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Virtual FPL managers seeking replacements for injured Pukki and Fernandes

Two well-owned Virtual FPL assets picked up injuries in Tuesday night’s round of fixtures.

We look back on Gameweek 8 of Ragabolly’s popular Fantasy management game and preview Thursday’s simulated action.

READ MOREHow to sign up and play Virtual FPL

GAMEWEEK 8 NOTES

(The full results from Gameweek 8 are available via the Virtual FPL fixtures page or the game’s Twitter account.)

Injury Blows

Two players who are among the top seven Virtual FPL assets for ownership picked up injuries on Tuesday night.

Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m), the second-most-popular midfielder in the game, will miss Manchester United’s next four games, while Teemu Pukki (£6.5m), the most-owned vFPL forward, is set for a six-match absence.

Both players at least bowed out with attacking returns, with Pukki scoring Norwich’s opener in their 2-1 win over Arsenal and Fernandes grabbing a brace of assists and a bonus point in United’s comfortable 3-0 victory against Crystal Palace.

With price changes not an issue in Virtual FPL, there is no value to be lost in selling either/both players and revisiting them when they are fit.

Who the most popular replacements for the pair will be is another question, with United and Norwich among the teams with the best runs of fixtures during their absences – so Emiliano Buendia (£6.0m), Anthony Martial (£8.0m) and the recently recalled Paul Pogba (£8.3m) may pick up some new owners as Fernandes is offloaded.

Grealish on Pens?

There was just one penalty awarded in Gameweek 8 of Virtual FPL, which was converted by Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish (£6.5m).

We might be able to add the Villa talisman to the list of those assets on spot-kick duties that we compiled on Tuesday, then.

While Anwar El Ghazi (£5.5m) was on the pitch at the time, it should be said that Wesley (£5.5m) was not on the field when Villa were awarded their penalty.

Both of those players have taken spot-kicks for the Villans in “real life” this season.

It could be, then, that Wesley is still first choice if and when the Brazilian is actually playing.

Given that he is sharing pitch-time with Mbwana Samatta (£5.9m), of course, that might not be all that often.

Clean Sheets

Five teams are still without a clean sheet after eight Gameweeks of the campaign and they’re not all lower-table fodder.

Along with bottom-of-the-league Bournemouth and mid-table Norwich City, Manchester City, Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur have yet to register a single shut-out – and all of those sides sit within the top seven as things stand.

Crystal Palace and Liverpool are top of the division for clean sheets, having registered four apiece.

All four of Palace’s have arrived at Selhurst Park, where the Eagles face Aston Villa in Gameweek 9.

Newcastle United are on a run of three successive games without conceding, meanwhile.

De Bruyne Benched… But Still Scores

Kevin De Bruyne’s (£10.6m) unbroken run of starts came to an end on Tuesday but the Belgian still made the most of his 13-minute cameo, grabbing Manchester City’s late equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Sheffield United.

Riyad Mahrez (£8.6m), also on as a substitute, claimed the assist for City’s leveller.

Roberto Firmino (£9.5m), Joe Gomez (£5.3m) and Jordan Ayew (£5.1m) were other players to taste bench duty on Tuesday, emerging for the dreaded one-pointer in the second half of their respective teams’ games.

Patrick van Aanholt (£5.6m) didn’t even make it onto the field for the defeated Eagles.

Alonso On Top
The Scout Squad picks for FPL Gameweek 30

Sitting joint-top of the defenders’ list for total Virtual FPL points is Marcos Alonso (£6.1m).

On top of banking three attacking returns and four clean sheets, Alonso has nine bonus points – a tally that no other vFPL defender can trump.

After the visit of Arsenal on Thursday, Chelsea then face six of the seven teams who have scored the fewest goals this season from Gameweeks 10-17.

Team Conversion Rates
Aguero asking the question of non-owners as De Bruyne ticks over

We have been keeping tabs on the number of attacks teams are mounting (and conceding) over the Virtual FPL season so far, with the updated spreadsheet to be found further down this article.

But how many of these opportunities are being converted into goals at either end of the pitch?

Below are the conversion rates for the 20 Premier League clubs, both for and against.

For

TeamAttacksGoalsAttack conversion
Man City1672313.77%
Aston Villa871112.64%
Spurs1632012.27%
West Ham78911.54%
Bournemouth72811.11%
Chelsea971010.31%
Arsenal141149.93%
Newcastle5559.09%
Wolves198178.59%
Leicester152138.55%
Liverpool269238.55%
Watford129118.53%
Norwich172148.14%
Man Utd203157.39%
Burnley8267.32%
Crystal Palace11387.08%
Sheff Utd12486.45%
Everton14296.34%
Brighton9555.26%
Southampton10055.00%

Against

TeamAttacks ConcededGoals concededConversion
Sheff Utd13885.80%
Chelsea13286.06%
Man City13696.62%
Burnley145106.90%
Arsenal12996.98%
Watford142107.04%
Liverpool8467.14%
Crystal Palace138107.25%
Everton145117.59%
Leicester130107.69%
Newcastle129107.75%
Southampton126107.94%
Man Utd131129.16%
West Ham1571710.83%
Spurs1471610.88%
Aston Villa1101210.91%
Wolves1291511.63%
Norwich1221512.30%
Brighton1311712.98%
Bournemouth1381913.77%
Gameweek history now visible

Ragabolly has helpfully added Gameweek histories to the Virtual FPL game, allowing managers to see the transfers they have previously made along with data such as captains selected and rank changes.

Managers can access this by clicking on ‘GW HISTORY’ (highlighted in red above) in the menu bar.

The season histories of other Virtual FPL managers are also visible and can be viewed by entering their team ID in the address bar (e.g. https://www.livefpl.net/history/1915)


VIRTUAL FPL PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE

UPCOMING FIXTURES

TOP SCORERS/ASSIST-MAKERS

STATS TABLES

Our spreadsheet that details team attacks (both for and against) by Gameweek and overall has been updated after the latest matches.

The fixture difficulty rating colour (according to Ragabolly’s ticker) is reflected in the relevant Gameweek.

The updated standings are below:

TopMarx has updated his interactive player stats spreadsheet after Tuesday’s matches, meanwhile.

He has also added a ‘Player Picker’ to help with your transfer-making decisions.

The stand-alone spreadsheet can be accessed via this link, with Fantasy managers able to make their own copy by selecting “File>Make a copy”.

INJURIES AND BANS

Danny Ings (£7.1m) returns from a three-match ban in Gameweek 9, with no other players currently serving a suspension.

Dele Alli (£8.3m) is now free of injury, meanwhile, along with Mamadou Sakho (£5.0m).

Apart from Pukki and Fernandes, Norwich City’s Christoph Zimmermann (£4.4m) was the only other player to pick up an injury in Gameweek 8.

The centre-half will miss the Canaries’ next four matches.

The likes of Rui Patricio (£5.1m), Frederic Guilbert (£4.4m) and Gylfi Sigurdsson (£7.3m) remain longer-term absentees.

RANKINGS

DeltaFox dropped from first to joint-ninth after a Gameweek 8 to forget, with Eddie Campbell‘s VAR United (aka pelle9) taking top spot after a 60-point swing between the pair.

The top four managers above are all signed up to our mini-league, along with DeltaFox.

Francisco Lamarque, who is level with the erstwhile overall leader, heads Greyhead’s Great and the Good league, while Fantasy Football Scout head honcho elfozzie moves to the top of the Mods and Cons mini-league and up to 71st in the world.

You can join the Fantasy Football Scout mini-league by entering the code 9RV4A via the below link.

JOIN THE FANTASY FOOTBALL SCOUT VIRTUAL FPL LEAGUE HERE

32 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Jafooli
    • 12 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Hope you’re all having a great Wednesday....

    1. Poseidon.
      • 5 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      Its friday bro

      1. TopMarx
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 11 Years
        3 years, 11 months ago

        I hadn't even noticed it was Friday

        1. TorresMagic™
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 14 Years
          3 years, 11 months ago

          Think he's still being homeschooled.

  2. FPL Virgin
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 7 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    That feeling when you suddenly realise it is a VFPL day... 😀 😀 😀

    1. StoichkovFPL
      • 8 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      I see that you are addicted like me 🙂

  3. Ógie
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Great article.

    Thanks 🙂

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      Agreed, great read as always Neale!

      1. Skonto Rigga
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 6 Years
        3 years, 11 months ago

        Cheers both, good luck this evening!

  4. Ragabolly
    • 14 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Great read as always Neale 🙂

    Also, one more thing to help managers decide on their transfers: I added a player data page (www.livefpl.net/playerdata) which includes stats for each player for individual gameweeks.

    I would recommend using this to note who has been more active recently, as using total stats only might be deceiving when it comes to identifying in form and out of form players.

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      Excellent!

      1. Ragabolly
        • 14 Years
        3 years, 11 months ago

        Next step is to make them downloadable. Would json format work for your sheets?

        1. TopMarx
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 11 Years
          3 years, 11 months ago

          Oh csv is definitely easier because there's already a function in Google Sheets called IMPORTDATA for importing csv's

          JSON would involve writing a script to do the import work. But depends how much work it is for you?

          1. TopMarx
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • Has Moderation Rights
            • 11 Years
            3 years, 11 months ago

            *I mean how much work to create a csv?

            1. Ragabolly
              • 14 Years
              3 years, 11 months ago

              It's just that I am not sure how to present the data in one csv file. The data has two ids, player and gw number, so like every player has his own table/sheet. What would be the easiest way for your sheets to put all those sheets together?

              1. TopMarx
                • Fantasy Football Scout Member
                • Has Moderation Rights
                • 11 Years
                3 years, 11 months ago

                Yes I see, ultimately 524 individual player csv's is fine at my end because once set up, the IMPORTDATA function means I won't have to touch them again, they will always have the latest data.

                But I'm going to speak to a friend who knows more than me about Google Sheets regarding JSON files. I will let you know,

                Thank you as always 🙂

    2. Skonto Rigga
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 6 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      Great stuff Ragabolly, will give that a mention in tomorrow's piece.

  5. Ógie
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Nice in vfpl the way a manager can do hooky kooky type transfers if they want without having to worry about losing any money on a player.

    I have tried this with some success over the last few gameweeks and am looking at doing it more often over the course of the vfpl season.

    I was playing around with one of my defender slots trying this doing Mendy>PVA>Doherty which worked out nicely.
    I have to put the hooky kooky on hold this gw to sort out my Pukki and Fernandes red flags but am certainly encouraged to try and walk that tight rope again after that.

    Anyone else considering or trying this in vfpl?

    1. BNMC
      • 4 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      I was actually considering doing it with strikers - maybe I bring in Rashford now, then replace him with Vardy for his 2 home matches in GW12 and 13 (Villa and Norwich), then replace him with Kane for the next matches.

  6. BNMC
    • 4 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Best sub-6.0 mid?

    A. Traore
    B. Buendia
    C. Lamela

    All of them seem quite punty, but I have no Spurs players at the moment for their good fixtures so I'm somewhat leaning towards Lamela.

    1. Ragabolly
      • 14 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      Lamela is punty but Alli back is a worry. Traore seems the "safest" option currently

    2. Mullered in Maenam
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      Like many of us I had Pukki and Fernandes so I've punted on Rashford and Lamela. I think Lamela at his price is worth the risk, if over the next three gameweeks he doesn't get the minutes because of Alli as Ragabolly says, then easy enough to shift him out again. Vfpl is well suiyed to short term punts I think.

    3. Monkey Hanger
      • 10 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      In one of the sims I have just run Lamela got all four assists, in a Spurs 4-2 home win against the Mighty Pool.

      1. Monkey Hanger
        • 10 Years
        3 years, 11 months ago

        Full strength Pool, apart from Robbo on the bench.

      2. Mullered in Maenam
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 9 Years
        3 years, 11 months ago

        Let's hope that's a prophecy!

  7. Shnkswnt
    • 3 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Vfpl
    So I have one transfer as usual but if I use Freehit chip this week then by next gameweek will I have 1 transfer or 2 transfers ?

    1. Ragabolly
      • 14 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      1, like FPL

  8. BNMC
    • 4 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Just a small suggestion for vFPL - perhaps add a bit of injury time at the end of halves? The amount of time would obviously be influenced by events like cards, penalties, injuries, etc

    1. TorresMagic™
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 14 Years
      3 years, 11 months ago

      They are virtual hence no need.

  9. Shnkswnt
    • 3 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Vfpl
    Martial or Mahrez ? (I don't have Manu cover)
    DCL or Jota ? (Has anyone ran Everton friendlies ? If yes then how did DCL got on ? ) Thanks.

  10. wayne50
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 9 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Best Captain. 1. Salah. 2. Rashford or 3. De Bryune.

  11. wayne50
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 9 Years
    3 years, 11 months ago

    Ragabolly - How many yellow cards cause a suspension?. When is the suspension cut off GW.