Learning from the Great and the Good 19/20 – Bumper Festive Special

“So this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun.”

Many an FPL manager spent Christmas overindulging on football, with hopefully a few brief hours spent with their nearest and dearest, as the Premier League served up a marathon of matches over the festive period.

For The Great and The Good this was a chance to rise up the rankings with the games coming thick and fast as we entered the second half of the season, let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear of red arrows.

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

All hail the Christmas King! Ville Ronka had a stormer with a combined total of 161 points over the festive period with his wildcard in Gameweek 18 and particularly his decision to triple up on United paying off and giving him four consecutive green arrows.

Az also had a bumper holiday season with 137 points and now finds himself in the top 200,000, it was only seven weeks ago he was outside the top 1 million which coincides with the purchase of a certain Saints striker, Ings can only get better in 2020.

Unfortunately, David is still struggling to shake off his hangover from the celebrations and didn’t even hit the hundred over the two weeks, his captaincy pick of Salah failed to shine and his lack of De Bruyne means he has slumped to the bottom of the table.

WILDCARDS 

There were three wise people, I am nothing but politically correct, who had held their wildcard to the end with Jules Breach playing hers in Gameweek 19 before Matthew Jones and FPL General went in Gameweek 20.

Jules Breach

Jules made six changes to her squad with the arrival of a couple of Spurs in Aurier and Kane replacing Abraham and Son, who’s appeal was dismissed by a Scrooge like Premier League on Christmas Eve, along with the big name signing of Salah who she has not owned since Gameweek 12.

Her differential picks of Ward-Prowse and Mountinho may raise an eyebrow or two but her persistence with Maupay who has a good set of fixtures could prove gold in his price bracket, although her decision to kick out Doherty was probably not as wise in hindsight.

IN – Aurier, Kelly, Salah, Ward-Prowse, Moutinho, Kane
OUT – Gibson, Doherty, Son, Maddison, McGinn, Abraham

FPL General

FPL General played more of a tame card in Gameweek 20 with only five changes to his squad with two of them his choice of goalkeepers, Rashford in for Abraham was the big move and his 94th minute goal/slide against Burnley got him off to a good start.

IN – Ryan, Button, Soyuncu, Romeu, Rashford
OUT – Woodman, Pope, Tomori, Cantwell, Abraham

Matthew Jones

Interestingly, the Welsh wizard’s wildcard in Gameweek 20 saw him offload Rashford but his moves saw him shift funds into midfield with Martial and Salah joining his fifteen with the budget strikers of Ings and Maupay recruited and scoring/assisting on their debuts. You better watch out. You better beware.

IN – Ramsdale, Holgate, Salah, Martial, Ings, Maupay
OUT – Pope, Janmaat, Zaha, Dendoncker, Rashford, Abraham

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for the last two weeks:

Andy

GW19 – Alli (Son)
GW20 – No transfers

Az

GW19 – Digne (Tomori)
GW20 – No transfers

David

GW19 – Salah, Moura (Son, Sterling)
GW20 – No transfers

FPL General

GW19 – Salah (Son)
GW20 – Wildcard

Joe

GW19 – Salah (Son)
GW20 – Foster (Henderson)

Jules Breach

GW19 – Wildcard
GW20 – No transfers

Geoff

GW19 – De Bruyne (Son)
GW20 – Grealish (Pulisic)

Mark

GW19 – Greenwood (Connolly)
GW20 – Kane, Salah, Kabasele (Chilwell, Abraham, Sterling)

Matthew Jones

GW19 – Rashford, Grealish (Jimenez, Son)
GW20 – Wildcard

Neale

GW19 – Alli (Son)
GW20 – Salah (Alli)

Sean Tobin

GW19 – Salah (Son)
GW20 – Martial (Pulisic)

Ville Ronka

GW19 – Alli (Son)
GW20 – Salah (Sterling)

*transfers out are in brackets

Gameweek 19 transfers were dominated by the fall of Son who found there was no room at the inn as he was kicked out by all of The Great and The Good with Alli and Salah the most popular replacements.

David took a badly timed hit in Gameweek 19 for Salah and took out Sterling, who showed that penalty taking skills are not a pre-requisite for getting FPL points, elsewhere Az’s move for Digne looks a great differential pick if the new manager bounce is to continue.

Gameweek 20 transfers were limited with the managers looking to reserve their strength for a rotation rife weekend, Mark bucked the trend and took a hit to bring in heavy hitters Kane and Salah whilst Joe made a wise move to bring in Foster.

TEMPLATE

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

Pope (6) Button (6)

Lundstram (12) TAA (10) Soyuncu (8) Kelly (8) Rico (7)

KDB (9) Salah (9) Alli (8) Grealish (8) Mane (4)

Vardy (11) Ings (6) Rashford(6)

* brackets show number of teams they appear in

FOMO or Fear of Mo means Salah returns to the template although he’ll have to start to delivering points as well as stats to keep his place, meanwhile Son and Abraham make their excuses and leave the party.

CAPTAIN’S TABLE

O Captain! My Captain! The armband continues to be a critical factor in this season’s campaign and again split the managers in Gameweek 19 with six players selected, the most popular was Rashford but Salah, Abraham, Alli and De Bruyne were all picked.

The best choice was Sterling by Mark who gave him the honour for the tenth time this season and his double, whilst not enough to save City from defeat was enough to move Mr Sutherns up 450,000 plus places and into the top 600,000 by the end of Gameweek 19.

Gameweek 20 saw most put their faith in Salah but fortune favoured the brave with Az scoring big with his De Bruyne pick, although a nod of approval should be given to Andy and Geoff for their Rashford selection.

This season has brought a variety of captain picks with fourteen different choices so far but Sterling (26%) still leads the way just edging out Vardy (22%) and Salah (19%).

Jules has regained her crown as Queen of the Captains from Matthew Jones with a 13.4 average thanks to recent picks of De Bruyne and Kane, Mark and the current leader Neale trail behind with a sub 11-point average.

CONCLUSION

The announcement of double Gameweek 24 will now have The Great and The Good plan their triple ups on Liverpool players but will it be double attack or double defence? Also, now in the mix is the Moyes bounce of West Ham will this mean that a punt on an Antonio or Fabianski becomes viable? Let’s see how they react but if this festive period proves anything it’s never count out The Great and The Good out and the competition for top spot is just getting warmed up. The War is far from over.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have Xmas 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/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/GeoffreyDance