“What I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let me win the FPL mini-league now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will defeat you.”
The last couple of weeks have seen lots of ground made up in many a mini-league but nothing can be “taken” for granted and the lead up for Gameweek 21 saw FPL managers wrestle with the correct Liverpool triple up and the potential new manager bounce at Everton, Watford and West Ham, but at least the captain choice of Vardy was easy!?
We came out of the Gameweek now asking whether it was possible to go quadruple on the Reds, considering Arsenal defensive assets and with a much bigger watch list as the relegation dogfight offers us a host of potential differentials.
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
Geoff led the way this week with an impressive 72 points, the Canadian kingpin is one to watch as he has had six green arrows in the last seven weeks and has a huge pot of money with 106.3 TV.
This week he had Cantwell and Grealish to thank for his success, a solid defensive performance with three clean sheets plus a little bit of luck as Mane took on captaincy duties after the Vardy baby shower party went after hours.
Az continues his impressive surge and now sits fourth in the list of The Great and The Good, this should give us all hope in our mini leagues as he was bottom in Gameweek 15 and has now overtaken Jules Breach who had an 77 point lead on him six weeks ago.
Vardy was the top captain choice this week but clearly he was still on nappy changing duty as he was ruled out and therefore FPL’s very own vice ring came into play with De Bruyne and Mane the popular deputies.
Geoff, Az and Andy were the ones to benefit from Mane’s goal whilst Sean Tobin had Mo but spare a thought for Ville Ronka who had Salah picked from the start and without the Vardy no show could have seen a much bigger green arrow.
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week:
Andy – Alexander-Arnold, Traore (Alli, Aurier)
Az – Jimenez, Martial (Abraham, Alli)
David – De Bruyne (Alli)
FPL General – No transfers
Joe – No transfers
Jules Breach – No transfers
Geoff – Fabianski (Henderson)
Mark – Saiss, Traore (Pulisic, Targett)
Matthew Jones – No transfers
Neale – De Bruyne (Sterling)
Sean Tobin – No transfers
Ville Ronka – Vardy (Rashford)
*transfers out are in brackets
The Great and The Good resolved to shake off any New Year’s hangovers before making any moves with five of them deciding to roll their transfers, others decided to send Alli on his way whilst Geoff made an astute goalkeeping switch to bring Fabianski onboard.
Mark took the path less trodden and decided on a hit to bring in a couple of Wolves in the form of Traore and Saiss but didn’t count on the resurgence form of a Pearson powered Watford, although he will hope they will fare better against a faltering Newcastle next time round.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good looks like this:
Pope (6) Button (6)
Lundstram (12) TAA (11) Kelly (8) Rico (7) Soyuncu (7)
KDB (11) Salah (9) Grealish (8) Alli (5) Martial (5)
Vardy (11) Ings (6) Rashford(6)
* brackets show number of teams they appear in
The template continues to have a very familiar look about it despite the fire sale on Alli but expect more Mane, possibly Robertson and maybe a Fabianski over the next couple of weeks.
FESTIVE SKILLS
The last four weeks have required a very particular set of skills with the quick turnaround of matches, so which of The Great and The Good has proved to be the Liam Neeson/Bryan Mills hero? The table below shows the combined scores over that period (credit to Joe for the idea):-
Ville Ronka proved to be deadly over the last four weeks, but what was the secret of his success?
He did have the advantage of a late wildcard which he played in Gameweek 18 and it set the foundation for his rapid rise as it gave him chance to build a strong squad full of secure starters, the only time he called to his bench was this week with Vardy’s shock omission.
He also played the fixtures, gambling on triple United and his squad had talisman figures such as Ings, Grealish central to their team’s fortunes and more likely to play during this fixture congested period.
Keeping an eye on team news is also vital to success during Christmas and one can speculate that Ville concluded from Brendan Rodger’s news conferences that Vardy’s impending fatherhood plus the tough double fixture against City and Liverpool would limit his output as he did not own him for three of the four weeks.
The FA Cup weekend gives him time to consider his next move, funds are focused in midfield and his cheap frontline gives him the option to go with either a Liverpool double defence or attack so it will be fascinating to see which way the Finnish master goes.
CONCLUSION
Mo or Mane? Trent or Robbo? Why can’t we have all four? Yet, is there not a bigger question, who are going to be the supporting cast?
The festive four weeks has shown quick progress can be made but let’s remember that those green arrows have also been based on the fringe decisions such as bench order, vice captains and squad strength.
So, let’s spend time debating the right Liverpool assets but not neglect the rest of our squad as finding the next Danny Ings or Jack Grealish could be just as important in deciding the colour of our arrows.
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/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
4 years, 3 months agoSuperb as ever Mr Head.
Great to see some rapid risers here as they look to get those ORs back to where they'd want to be - especially good to see Az flying up after having a pretty rough / unlucky season last year.