Learning from the Great and the Good 19/20 – Gameweek 6

“I’ll be your substitute. Whenever you want me. Don’t you know I’ll be your substitute. Whenever you need me”

Don’t blame it on the moonlight. Don’t blame it on the good times. Blame it on your bench strength. In a chaotic week with captain no-shows, double digit auto-subs and own goal scoring substitute it was one that proved every decision is vital in this gruelling season.

All the signs pointed to rotation after mid-week European fixtures gave us a Mount injury, a returning Mendy and speculation over a Sterling benching. Yet, not even The Great and The Good could have predicted what was to unravel over game week six.

As a reminder The Great and The Good are a handpicked group of FPL celebrities (?), FF Scouts or prominent managers who I will follow to see what we can learn as they navigate their way through the season. They are the Scouts (Mark, Joe, David, Geoff and Neale), FPL “celebrities” (Az, LTFPL Andy, FPL General and Jules Breach) and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville Ronka, Matthew Jones and Sean Tobin.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE 

The table below shows current performance: –

Editorial note – Andy and Neale have since had their FPL accounts reinstated after they were deleted by a malicious third party, so whilst they do not have gameweek and overall ranks for this gameweek, they will thankfully return in later weeks.

Jules Breach is on top with a fantastic score of 92 points which sees her fly into the top 30,000 with a rise of 320,000 places. She captained De Bruyne but also had Maddison, McGinn and Ryan to thank for her score, she would have hit over 100 points if Mount hadn’t played with Lundstram’s 12 points lurking as first substitute.

Joe continues his rollercoaster season with an impressive 88 points with the aforementioned Lundstram, De Bruyne combination added to by his Otamendi pick.

There were green arrows for the majority this week apart from Sean Tobin and Mark who had a stinker with none of players hitting double figures and having to suffer from the sight of Lundstram being third of his bench. He has gone without De Bruyne for the whole season so far, is now the time he looks to bring in the ginger Galactico?

The up and down nature of the season continues and should give us all hope with some of The Great and The Good managing very impressive rises this week, Geoff and Matthew Jones went up by over 1 million places in a week.

The vice-captain choice came into focus this week for those six managers putting the armband on Sterling with Joe, Matthew Jones and Andy getting right with De Bruyne whilst Mark, FPL General and Ronka only having an assist for comfort from Salah.

The other managers got it spot on first time with De Bruyne being a popular choice, but David and Sean will consider themselves unlucky that their choice Aguero only managed 9 points in the 8-0 thrashing of Watford.

WILDCARD

Mr. Munday was manic this week perfecting his wildcard with seven changes made to his squad and a shift in funds out of the defence towards his attack, he now averages 4.9 per defender compared to 5.4 previously.

These are his changes in full: –

IN – Button, Burn, Lowton, Masuaku, Maddison, Hayden, Abraham

OUT – Heaton, Digne, Zinchenko, Guilbert, Norwood, Dendoncker, Jota

His cut price picks of Burn and Lowton, who replaced no show Zinchenko and disappointing Digne, both managed clean sheets this week and look smart purchases in the short term.

Maddison scored on his debut for David and adds a bit more firepower in midfield plus the sacrifices in defence allowed him to bring in the free scoring Abraham with those tasty fixtures ahead.

Perhaps his most telling move is his decision to stick with Aguero alongside Sterling and Salah which means no place for the man of the moment De Bruyne. Time will tell if this will be the right decision…

TRANSFERS AND HITS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

Andy – Söyüncü (VVD)

Az – No transfer

FPL General – No transfer

Joe – No transfer

Jules Breach – No transfer

Geoff – Otamendi (Dunk)

Mark – Abraham, Maitland-Niles (VVD, Wesley)

Matthew Jones – No transfer

Neale – Söyüncü, Barnes (Walker-Peters, Andone)

Sean Tobin – Cantwell, Aguero (Salah, Greenwood)

Ville Ronka – Maddison (James)

*transfers out are in brackets

There was a split in approach this week with five of the managers rolling their transfers whilst the others made running repairs. Transfer pixie dust was sprinkled over Ville Ronka and Geoff who brought in Maddison and Otamendi to immediate effect, both with double digit hauls.

The most dramatic move belongs to Sean Tobin who couldn’t resist the mouth-watering prospect of Aguero versus Watford and brought in the Argentine but waved goodbye to Salah in the process. A bold move probably with one eye on the challenging Liverpool fixtures ahead.

Mark had a rare off day bringing in Maitland-Niles who earned himself a red card and took out Wesley who scored against the woeful Arsenal defence to rub salt in the wounds.

TEMPLATE 

The template for The Great and The Good looks like this: –

Pope (10) Button (7)

Digne (10) Lundstram (10) TAA (9) Zinchenko (5) Robertson (5)

Sterling (11) Salah (10) KDB (9) Cantwell (7) Mount (7)

Pukki (11) Greenwood (8) Haller/Barnes (5)

* brackets show number of teams they appear in

A minor change to the template with the Barnes train joining the Haller copter as the third striker in the template, will the Abraham ambulance or the Aguero articulated lorry be the next striker/vehicle combination to join the squad?

WHAT IF?

A popular trend over the last week was to use the what if machine which effectively calculates what your score would have been if you had done nothing since your game week one team, so no transfers or captain choices. I have applied this to The Great and The Good: –

Ville Ronka comes out on top with his management during the season gaining him an additional 37 points, he has a particularly good game week rising 772,000 places.

Mark and Geoff sit at the other end of the spectrum and should have left their teams well enough alone, if our very own Canadian community manager had done nothing, he would have been 630,000 places better off. Here is the link to the machine if you dare to see how you would have got on.. What If Machine

Interesting and possibly depressing results but it doesn’t consider the fun involved in the endless tinkering and occasional decision you get right.

CONCLUSION

A turbulent but exciting week in FPL but overshadowed by Hackergate which has seen several managers including Andy and Neale have their accounts deleted.

For us enthusiasts there can be no worse feeling than seeing our dedication to the FPL art be wiped out by a malicious act. The restrained reaction of both Andy and Neale to the hack demonstrate how great and good they are, and I hope the powers that be can reinstate their teams and the others impacted.

Editorial Note – Thankfully, they will now receive their accounts back, so will continue to be regularly featured on the Great and Good!

Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.

For those effected by any of the topics raised in the above article they can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19

Likewise, if you want to keep up with the Tweets of The Great and The Good you can find them here

https://twitter.com/FFScout_Geoff

https://twitter.com/matthewpenycae

https://twitter.com/LetsTalk_FPL

https://twitter.com/DavidMunday815

https://twitter.com/ffscout_az

https://twitter.com/FFScout_Joe

https://twitter.com/FPLGeneral

https://twitter.com/julesbreach

https://twitter.com/SkontoRigga