Our first round of ‘Football Manager – FPL Style‘ started with a bang in Gameweek 30 as Az and the community handed out a thrashing to David and the Fantasy Football Scout team.
They emerged victorious by a crushing 84-54 scoreline thanks to a maverick captaining of Allan Saint-Maximin (£5.4m), who proved to be Az’s top-scoring player.
The Newcastle United midfielder was handed a Double Gameweek against Sheffield United and Aston Villa, both matches at home, and scored 12 points, doubled-up to 24 for Az and the community.
Highlighting the fine margins in FPL was the fate of Joelinton (£5.5m). David and the FFS team selected him as part of their Newcastle triple-up for the Double Gameweek, having seen the Brazilian do well in sims of Football Manager.
However, Joelinton found himself on the bench for both Double Gameweek matches, coming on only once and scoring a total of one point, doubled-up to two by David’s captaincy.
It was bitter-sweet for them to witness Danny Rose (£5.3m) racking up 11 points by scoring against Villa, as David and the boys had come close to handing him the armband instead.
But their investment in Rose and Martin Dúbravka (£5.0m) proved a huge mistake as Newcastle conceded three times in the Double Gameweek.
Meanwhile, Az’s own defensive double-up, picked by the FFS community through last week’s votes, did much better. They went with Rui Patrício (£5.1m) and Matt Doherty (£6.3m) who scored 17 points between them, thanks to the goalkeeper earning all three bonus and the right-back registering an assist in a 3-0 win at West Ham.
Az pressed home his advantage as differential midfielder David Silva (£7.3m) notched 11 points in a home win over Burnley, although David more than matched that with a 13-point haul from Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) in Manchester United’s 4-0 victory at Spurs.
There was not much joy up-front for either manager as both earned six points from Sergio Aguero (£11.8m) while the other forwards blanked.
As already mentioned, Joelinton flopped for David and Harry Kane (£10.8m) blanked in that crushing defeat to the Red Devils.
Az saw Jamie Vardy (£9.6m), picked by community vote, blank and get booked in a 1-0 reverse at Watford while Alexandre Lacazette (£9.3m) picked up just two points at Brighton.
What about our season prediction?
So what do these results mean for the season we’ve been generating? Not only are we using Football Manager to feed our addiction to FPL, the virtual world we have created is also helping us predict the end of the 2019/20 campaign.
The fixtures aren’t exactly the same as they would have been in real life, but they are very close. So here are the Gameweek 30 results in full and what they mean for the league table:
- Watford 1-0 Leicester City
- West Ham United 0-3 Wolves
- Newcastle United 0-1 Sheffield United
- Norwich City 1-1 Southampton
- Aston Villa 0-3 Chelsea
- Bournemouth 2-1 Crystal Palace
- Everton 1-3 Liverpool
- Manchester City 2-0 Burnley
- Brighton and Hove Albion 1-0 Arsenal
- Tottenham Hotspur 0-4 Manchester United
- Newcastle United 3-2 Aston Villa
Liverpool’s win means they are now even closer to claiming the Premier League title, although Manchester City have kept the gap at 25 points for now.
Leicester’s defeat allowed Chelsea, Manchester United and Sheffield United to make ground on them in the hunt for a Champions League place, as well as Wolves.
Spurs and Arsenal slip further away from the prize in that battle with uninspiring defeats.
Meanwhile, West Ham slip further into the mire as they lost to Wolves and watched Brighton, Watford and Bournemouth all win.
Norwich might still have too much to do following their 1-1 draw with Southampton. They are now eight points from safety.
3 years, 11 months ago
If it will ever matter...
Ing+Aurier >> DCL+Doherty?
McCarthy
TAA / Soy / Lascelles
Bruno F / Salah / KDB / H. Barnes
Jiménez / Auba / Ings
(McGov, Saka, Lunds, Aurier)