“Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow, and have yourself a merry little Christmas now”
This will be a different Christmas for many us this year, but let’s hope FPL can give us some cheer. This little fantasy game we play has already taught us this season about the importance of persistence and endurance and it looks as though these are lessons, we will need to heed in our new normal lives.
However, let’s look to inject, copyright FPL Bhuna, some festive fun and I warn you now I do enjoy this punderful time of the year so expect an extra dose of ho-ho-hilarity as I survey the seasonal fortunes of The Great and The Good.
The Great and The Good 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
It’s the season for overindulgence and many of The Great and The Good were stuffed with points this week after a tree-mendous showing.
The star at the top of the Christmas tree was Neale who deserves a round of Santa-plause for his century of points, he had the Liverpool pair of Mo and Robertson plus Bruno to thank and he’ll be saving a bit of mistletoe for Danny Welbeck.
Make it rein down with green arrows as pretty much all the managers celebrated a surge in rankings. Lateriser was flying in the air with a move up of over 700,000 and beware the presents of Matthew Jones as he has now had seven out of eight green arrows equally a rise of 2.9 million!
Oh deer, Tom’s captain choice of Kane was bad for his elf and he now falls behind Mark and Neale but with a Wildcard in hand he met yet have the final sleigh.
Talking of which my mince spies tell me Mark will play his overhaul chip on a special Blackbox on 27th so let’s hope he is not too full of festive cheer otherwise it could be a lost clause.
As with the last-minute changes to our Christmas plans upon the announcement of Tier 4 in UK, there was equally frantic activity amongst FPL managers as the leaked Salah benching spooked many of us into eleventh-hour armband adjustments.
The majority of The Great and The Good put Bruno as their must-have gift in their captain Christmas list, Magnus proved him-elf to be a smart casual by sticking with Mo whilst Lateriser was Santa-mental with the choice of Martial.
WEEKLY TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week :
Az – Adams (Maupay)
Fabio Borges – None
Joe Lepper – Taylor (Ayling)
FPL General – None
Lateriser – Martial (Jesus)
Magnus Carlsen – None
Mark Sutherns – Dias, Martinez (Walker, McCarthy)
Matthew Jones – None
Neale Rigg – None
Sean Tobin – Taylor (Mitchell)
Tom Freeman – Dunk (Walker-Peters)
Ville Ronka – Son, Lewis (Chilwell, Rodriguez)
*transfers out are in brackets
It was a silent night in the transfer market for most of the managers, but Ville Ronka and Mark Sutherns did decide to spruce up their squads. Santa Sutherns used his gift receipt to swop City defenders, whilst Ville was pine-ing for Son, only for the Spurs midfielder to turn into The Grinch and deliver a blank.
Hark the herald angels sing, Az finally decided Maupay should be on the naughty list and told him there was no room at the inn, maybe he should have gone for Welbeck who has scored 31 pts in the last six Gameweeks, outscoring seasonal favourite Bamford.
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:-
Martinez (7), Steer (6)
Chilwell (8), Dias (6), Lamptey (5), Ayling (5), Mitchell/Taylor/Walker-Peters(4)
Salah (12), Bruno Fernandes (11), De Bruyne (10), Grealish (8), Son (6)
Bamford (12), Calvert-Lewin (9), Watkins (5)
The template remains settled but like an advent calendar I suspect Watkins days are numbered unless he starts to convert some of his chances and avoids the pantomime villain of VAR.
DIFFERENTIALS
The big scores of this last week has shown there is opportunity to move up ranks rapidly and sleigh your rivals over the holiday season, so which players do The Great and The Good see as best in snow when it comes to differential picks?
Surprisingly, Ruben Rudolph Dias is still only 4.7% owned at time of writing and is well established in a number of The Great and The Good squads, this is despite City having the best defence in the league, averaging 5.4 points over the last five games and looking less rotation prone than most.
His City teammate Cancelo is also under 5% and it does appear in the cut price defender selection box that you can find the best of the differential picks so don’t fir-get your Coulfal’s and Taylor’s.
As mentioned Neale has put his faith in Welbeck, sitting at 1.5% ownership, but its Lateriser’s pick of Martial that could be a Christmas cracker with two double digit hauls in a row, he’s top big chances in last two weeks and has an xG of 1.88 – is it gloves off for Tony?
CONCLUSION
Plenty to ponder over the Turkey, Goose or Nut roast this year with Gameweek 18,19 fast approaching plus Yule be sorry if you don’t look to future now that the EFL Cup will move to Gameweek 33 meaning another blank and a double in Gameweek 26. I’ve got a sore head just thinking about it!
Even though there is lots to consider remember to look up occasionally from your fixture spreadsheet and enjoy your own merry little festivities. Happy Christmas everyone!
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 or simply want to follow along with unnerving Xmas FPL countdown then you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19
3 years, 3 months ago
Cheers Greyhead, merry Christmas!