Learning from the Great and the Good 19/20 – Gameweek 16

“It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight. Risin’ up to the challenge of our rival. And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night. And he’s watchin’ us all with the eye of the tiger”

The Great and The Good are in need some Rocky style inspiration as this season continues to punish with many a manager looking to pick themselves up from the canvas after a bruising opening start to the campaign.

Most FPL manager feared for the worse going into the weekend with rotation expected and whilst many predicted the Mane jab few saw the Alexander-Arnold one-two combo, even more painful as it meant his owners missed out on a rare Liverpool clean sheet.

We finished this round of matches punch drunk looking to our corners for guidance as to how to fit in more Spurs and United attackers into our squads at the expense of some of the previous FPL untouchables De Bruyne, Sterling and Alexander-Arnold.

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 (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

Neale continues his reign as the undisputed champion of The Great and The Good with the top score this week and his highest rank of the season as he moves into the top 15,000 for the first time.

He may have benefited from a lucky punch or two this week as he was bolstered by a double Palace defence, when Kelly substituted in for Mane, and his decision to keep hold of Martial whilst others threw in the towel also proved decisive.

Geoff also continues his steady progress equally the top score of 73 for the week, the “Canadian Clubber Lang” has moved up 630,000 places in the last six weeks, his exciting offence of Vardy, Rashford and Kane doing the damage this time.

Mark continues to take a beating and now sits at the bottom, he struggled to a 44 this round with Rashford and Maddison the only high points, his decision to captain Sterling was a killer blow to his Gameweek. Perhaps he should remember Floyd Paterson’s words, “It is easy to do anything in victory, it is in defeat that a man reveals himself”.

Jamie Vardy continues to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” as the captain of choice of The Great and The Good, he delivered goals again and has only blanked three times this season.

Of course, some of the managers tried a few wild swings to make up ground with their armband picks, as mentioned Mark continues to persist with Sterling, Ville Ronka went Mane but of course got the benefit of Vardy vice and Az was successful-ish with an Alli haymaker.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

Andy – No transfers
Az – Abraham, Alli (Aubameyang, McGinn)
David – Ings, Alli (Jota, Martial)
FPL General – Alli, Kelly (Tielmans, Robertson)
Joe – Alli, Rashford (Tielemans, Kane)
Jules Breach – Abraham (Jimenez)
Geoff – Alli (Martial)
Mark – Pulisic (Martial)
Matthew Jones – Aurier, Abraham, Alli (Tomori, Greenwood, Sterling)
Neale – Kelly (Hanley)
Sean Tobin – Abraham (Lacazette)
Ville Ronka – Alli (Martial)

*transfers out are in brackets

“It ain’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” Az continues to take his inspiration from Rocky Balboa taking another hit this week, that’s seven for the season for those still counting, and initial signs were good after Alli’s double assists but then came the Aubameyang low blow on Monday.

More newsworthy was that Matthew Jones took his first hit for the season as he called in the triple A of Alli, Abraham and Aurier, he did this at the expense of Sterling which shows that even the most patient of managers can in fact run out of patience, the City man has only scored once in the last six Gameweeks.

Spare a thought for David this week as he must have thought there was limited risk in moving out Martial and Jota but remarkably they outscored the in form Alli and Ings this time out, maybe he should have kept a closer eye on Joe’s goals imminent table which suggested they were due a knockout blow.

TEMPLATE

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

Pope (8) Button (5)
Lundstram (12) TAA (11) Tomori (7) Soyuncu (7) Rico (6)
Mane (12) KDB (8) Alli (7) Cantwell (5) Pulisic (5)
Vardy (11) Abraham (8) Ings/Jimenez (5)
* brackets show number of teams they appear in

Alli, bomaye! The Spurs midfielder seems ready to rumble in the jungle as he makes his way into the template with seven of them transferring him into their squads, his average score of 11 points per game since Mourinho certainly supports his inclusion.

Martial leaves the ring but not before a double digit brace, Neale is now the only to hold the Frenchman, this could turn into a rope a dope differential with the games ahead looking good.

TEAM INVESTMENT

This week I have dug a bit deeper into how The Great and The Good have selected when considering the Premier League teams their squads represent.

Liverpool, Leicester and Chelsea are the main event and the most popular teams accounting for 42% of the players amongst these squads but more interesting to note is the decline of City assets, up to Gameweek 10 they were the most sought after club representing 18% but now sit only at 10%.

Whilst City appear to be on the ropes, one club on the rise is Spurs, in Gameweek 13 they had 1 player in Gazzaniga considered worthy of a place but since Jose’s revolution they are now above City in terms of representation.

Fixtures play a part in Spurs’ popularity as they are near the top of fixture ticket from Gameweek 17 along with Burnley, Villa and Palace who have also gone through a resurgence and account for 12% of the squads.

The Great and The Good still seem to be waiting on the judge’s decision with Manchester United, who sit fifth on the season ticker, as ownership of their players has halved since Gameweek 13 – surely the “Raging Bull” Rashford must be on his way soon to increase this number.

CONCLUSION

The Great and The Good have taken plenty of body shots so far but do the next couple of Gameweeks offer opportunities for progression for those ready to gamble? Is now the time to throw a few hits to bring in more United and Spurs players at the expense of the non-performing City and blanking Liverpool assets?

Will they dare to move out De Bruyne and Alexander-Arnold? Perhaps they should seek inspiration from Muhammad Ali’s words, “he who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life”.

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_az
https://twitter.com/FFScout_Joe
https://twitter.com/FPLGeneral
https://twitter.com/julesbreach
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/GeoffreyDance