‘Whatcha Gonna Do, When FPLmania Runs Wild on You?!’
Plenty for The Great and The Good to grapple with going into the weekend with a royal rumble load of fixtures coming up, an injury to Abraham which he was unable to kick out of and Unai Emery being told “you’re fired!”.
We left the gameweek 14 ring bruised and battered, Aubameyang reminded us of his King of the Ring qualities, Alli’s brother “hulked up” and Van Dijk proved again that Liverpool defenders don’t have to keep clean sheets to be the main event.
As a reminder The Great and The Good are a handpicked group of FPL celebrities (?), FF Scouts or Pro Pundits who I will follow to see what we can learn as they navigate their way through the season.
They are the Scouts (Geoff “The Hitman” Dance, David “The HeartbreakKid” Munday, “The Newcastle Dream” Neal Rigg and Joe “The Rock” Lepper), Pro Pundits (“Rowdy” LTFPL Andy and Az “Macho Man” Phillips), FPL “celebrities” (Mark “Hulk” Sutherns, “The Ultimate Warrior” FPL General and “Sensational”Jules Breach) and finally from the Hall of Fame we have “Stone Cold” MatthewJones, “The Undertaker” Ville Ronka and “Mr Perfect” Sean Tobin.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Az laid the smackdown on his opponents this week with the top score of 60 which saw him gain 193,000 places and leaves him in a last man standing match with Mark for bottom spot with just 5,000 places separating them.
His patience in keeping Aubameyang was the key but he also had Alexander-Arnold and De Bruyne to thank plus a smart purchase of Ings. Oh Yeah!
Jules Breach keeps hold of top spot despite one of the lowest scores of the week and appears to be trash talking the others by casually leaving Van Dijk’s 17 points on the bench this week.
The only other green arrow went to Matthew Jones as he continued to kick ass and ask questions later with his fifth rise in the last six weeks, he brought in Jimenez plus his faith in the City duo of De Bruyne and Sterling paid off. Hell Yeah!
“Business just picked up” when it came to the captain picks and it was a final showdown between Mane and Vardy as the preferred captain picks with the Leicester striker proving without a doubt thee… MOST electrifying man in FPL sports entertainment today or certainly the most consistent.
“Oh, what a rush!” it must be for Jules Breach who continues to book the right armband choices and leads the way with an average of 14.1 so far this season.
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week :
Andy – Ings (Abraham)
Az – Ings (Abraham)
David – Son, Pulisic (Mount, Sterling)
FPL General – Mané (Sterling)
Joe – Kane, Targett (Otamendi, Abraham)
Jules Breach – Jimenez (Abraham)
Geoff – Kane, Pulisic (Sterling, Abraham)
Mark – Chilwell (Mendy)
Matthew Jones – Jimenez (Abraham)
Neale – Ings (Maupay)
Sean Tobin – Lacazette (Abraham)
Ville Ronka – Vardy, Ings (Abraham, Aubameyang)
*transfers out are in brackets
Shocking news! I don’t think Mark reads these articles, difficult to believe I know, as the “Limousine Ridin’, Jet Flying, Kiss Stealin’, Wheelin’ Dealin’.” FPL great has ignored my advice from last week and still doesn’t have Vardy in his squad.
This week Mark made another defensive transfer, this time Chilwell, his seventh for the season, more than any other member of The Great and The Good and 50% of all his moves for the season.
Abraham was made to “Rest In Peace” and was the most popular transfer out with only David, FPL General, Mark and Neale having faith he would have a quick return to the squared circle.
It was a Battle Royale to decide who was the best replacement going from the cheap Ings, mid-price Jiménez or the premium pick of Kane, the latter costing Joe and Geoff a hit to bring in the Spurs striker.
“The Deadman” Ville Ronka famed for his cold, calculating and cautious approach has experienced an evolution this year, he took another hit this week to bring in Vardy and Ings taking him to six for the campaign rivalling “Macho Man” Az. Perhaps he should return to his conservative ways as the departing Aubameyang delivered a double-digit brace.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good looks like this :-
Pope (10) Button (5)
TAA (11) Lundstram (10) Tomori (8) Rico (7) Soyuncu (6)
Mane (12) Mount (8) KDB (8) Martial (6) Cantwell (5)
Vardy (11) Jimenez (6) Ings/Abraham (4)
* brackets show number of teams they appear in
Mane finally proved that if you “Train. Your Prayers. Eat Your Vitamins.” then you can be owned by all of The Great and The Good as FPL General brought him into his squad to replace Sterling, unfortunately he blanked to celebrate.
In fact, Sterling was thrown over the top rope by three more managers this week and showed his disgust with a goal against Newcastle, but it was too little too late as he leaves the template for the first time this season.
Upfront Ings proved he was no jabroni joining the squad as the most popular replacement for Abraham with his enticing fixtures, he immediately repaid his owners with a goal.
DIFFERENTIALS
One way for an FPL manager to “lie, cheat and steal” their way up the rankings is a careful selection of differential pick and so I have cast my eye over those that exist within The Great and The Good squads. For this I have classed differentials as players owned by fewer than 10% as of time of scribbling.
Martial, and after this week’s moves Ings, are both under 10% ownership and are included in several the teams, whilst the Saints striker provided an instant finishing move the jury is still out on the United midfielder.
The other differential that caught my attention was Lacazette, purchased by Sean Tobin, if he does gain a bounce from Emery’s departure then at 2.5% ownership with some good fixtures, he could fly off the top turnbuckle, although it was Aubameyang who made the hot tag this week.
Likewise, David is the only one to own Jota (3.1%) and with Wolves showing form then he could provide some “sweet chin music” for Mr. Munday over the next few weeks, he may also want to consider another of his teammates as Doherty(3.3%) looks to be returning to some of the form from last year.
As mentioned, Mark has Martial but seems to be focused on defence to provide some very different differentials with Gazzaniga (3.9%) and Williams (1.8%) under the radar options, but perhaps he and the rest should look at others? I would propose the obvious Alli, Zaha, Mousset and the less obvious Ward-Prowse, Grealish and Aurier as worthy of attention, if you smell what the Greyhead is cooking.
CONCLUSION
There is no doubt that we are entering a key period of the FPL season with plenty of games and opportunity to climb up the ladder with managerial changes, a stuttering City and a Liverpool log jam changing the landscape.
Now seems the time to consider the key differentials if you are to make progress, there is still only 43 points between 100,000 and 500,000 but with the gameweeks flying past a calculated risk or two could help some of The Great and The Good become “The Best There Is, the Best There Was, the Best There Ever Will Be!”.
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/SkontoRigga
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
4 years, 4 months ago
How you find time to fit all these in Greyhead, I have no idea! Thank you very much for doing these.
Out of interest, is their any squad from the 12 you're looking at as possibly making the most ground up over the coming weeks?