 100+ in a single GW yet), I just go there with loads of 10-20 point swings e.g. jumping straight onto Son and having his hauls be the difference, or having Doherty over Bennett early on, etc. That's the fun of it, trying to make gains when those around you think you shouldn't be able to.

            2. MINUS FOUR
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 6 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              It's also those statements on here like "falling behind my rival - need to do something" or "not having a great season - need to try a differential, what about X or Y?". These are precisely the reasons those ahead of you keep pulling further away! There is no magical quick fix. We need to be making lots and lots of good decisions and hoping the luck follows.

              I also think a bit of foresight is underrated. People love buying players who have scored recent points, it's a kind of comfort blanket. But take a player like Kolasinac, for example, who is still a differential. Lots of people writing him off because Arsenal can't keep a CS and fair enough, but he's a 5m OOP defender and his haul potential is huge. If/when the haul comes, will his owners be lucky to get it? Not at all. But I try having this conversation sometimes and even ML rivals say "Wow you brought in Kola? Don't understand that." They don't understand it because he doesn't have a double-digit haul to show off about yet. Too much focus on the past.

        4. Business Cat
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          My personal experience of the last few seasons is very much:

          - way more coalescing towards template

          - always 2/3/4 cheap players who end up competing with premiums, are completely underpriced and everyone piles on them

          - see this year, I'd wager 3/4 of the decent managers of the type that frequent these pages will have now, or have had earlier in the season: Doherty, Jiminez, Pogba, Rashford, AWB, Son, Fraser, Richarlison

          - in previous years, read Josh King, Mahrez, Vardy, Kane, Salah, Igalo, Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse, Michu, Alonso...

          The template does exist, it's not a myth.

          Articles like this:
          https://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/2018/12/26/top-10k-managers-go-on-hunt-for-man-united-assets/

          ...upon reading, and I see in all my MLs at the time, most teams are 7-8 players in the first 11 in agreement with whatever template is in vogue at the time.

          So if most people's basic DNA shares more than half the players, it's reduced the game from the complexity/possibility of something like Chess/Go to something more like Connect-4 (though not quite Tic-Tac-Toe yet :-))

          Most of the wide variance in scores between mostly template teams if down to the ridiculous overpowering effect of captaincy (with the doubling of bonus points making it even worse).

          I've got a pretty bad rank. Much of my deficit to the top ranks is down the not owning either of the Aguero hattricks, and missing out on Hazard's hauls while owning him for all his barren spells. I also take a few too many hits and tend to keep players past their sell by dates.

          I'm not suggesting some ridiculous rubber-band catch-up system a la Mario Kart to keep the casuals engaged.

          I personally would like to see a few changes:
          - a reduction in the luck-based elements of the game that are WAY overpowered.
          - Captaincy should be 1.5x, not 2x
          - Bonus points should be little extras on top...they should not be giving players the equivalent of an extra goal/assist/CS! They certainly shouldn't be doubled by captaincy!
          - auto-subs from the bench should also score half-points...managers should profit from the 11 they put out
          - and I know it'd be weird, but something to encourage variety in teams would be beneficial. Maybe not in basic points, but maybe minor tweaks to the captaincy or bonus?

          TL/DR 😉

          1. Deulofail
            • 8 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            I should have been clearer. The myth I'm talking about is the idea that it's important to own the popular players. That there's saftey in numbers, and danger if you go your own way. If casual players are following these trends, then I see it as an advantage for me to block them out and root out the points instead of the popularity.

    36. SADIO SANÉ
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      As MBP pointed out, Kun has had some big hauls captained by players that were not put off by the risk of rotation.

      I honestly think that anyone reacting to news/taking rotation into account would have missed those hauls, as I did, and to an extent owners were lucky for ignoring the risks and just captaining him those weeks anyway (yes I'm salty).

      Sane is another player who is extremely good, when he plays, but plenty missed those hauls and then got him too late. I still believe that without hindsight, based on the Mendy injury/his general form, that Sane was a better pick than Aguero in the DGW, and it seems that most 'top managers' agreed.

      Sterling is another one who I probably should have got ages ago and just kept, but like Hazard he also had a slight barren spell and then people missed his hauls, possibly due to the threat of rotation too.

      Players like Ville/Jay factor rotation in more than most I would say, especially in captaincy decisions (educated punt on Sane in the double?), and this season hasn't gone well in that regard.

      1. SADIO SANÉ
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        basically I'm blaming Peptation, which has actually turned out to not be as bad as feared, except 'unexpectedly' for Sane when it mattered most. There are plenty of other reasons - more knowledge, more players, better informed players etc. but I think how people have handled the City assets this season has had a decent effect (Mark did well in this regard, with mainly Sterling and some Kun)

        1. SADIO SANÉ
          • 8 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Also on Mark, he has mainly captained the 3 best midfielders too, including a City one, with great success - an underrated tactic imo:

          Salah x16 = 17.4 average
          Sterling x5 = 19.6 average
          Hazard x5 = 17.2 average
          Kane x1 = 2 average
          Agüero x1 = 16 average

    37. Jafalad
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Like me, they are picking the right players. Problem is...those players are not performing.

      I think Aguero's return to form has hit many too. With the recent dgw, Kun was a no go area as no one know if he or Jesus would start.

      So of course, you do not pick players in this scenario.

      However, luck intervened for those gambled and improved the ranks of those who gambled.

    38. Pep bites Kun
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Good post! Probably the best discussion I've seen on here for some time, even years o/

    39. brianutd-why always we? 20
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      When Wolves concede v HUD in last few mins that’s costly with double defence - unlucky

    40. Amateur Pundit Zan
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I think every season takes out a percentage of previously consistently high ranked managers. I put this down to mostly luck variance and decision quality variance (good players get decisions wrong, just over time will get more right than wrong)

      What is different this year is partly that the overall standard in top 500k has lifted for various reasons as many have noted, so the rank impact of a bad season is greater.

      But I think it is more of the rise of the FPL celebrity. Plenty of top 10 ranked career HOF managers fall away each season but we used not to remember them or care.

      Unlike the current crop of FPL self promoting, attention seeking egotists with their many sycophantic followers 🙂

    41. mrtapio
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Can only speak for my self, but it's been in some way a strange season. Can't put my finger on why. I had a OR of 1mill 5GWs ago - and I have actually been quite happy with my team all season. IMO I have done 1 mistake this season - not having Salah (and sticking with Firmino) . I did a quick calculation where I found out I have lost minimum 150pts on that decision alone. It's just started turning in ny direction, got a OR of 360k now. But because of the bad first half of the season I got a big handicap in TV. In GW22 my TV was 101.3m. Slighly better now with 103.1, but feel I shuld have been somewhere around 106m..

    42. WesMantooth
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 29 days ago

      One thing that stands out in Jay and General's season sofar, has been the innabillity to Get the defence right. They've gotten very little points from their defence, and have actually spent a sizeable amount of money on it.

  2. EMERGING STAR
    • 8 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Beauty about FH 32 is that you can play with the squad for 14 days when others are sitting with just 1FT.

    But I have only 3 players for GW31.

    1. Peter Ouch
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      That's madness, wake up at night thinking of it, eating launch and before finishing start searching.
      Suppose to be out with friends, being out with friends but searching for players.
      Nuclear explosions in my head

      1. EMERGING STAR
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        It's true. Happened to me with WC last season.

    2. IRBOX ⚽
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      This is true.. won’t farm value as with a wildcard but at least there is much more time to tinker

      1. fr3d
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Price changes are usually slow on big breaks anyway

      2. EMERGING STAR
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        And any international injury will not lead to hits

      3. Pras (FPL)
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Thought you would farm value if a player you buy double rises that very week.

        Or getting the player you want ahead of price rises / avoiding buying before drop etc.

        1. IRBOX ⚽
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          A common misconception. The value changes are only applicable to your pre FH squad.

          1. Pras (FPL)
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            So perhaps the first point is incorrect. The second still stands...

            If Aguero is due to rise - you'd want him before that rise so you can squeeze another 0.1 value into your FH team. Similarly if a player is dropping so should be avoided. In short - you still need to be monitoring prices and shouldn't just log off for 2 weeks.

            1. Pras (FPL)
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 12 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Also add to this that the players you temporarily take out - should be done after any price rises impacting sale value. Again this doesnt affect the overall squad value - but makes a difference in your budget for the FH team.

              1. IRBOX ⚽
                • 7 Years
                5 years, 1 month ago

                The drops are undoubtedly relevant, however, no blankers should be rising over this time period

                1. Pras (FPL)
                  • Fantasy Football Scout Member
                  • 12 Years
                  5 years, 1 month ago

                  Agreed. Would underestimate the power of the masses though - eg. Didn't Kun and Laporte rise before GW27?

                  1. IRBOX ⚽
                    • 7 Years
                    5 years, 1 month ago

                    Yeah, crazy casuals!

    3. MINUS FOUR
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      A fews ago I was set on FH 31 but the fixtures just didn't fall the way I was hoping and I reluctantly made the switch.

      Now that I have, this is definitely an exciting advantage. So much time to weigh up the options, consider the form and stats, listen to the press conferences etc, and try to nail an awesome starting 11 with doubles.

      Could be some big, big green arrows out there if you get it right.

      1. Kiwivillan
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        FH 31 has never made sense to me with full chips or WC missing because 31 players dovetail with 33

        1. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          I can see why you would write it off. There was a time it did make sense for the team I had, but I knew it was going to come with a lot of risk (basically, the GW32 fixture announcements). Either way I think the key was always to make a plan at some point and then go with it. Even though I wasn't sure about it to begin with, I'll still field either 10 or 11 players in BGW31 with a couple of hits.

    4. Kiwivillan
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I have 4 but 2FT atm and will add Boruc possibly. Then you can use a trade and roll 2FT and take hits on 31 if desired. Sterling and Aguero have minimal accrued profit so options for 31 33 players with FH32 in between

    5. MINUS FOUR
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Regarding your team. I would take a strategic hit each GW between now and GW31 to get yourself 9 players. And don't worry at all about formation since you probably won't be fielding 11 players anyway, so you can focus entirely on getting the best possible assets. In other words, leave Leicester defenders alone if you have to and focus instead on your attack - Arnie, Hazard, Higuain, Barnes/Rondon, double Liverpool attack with Salah and Mane, etc.

      1. EMERGING STAR
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Actually i am planning Rash + Son to Arnie + Maddi/Anderson using 2 FTs.

        Then Kamara to Bournmouth striker next week for free

        Then max a hit to get 2 more players after assessing the situation.

        That will make 9 for 31 without touching the core of my team.

        1. MINUS FOUR
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 6 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Sounds decent. You have a plan, that's the main thing.

    6. Eddie
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Trouble is, the more time I spend on here the closer my team will be to my rival's. Might log off for 2 weeks, may have a couple unexpected injuries I'd otherwise know about but shouldn't have an identikit team.

    7. jia you
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      ...good lord, I hadn't considered this, will be telling the missus that I'm extra busy with work for those two weeks lol

      1. Amey
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        😀

    8. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      False WC 😉

    9. Cilly Bonnolly
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I think you have to just accept that one of the blank gameweek you're going to suffer a lack of players. Personally I'm building a team now for 32, free hitting 31 and wildcarding 34. Gameweek 33 is the one I'm going to struggle to get a team together.

  3. built_this_city
    • 6 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Prediction - i think city will draw with west ham tonight.

    No Fernandiniho, No Laporte, tired team

    1. Peter Ouch
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I hope so and no kun haul

    2. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Nope
      2-0

    3. WVA
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Prediction - Aguero will score another hattrick, ML rival has captained him and I have gone with Salah.

    4. Volley127
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      5-5, that’ll do

    5. El-Kloppico
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Pellegrini will make his best to lose the game imo. He mentioned before the Liverpool match that he's still a City fan and will like to help City lift the trophy. Taht pretty sums it up.

      1. Amey
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I'd be waiting for Pool-Leister match then 😀
        If not played already of course

        1. El-Kloppico
          • 8 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Already played unfortunately.
          But trust Brendan will do the job on GW37

          1. Amey
            • 5 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            If it's not finished by city till then 😉

            1. El-Kloppico
              • 8 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Or if City is not finished..
              Can feel your anti-Liv soul.
              May the best win though.

              1. Amey
                • 5 Years
                5 years, 1 month ago

                Ha ha
                Not really.
                Same here. May the best win.
                Pool winning might be the catalyst needed for the fallen Giants to wake up again too 😛

    6. FDMS All Starz
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Both will be tired city have depth

    7. Shineonme
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      2-0

    8. bigbudgie
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      with...West Ham? THE West Ham?

    9. bench boost for every gamew…
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Hoping for 1-1, goal by Kun and Fando gets something from the West ham goal and Fab saves about 9 shots to get 5 points-)

    10. Hughes the Daddy
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Pellegrini will bend over for his beloved City.

  4. WVA
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Any way to stop the rot? Horrible gameweek after horrible gameweek!

    1ft lots itb.

    Ryan
    Pereira Kola Jonny
    Salah Hazard Son Pogba
    Aguero Jimenez Rondon
    Boruc Keane Westwood AWB

    1. Boris Bodega
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Maybe get a Liverpool defender/goalkeeper in there. I like all your attacking options.

      1. WVA
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        AWB to TAA this week? Liv away v Eve, can't see a clean sheet and would leave me with a benching headache.

    2. Sting in the Tail
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      To be honest I'd save then look to gw31 by maybe Jim > Vardy then have two transfers in gw 31 (presuming you can free hit in gw32)

  5. Amey
    • 5 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    If all fit what combo would you pick from gw 30:

    A. Wilson + Gray
    B. Kings + Gray
    C. Arnie + Brooks

    Thank you !

    1. WVA
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I'm going Wilson if fit

      1. Amey
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Leaning towards this.
        Cheers mate

    2. jia you
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Big ifs, but I like C if all fit!

      1. Amey
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Cheers mate.
        IF in case of Arnie should be very very big one 😀
        Don't trust those dodgy knees anymore

  6. Fantasyamateur
    • 8 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    14 points from 5 last night and still managed a green arrow up to 320 overall lol.. Expect a slight fall today without Auba.

    Alisson
    Robertson - Doherty - Lascelles - Pereira
    Salah - Pogba - Son
    Jimenez - Agüero - Rashford

    Bench: Richarlison, Laporte, Camarasa, Button.

    1.3M ITB and 2 FT.

    Looking towards the weekend, what should I be bringing in/out?

    Tempted to sell Son for Hazard, but have 5.1M to spend on defender (if I sell Laporte). Who should I bring alongside Haz? Emerson at 5.2 if Hazard drops in price could also be an alternative, but risky. Leaning towards Tarkowski at the moment..

    1. Fantasy Premington
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Surely depends on chip strategy?
      If not planning to use a chip in 31 then possibly a West Ham defender. I’m also looking at Ake for that run Bournemouth have

    2. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Try Bournemouth/Burnley defender

    3. danishdynamite
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Watch Chelsea tonight.

      Rash > Higuain could work out nicely if they look like theyve taklen a look in the mirror (I thought they played OK in the final, TBH)

      Laporte's knacked and so TAA would seem the most obvious move there, though that could wait til 29

      Son > Fraser in 30

      Then you're left with 'what to do about Kun' in 31

  7. George James
    • 9 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    People not using a chip for 31 how many players are you expecting to have and how many hits from now until then will you be needing to get them...?

    1. Boris Bodega
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Currently looking at maybe 9 if I don't take any hits...

      1. Boris Bodega
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Actually 8. Not sure if I will be free hitting or not yet, need to work out the benefits of using it another game week, and then see which would likely leave me better off overall.

      2. mad_beer ✅
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Looks like I will have 10 with a -4.

        1. mad_beer ✅
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          I keep replying wrong. Sorry.

    2. jia you
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      9 players, no hits.

      1. jia you
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        ...not that I object to hits or anything...it's just 9 is my max with no WC!

    3. Peter Ouch
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      No hit 10 players

    4. Volley127
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Currently on 6.

      No hits will take me to 9.

      Haven’t decided on hits so will end on between 9-11

      1. Kiwivillan
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Never forget

    5. Kiwivillan
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Can get 9 with FTs

    6. IRBOX ⚽
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      10 no hits.. maybe a full 11 with a -4

    7. Fantasy Premington
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      11 no hits but have Westwood and Snodgrass..
      wouldn’t take hits for cheap midfielders if I didn’t already have them

    8. Werkself
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      11 - no hits needed

    9. Holmes
      • 10 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      hopefully a decent starting 11 without hits. But plan is to WC in 32, otherwise I would have gone with 7-8 players

      1. Amey
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Why not FH in gw32 ??
        I'm interested in the reason 😮

        1. Holmes
          • 10 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Because the players I would want long term are playing in GW32 namely Man City/Man Utd/Spurs players. Low TV means I have to take action quicker.

          May change the strategy in last minute as I dont feel there is much difference between FH32 WC 34 vs WC32 FH33

          As of now, not overthinking about chip strategy, keeping my options open.

          1. Amey
            • 5 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            Okay.
            You have played BB so no need to WC in gw 34 in particular too.

    10. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      11
      2 hits

    11. AuFeld
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Eight without hits. Could have had nine, but I did Auba ~> Aguero this week which ought to make up for a ninth player and then some with his fixtures.

    12. El-Kloppico
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      2 hits over the 4GWs to field 11 players.
      That too because I changed my strategy to FH 32 last minute

    13. JammySprat
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      11 with 1hit

    14. George James
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Im on 8 no hits or 9 with Alonso if he somehow found his way back in the team

    15. The_Fish
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      9 without a hit... but 1 of them is Puncheon, so more likely 8.

    16. the Penman
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      10, 1 hot between now and then (and 1 taken since the fixtures were confirmed).

    17. Gentle_Turks
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      9 or 10 with no hits.

    18. danishdynamite
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      XI with one hit

    19. drughi
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      8-9 players with 2 hits maybe

    20. WVA
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      10, no hits

  8. Riders of Yohan
    • 5 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    What’s the current template for chip usage if you have all to left to use?

    32) FH
    34) WC
    35) BB

    TC?

    1. El-Kloppico
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Yep thats it. TC when a form player look to explode.

    2. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      TC in GW36 Salah vs Huddersfield atm. Liverpool play on the Friday night before City play Burnley away. Perfect timing, imo!

    3. danishdynamite
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Yep, that's my plan ...... though I am currently running this through my biddyprinter

      https://twitter.com/BenCrellin/status/1100543457473544192

  9. joeydelucchi
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    do we know yet who doubles in 32?? want to see possibility of building to that instead now.

    1. jia you
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      MUN & Wolves all that's confirmed atm.

      1. joeydelucchi
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        so basically stick to the plan ...i got it

  10. YEAH PITCH!
    • 5 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    I take it everyone is selling Aguero just before gw31?

    1. jia you
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      many will sell for that hamburger eating machine that is Higuain 😉

    2. FDMS All Starz
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      He will probably have a DGW in GW32 so just bench imo

      1. GREEN IS GOOD
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Unless you plan to FH32

    3. The_Fish
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Probably, bought him at 11.3 though. Him and Success to Vardy and Higuain could be decent though.

  11. Astronautovic
    • 8 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Who is the best Leicester midfield option in your opinion? Do you think gray will be a starter?

    1. The_Fish
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Hard to say with the new manager, I'm tempted by him because of the price point but I'd say Maddison is the better option.

      1. Astronautovic
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Thanks mate

    2. El-Kloppico
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Maddy boy!

      1. Astronautovic
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Thanks kloppo

    3. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I'm looking@ him Definitely. He plays like second striker.
      Watford away can give us some clue about new management tactics

      1. Astronautovic
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Thanks

    4. avfc82
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Harvey Barnes. 6 shots in the box last night! If Rodgers continues to use him in a similar role he'll be really good value going forward.

      1. bench boost for every gamew…
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        all those shots and nothing to show for, for me that´s the kind of player that struggles when the level is too high. Dwight Gayle comes to mind as a recent example. hoping for brooks to be fit!

        1. avfc82
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Maybe, time will tell, but he has got age on his side unlike Gayle. I've held Brooks so hoping he's fit too, Howe not giving much away at the mo!

  12. The Senate
    • 5 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    binning Aubameyang for GW29 with BGW31 in mind. Opinions?
    (A) Vardy
    (B) Higuain
    (C) someone else?

    1. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Probably Vardy. New manager bounce and all that stuff.

    2. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      B for me

    3. danishdynamite
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Higuain for me

    4. The Senate
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Thanks guys, hopefully watching Higuain this evening will make the decision easier

  13. Chenku╰☆╮
    • 9 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    These scoutpicks are such a curse..

  14. C'mon the Fylde
    • 8 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    In preparation for our blank and double GW, would you...

    Jiminez & Etheridge OUT
    Arnautovic & De Gea IN

    Etheridge
    Doherty Robertson Pereira Shaw
    Jota Mane Salah Pogba
    Aguero Jiminez

    Button, Barnes, Suarez, AWB

    1. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      How does removing a keeper who doesn't play in 31 and 33 for another one who doesn't, make sense?

      1. C'mon the Fylde
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Double GW 32.
        I can't have everything!

  15. OneDennisBergkamp
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 8 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    I have no wildcard and am looking at building my team from here on to have an 11 of DGWs for 32. Using FH in 31. My thinking is 31 has 5 blanks, 32 will have 3 blanks (at best guess) so will be easier to get through?

    1. Farke in hell
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      32 has blanks?

      1. OneDennisBergkamp
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        *33

      2. C'mon the Fylde
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        No

    2. Black Knights
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Yes I also have no WC so this is/was my plan. Annoyingly, they didn't already announce more DGWs into 32 to help us out.

  16. The Polymath
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 8 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Talk about Bogey Teams.

    In the last 17 league meetings beween Hudderfield and Wolves the record is

    Huddersfield - Won 14
    Wolves - Won 2
    Draw - 1

    Perhaps FPL players need to start looking at the bogey team effect more than they do in future?

    In fact Wolves have lost their last 5 matches to Huddersfield now without scoring a goal. Thank goodness we won't be playing them next season. 😀

    1. Fantasy Gold
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      This could be the start of a miracle recovery for them 😉

      1. Fantasy Gold
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Crazy stats btw.

        They’ve really got Wolves’ number.

      2. The Polymath
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Only if they are allowed to play us every week. 😀

    2. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      😀
      Ask Jose about St. james' Park

    3. Karan14
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      And I was getting excited about my Wolves triple up last night.

      1. Amey
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Same here
        Thankfully didn't © Jota as i was thinking about it

        1. Karan14
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Last chance against Cardiff but I think they’ll come good.

    4. Ajax Hamsterdam
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      thats some record !!!

  17. Fantasy Gold
    • 9 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Anybody know when Joe Gomez is due back from injury?

    1. Karan14
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Gomez targeting Tottenham in GW32. "I think after the international break Joe should be OK. If nobody gets injured before then we’ll have a proper choice. Joe is doing his rehab and looks good, big steps, outside running and all these things," revealed Klopp in Tuesdays' PC. #LFC

      1. Fantasy Gold
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Brilliant, thank you Karan 🙂

        1. Karan14
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Welcome mate! 🙂

      2. goriuanx
        • 13 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Woah, I'm sure I never heard this live on the youtube stream?

        1. Karan14
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          BD just posted this a few mins ago.

            1. goriuanx
              • 13 Years
              5 years, 1 month ago

              Nice one. For some reason the youtube presser was only around 10 mins, so maybe not everything was shown.

              1. Rotation's Alter Ego
                • Fantasy Football Scout Member
                • Has Moderation Rights
                • 12 Years
                5 years, 1 month ago

                I had a feeling some of it was embargoed.

                Seems to be all the rage nowadays 😉

      3. VanDijksToWatchOutFor
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Big steps lol. I know what he means but a funny way of putting it.

  18. VanDijksToWatchOutFor
    • 6 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    I was looking at selling auba to fund hazard for the weekend, but am I being blinded by that Fulham fixture? Obviously I'll watch him tonight but after Fulham it's wolves, Everton and West Ham (free hit 32 aside), and whilst they aren't top six, they're pretty tough. Honestly, if it wasn't for Fulham I'd probably not he considering it, even for the blanks. What are your thoughts on him?

    1. VanDijksToWatchOutFor
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Would still sell auba by the way.

  19. It’s gonna Ben Mee
    • 10 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    What was I thinking getting Periera?! Prime example of the negative aspects of group think.

    1. danishdynamite
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Good fixtures? Check
      Good stats? Check
      Plays the blanks? Check

      You were thinking straight, mate, but this is a game of skill AND luck

    2. Amey
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Relax.
      He could still come good
      Nice fixtures list

    3. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Sell him then 🙂

    4. drughi
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I'm getting him in after watford

  20. Podorsky
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 14 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Do we have any indications of who from M United travelled to London?

    1. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Only their players, the fans already live there.

      1. Ten Season Wonder
        • 10 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        ha

      2. Now I'm Panicking
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        😆

    2. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
      • 10 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Talkabout....pop musik...

  21. pakornk
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    How many are capping Salah tonight?

    1. Ajax Hamsterdam
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      loads i imagine. i do

    2. Annie
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      /

    3. YEAH PITCH!
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Yep

  22. bhh
    • 5 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Soooooooo. I bought Yedlin for this week and I'm now feeling a bit of a idiot given he didn't start. Should I stick with him (will he actually get game time) or get rid and look for a different Newcastle option or something completely different

    1. VanDijksToWatchOutFor
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      He might just not have recovered from the weekend as quickly. Or rafa decided against his particular attributes against burnley. I'd wait and see who plays at the weekend unless you need him to start.

    2. Ajax Hamsterdam
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      dont feel an idiot for that !! sure he was just rested

      1. bhh
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        That's good. I bought him based on his minutes played so was surprised to so him dropped so if its a resting issue then it should be all fine. Also, not like the player I had before him (Morgan) would have played any longer

  23. VanDijksToWatchOutFor
    • 6 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    It's rare that broadcasters in the UK have the opportunity to choose which game to show (given the 3pm Saturday blackout they just show the early, late and Sunday fixtures).

    It's disappointing to see that only BT sport are broadcasting a game tonight. Why aren't sky offering an alternative?

    Not that I'd choose a different game this time, I'd just like more coverage.

    1. Pras (FPL)
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      They never show matches in parallel. For every time slot (except 3pm) it is one or the other.

    2. Now I'm Panicking
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      That's the TV contract - they also tend to put the crap teams on TV in midweek (like last night) unless there is a big game scheduled (like tonight) in order to make up quota numbers for showing all teams, as midweek viewing figures are usually a lot less than weekend ones.

  24. pakornk
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    would you rather have Firmino or Higuain?

    1. bhh
      • 5 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Given he isn't injured, Higuain

    2. Ajax Hamsterdam
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      firmino.

    3. drughi
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      depends, I got rid of firmino because I rather have mane alongside salah and a defender

  25. Vamos Los Celeste
    • 10 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Can anybody post Mark s team link ?

    1. goriuanx
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      4668

  26. Ten Season Wonder
    • 10 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    When you keep hold of Digne for the BGW31 so he can get you 1 point

  27. boogle
    • 10 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    How does this look for rough plan?

    GW29: Llorente > Arnie
    GW30: Pogba + Rashford > Almiron + Vardy
    GW31: Sterling > Hazard

    Schmeichel
    Robbo TAA Pereira Digne
    Salah Hazard Anderson Almiron
    Vardy Arnie

    GW32: FH

  28. jia you
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Neither Firmino or Mo Salah travelled to Vicarage road for Watford game...confirmed

    1. Rotation's Alter Ego
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I know you are trying to make a joke, but bans have been handed out in the past for this kind of thing, though mainly for pre-deadline stuff.

      It's really not that funny and has grown really old, so it would be appreciated if we cut these out 🙂

  29. Ten Season Wonder
    • 10 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Anyone else's mind completely fried thinking about the forthcoming BGW/DGWs....

    aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

  30. FF Dirtbag
    • 12 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    How does Son and Aubameyang -> Hazard and Higuain (-4) sound?

    Just before the fulham game...

    1. Ajax Hamsterdam
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      keep son for the arsenal game imo

      1. FF Dirtbag
        • 12 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Depends on tonight I guess...