Learning from the Great and the good 20/21 – Community Special Half Time Report

“I’m Miss American Dream since I was 17/ Don’t matter if I step on the scene/ Or sneak away to the Philippines/ They still gon’ put pictures of my derriere in the magazine/ You want a piece of me?”

Wise words again from Britney on the dangers of fame. Poignant for this special follow up article as I look at the fortunes of the Community team assembled to take on The Great and The Good. Although, I am pleased to report none of them have yet to have a picture of their derrière in a magazine, although my money would be on Chaballer!

To jog the memory, this is a checkpoint on a bunch of slightly less know FPL managers as I plot their progress against the more prominent names of The Great and The Good in order to continue my quest to discover new strategies and tactics that may help us succeed. You can find the introductory article here.

The community champions/volunteers/lab rats are Pete Beswick, Darth Krid, Swanmoretime, Reedy, Boris Bodega, Pras United, Doy, AA33, Chaballer, Milvus, Dino and Sepp Blattered. In addition, we have Professor Bear ready and waiting as our first on the bench.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

First, let’s see who is winning the battle. The experience and guile of The Great and The Good is showing as they average 1,017 pts compared to the Community team at just 968.

However, there are some strong performances from the Community team with Boris Bodega leading the way sitting at 147,348 beating the likes of Mark Sutherns and Ville Ronka.

Interesting to note he may be in need of a government bailout as he has the lowest team value (102.6) despite his lofty-ish position, which would back up the notion that in this season team value would appear to be the least of your worries.

A manager rallying is Sepp Blattered who has scored eight out of ten green arrows moving up to 540,000 before a disaster last week when his double up on Mane and Salah looked less of a good idea contributing to just 39 points.

Rumours have reached me that he intends to navigate the blank without a chip, but with only eight players, if the Villa games gets cancelled, he may have to re-think his plans.

TRANSFERS

Pete Beswick is the transfer king with 120 immediate points from his moves, which have been few and far between, he has only made 16 changes, compared to the more aggressive Swanmoretime who has double the number of transfers with 68 points worth of hits.

The more conservative approach as worked for Pete as he sits third amongst the community team and his transfer success trumps most of The Great and The Good apart from FPL General who has an astonishing 157 points from his moves.

Hit me baby one more time Chaballer looks to be trying to win some competition for the greatest number of minus fours with 13 so far but most appear to have paid off with 110 points from these hits. Is he the true hitman?

CAPTAIN CALLS

We may have found a new author for the Captain’s articles as Pras United has scored a remarkable 288 points from his armband selection. He has kept faith with Mo for most of the season but when he has gambled it has paid off with Son, Kane, even Sterling scoring well when he gave them a chance to shine.

The Community substitute Professor Bear has also scored big off his captain picks with 276 points, better than all but FPL General from The Great and The Good. Maybe I should have picked him in the starting squad?

Reedy has scored a less enviable 180 points spreading his armband selection across ten different players including James Rodriguez, but at least he never captained a defender.

Which brings me onto Milvus, who from his lighthouse decided to go with Robertson in Gameweek 12, saying that the FPL veteran, he’s almost as old as me, must be doing something right as he has gained 1.3 million places in the last five weeks.

SQUAD SELECTION 

Having a quick look at benching decisions here and perhaps Boris should look at his own front bench as he has left 107 points amongst his substitutes so far this season. Another to fall foul to his team selection is Darth Krid who left 16 on the pine last Gameweek.

Darth is making a comeback of sorts with four out of five green arrows, this would have been a full house had he not been reduced to seven men in Gameweek 16 with triple City, Son and Calvert-Lewin the big-name casualties. I have faith in Darth though, the force is strong in this one.

Doy has been much more astute than Boris with his squad selection and has left only 29 points on his bench all campaign although he has wisely invested more in his reserves over the last few weeks in preparation for the fixture chaos.

Elsewhere, Dino, I am assured not the Dinosaur, has made full use of his fifteen with 14 substitutes during the season but scoring an admirable 44 points, just behind AA33 on this metric.

AA33 was also the latest of the Community team to push the Wildcard button in Gameweek 16 and sitting at 681,000 he is my one to watch as long as the COVID cancellations don’t inflict too much damage to his plans.

CONCLUSION

So, The Great and The Good are proving just that so far, but don’t write off the Community champions yet as if they can combine Pras United captaincy know-how, Pete Beswick’s transfer dealings and just stop Swanmoretime taking any more hits they may yet spring a surprise.

Good luck to you all over the coming weeks, I think we are going to need it! 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