Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Gameweek 3

“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”

This was meant to be our moment. Sure, Gameweek 2 had been disappointing but we are FPL managers, with the right transfers, a hit here and there, we would seize the opportunity and transform our fortunes. That was at least the planned narrative for this weekend, but the FPL Gods played us like fools.

Emotions are running high, with rage transfers and Wildcards being wielded at an alarming rate. The Great and The Good are not immune with not one, not two but three of these well-known managers making the most of the present and throwing in the mother of all chips.

For those not familiar with the series The Great and The Good are a select group of prominent FPL managers made up of FF Scouts, Pro Pundits, Celebrities and Hall of Famers who I follow during the season to see what I can learn in order to improve my fortunes.

They are the Scouts Neale Rigg and Joe Lepper, Pro Pundits (Mark Sutherns, Az, Lateriser, Fabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General,  Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville Ronka, Matthew Jones and Sean Tobin

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Despite a tough weekend, the majority scored a green arrow this week and whilst Fabio still leads the way, sitting just outside the top 100,000, it was FPL General who was the top scorer.

His Vardy inspired team hit 58 points with a double up on the Liverpool defence seeing him rise 236,000 places.

However, the biggest climber this week was Mark who gained over 1 million places with last week’s Grealish move paying dividend plus that Liverpool double up and Soucek coming off the bench to give him 56 after hits.

Meanwhile, the three Wilcarders Ville, Lateriser and Sean sat at the other of the spectrum with the lowest scores of the week and red arrows to complete their misery.

“O captain, my captain”, was the woeful cry of many of The Great and The Good this week as Werner failed Mark and Joe and Kevin did little for the majority.

Perhaps the theory always go with Mo is the most sensible course as the Liverpool midfielder rewarded Tom, Magnus and Fabio with an assist. Interesting to note these three managers have yet to suffer a captain blank, can any of them maintain a 100% record going into the international break?

WILDCARDS

Lateriser

Lateriser had given us all early warning of his decision to overhaul his team with much discussion on this topic on the excellent FPL Wire, well worth a listen. He certainly made the most of the opportunity with eleven changes to his squad with a clear tactic to triple down on City and Wolves, which made much more sense before the events over the weekend.

There are some great value picks with Foden, Podence, Calvert-Lewin and Lamptey all bound to be a higher price by the end of the season and there are some signature upside chasing picks with Semedo and Sterling. He’ll be hoping that Messrs Pep and Nuno get a reaction out of their teams this weekend.

There is a glaring Mo shaped hole in his team, and I will be intrigued to see if he sticks with Werner or moves to Ings. Whilst a disappointing start to his new-look squad it looks a good team on paper at least.

IN

Martinez, Button, Lamptey, Semedo, Taylor, De Bruyne, Sterling, Podence, Foden, Burke, Jimenez

OUT

McCarthy, Steer, White, Dier, Walker-Peters, Aubameyang, Bruno Fernandes, Saint-Maximin, Bissouma, Alli, Martial

Ville Ronka

A slightly more surprising decision to play his chip for the Finnish enigma due to his conservative nature, but he has made wholesale changes and the omission of Alexander-Arnold catches my attention.

He seems to have settled on 3-5-2 as the formation of choice with Brewster as third striker, although he may move up the pecking order if he finally gets the move away from Anfield.

A triple up on Everton suggests he has been suitably impressed by their start with Digne, Calvert-Lewin and James Rodriguez all finding their way into his fifteen.

His love-hate relationship with Son continues as he returns after being removed last week prior to his haul, further misfortune awaited Ville this week as the Spurs midfielder was substituted at half time with a hamstring injury. I don’t think the Fin will be sending him any get well soon cards.

IN

Martinez, James, Saiss, Lamptey, De Bruyne, Foden, Son, James Rodríguez, Jimenez, Calvert-Lewin, Brewster

OUT

McCarthy, Alexander-Arnold, Justin, Ayling, Aubameyang, Rashford, Saint-Maximin, Soucek, Werner, Bamford, Mitrovic

Sean Tobin

Sean seized the moment, although with perhaps less dramatic moves from the Hall of Famer with his focus a midfield restructure.

He has tripled up on Wolves, and who could blame him based on their delicious set of fixtures and hopefully they will improve after their Sunday night hammering.

He has a doubled up on Liverpool, City and Chelsea players, providing a solid core to his team, although this is subject to normal service resuming after the freaky results in Gameweek 3.

He has shown faith in Werner whose transition to the Premier League has been a little shaky, read Portsmouth Bubblejet’s excellent hot topic for more on Chelsea’s new boys. Lampard will need to show his qualities as a coach and tactician if he is to get the most out of the German striker.

Sean has possibly the most well-balanced squad and I am sure Joe would applaud the price point structure which will allow him flexibility going forward into a campaign with so many unknowns.

IN

Martinez, Forster, James, Lamptey, De Bruyne, Foden, Podence, Burke, Jimenez

OUT

McCarthy, Nyland, Ayling, Doherty, Bissouma, Aubameyang, Havertz, Soucek, Adams

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – De Bruyne (Aubameyang)

Fabio Borges – De Bruyne (Aubameyang)

Joe Lepper – De Bruyne, Podence (Aubameyang, Saint-Maximin)

FPL General – De Bruyne, Podence (Aubameyang, Saint-Maximin)

Lateriser – Wildcard

Magnus Carlsen – De Bruyne, Foden (Aubameyang, Saint-Maximin)

Mark Sutherns – De Bruyne, Podence (Aubameyang, Saint-Maximin)

Matthew Jones – De Bruyne, Podence (Aubameyang, Saint-Maximin)

Neale Rigg – De Bruyne, Podence (Aubameyang, Saint-Maximin)

Sean Tobin – Wildcard

Tom Freeman – De Bruyne (Aubameyang)

Ville Ronka – Wildcard

*transfers out are in brackets

Groupthink appears to be at play with every one of the managers either via transfer or Wildcard moving out Aubameyang for De Bruyne, closely followed by the popular move for Podence replacing Saint-Maximin.

TEMPLATE

The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-

Steer (5), Button/McCarthy (4)

Alexander-Arnold (11), Walker-Peters (9), Mitchell (7), Ayling (6), Justin (5)

De Bruyne (12), Salah (11), Podence (7), Bissouma (5), Soucek/Foden/Rodriguez (4)

Werner (10), Mitrovic (5), Calvert-Lewin (4)

A shift in the template as De Bruyne is now the only player to sit in all of the squads and Aubameyang just a distant memory.

Calvert-Lewin has also arrived thanks to his fine form with Adams and Martial making way and the 4th and 5th midfield slots are a little murky as whilst Podence has secured a spot there are a variety of players vying for that final place.

FORMATION

The joy of formation. We have a number of trends over the last couple of seasons when it comes to the set-up of our teams, the start of last year saw us bang on about big at the back before we ended post-lockdown with big in the middle.

Even before this campaign started there was lots of talk of the value in defence with the likes of Alexander-Arnold, Robertson, Doherty and Digne seeming to offer the best of both worlds in clean sheets and potential attack returns.

Despite all this the talk of the ever-popular 3-4-3 hangs around and does seem to be the way to go as argued by Steven-Reinaldo-Rusli in his recent Community article (splendid stuff by the way).

As always with such matters I consult The Great and The Good to see how they approached this issue and the current favourite is 4-4-2, deployed 39% of the time over the first three weeks.

Yet, look a bit deeper and there is division in the camp with Magnus and Sean strong proponents of 3-4-3, Fabio sticking with his 4-3-3 aka midfield double pivot of doom and Ville Ronka committing to a 3-5-2 with his Wildcard.

Ultimately, I suspect if the goals and penalties, so many penalties, continue to fly we will see more drift towards 3-4-3 with the mid-price options of Calvert-Lewin, Wilson, Maupay providing more value than a mid-range 5th midfielder. However, at this stage there appears to be little rhyme or reason to this campaign so let’s see how this develops.

CONCLUSION 

There are a lot of baffled managers in FPL world scratching their heads and muttering about having a good team on paper but let’s give ourselves a break. It’s early in the season, fitness levels are still inconsistent and new players have been given precious little time to settle.

For many it may be a time to take hits, Wildcard their Wildcard but for others standing still until after the international break may be a better option. So, to quote Dead Poets Society one last time “There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.” Good luck with whichever path you take.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.

For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19