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Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Gameweek 19

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”

Dun-uh. Dun-uh. Dun-uh. A jaw dropping Double Gameweek which was in equal parts terrifying and magnificent allowing many to take a large bite out of their ranks.

Many of the big fish threw in their chips with Bench Boost and Triple Captains being played by many of The Great and The Good. John Stones and Michail Antonio were the heroes with the Liverpool attack proving the villains, but we left between a rock and a shark place as it ended with tough decisions to be made on our De Bruyne and Vardy replacements.

For those not following along, The Great and The Good are prominent managers I track to hopefully improve my own performance. They are the Scouts Neale Rigg and Joe Lepper, Pro Pundits (Mark SuthernsAzLateriserFabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General,  Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville RonkaMatthew Jones and Sean Tobin

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

learning-from-the-great-and-the-good-20-21-gameweek-19 1

FPL General has now taken the lead and is proving to be this year’s King of the Ocean, he is now up to 2,586, and his Bench Boost netted him 34 points.

It Mak-ome as no surprise that Sean Tobin was the top scorer this week as the Hall of Famer trawled 128 points, all this considering a 12-point hit. His double up on Stones, Dias and the Villa boys Martinez, Watkins was rewarded plus he had the Hammerhead Antonio.

Mark also scored well and his minus four for Antonio proved some-fin special, but it was at the back that he scored big with Dias, Pope, Justin and Coufal all contributing double digits.

He was not alone in having a jaw-some Gameweek with seven of them joining the century club, Joe made the biggest splash in the rankings with a 320,000-green arrow. The Scoutcast Sea dog played his triple captain on Salah, which was probably the only disappointment with Stones and Ederson contributing to a fine catch.

There has been a parting in the waves of The Great and The Good with 50% of them in the top 100,000 whilst the remainder sit outside the 300,000 but the majority of them in the bottom half do have chips in hand setting up a fascinating second part of the season.

WEEKLY TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – Antonio (Calvert-Lewin)

Fabio Borges – Soucek, Antonio, De Bruyne, Dias (Raphina, Kane, Son, Balbuena)

Joe Lepper – Vardy, Ederson, Antonio (Kane, McCarthy, Calvert-Lewin)

FPL General – Antonio, De Bruyne, Cancelo (Son, Kane, Lowton)

Lateriser – Werner, Salah, Douglas (Kane, Son, Ayling)

Magnus Carlsen – Alexander-Arnold, Antonio (Lacazette, Regulion)

Mark Sutherns – De Bruyne, Antonio (Wood, Mané)

Matthew Jones – De Bruyne, Stones (Son, Robertson)

Neale Rigg – De Bruyne, Coulfal (Son, Dallas)

Sean Tobin – De Bruyne, Stones, Antonio, El Ghazi (Kane, Son, Burke, Taylor)

Tom Freeman – Salah (Son)

Ville Ronka – Antonio, Salah, Robinson (Son, Calvert-Lewin, Saiss)

*transfers out are in brackets

A Double Gameweek feeding frenzy broke out with minus eights and minus twelves cast out across the managers, perhaps the biggest shock was that Az didn’t take a hit.

Fabio Borges doubled the number of hits he has taken for the season in one Gameweek with a shocking -12, but he chews wisely in his moves for Dias and Antonio who gave the Portuguese his fifth green arrow in six weeks.

Lateriser continues to make good progress, an increase of 1.6 million since Gameweek 13, but he should probably throw Werner back in the water as he again failed to deliver or even play, managing less than 45 minutes on the pitch over the two games.

TEMPLATE 

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

Johnstone (6), Martinez (5)

Coulfal (9), Dias (8), Robertson (7), Stones (6), Justin/Cancelo (5)

Bruno Fernandes (12), Salah (12), De Bruyne (11), Soucek (9), Raphina/Grealish (3)

Bamford (12), Antonio (9), Brewster/Watkins (3)

A turning of the tide in the template with the Spurs duo of Son and Kane set adrift and three City players in defence. Will more of us consider the triple at the back with De Bruyne now is on the injury bench?

DO YOU WANT CHIPS WITH THAT? 

This season has brought a variety of chip strategies and the table below summarizes the moves so far by The Great and The Good:-

learning-from-the-great-and-the-good-20-21-gameweek-19

They are split into distinct groups, firstly the “Tiger Sharks”, (Mark, General, Sean, Fabio) they have acted aggressively cashing in both their Bench Boost and Free Hit which has helped bolster their ranks.

FPL General has been the most successful scoring 30 points above the average with his Free Hit in Gameweek 18 and as mentioned he scored 34 points off his bench in Gameweek 19.

Joe has also taken a hybrid approach aligned to this shiver of FPL Sharks with a Free Hit and Triple Captain in Gameweek 19 but sadly Salah saved his goals for the FA Cup.

The second group are the “Great Whites” (Lateriser, Tom and Ville) despite a fierce reputation they have decided to investigate its FPL prey before attacking and have not used any of their chips, instead plotting their way through the Winter break.

From this pack, Lateriser has been the most impressive with 145 points over the last couple of weeks which is only 19 points less than Fabio who spent both of his chips. Magnus took a similar swim lane navigating the choppy waters but then got caught hook, line, and sinker by Salah’s double blank.

Az, Neale and Matthew or the “Mako Sharks”, played their Free Hit in Gameweek 18 but have used their speed of thought when the conditions of the double looked unfavourable and decided not to use any of their other chips, that seems to be wise as even strong managers like Mark, Sean only scored 8 points from their Bench Boost.

CONCLUSION

After what seemed a very long Gameweek we now enter a period of intense activity with four Gameweek deadlines in 12 days with a need for quick decisions and plenty for us to chomp down on.

The murky waters continue to cloud our judgement and this year is not for the planner, certainly any notion of mapping out moves 5-6 weeks ahead is brave if not a little foolhardy.

This is the season for the short-term instinctive FPL manager looking only 2-3 weeks ahead and perhaps more than ever form should override our decision making rather than fixtures.

The race for The Great and The Good crown has never been so competitive or so fascinating, those with chips in hand may yet turn out to the predators of the deep blue ocean of FPL.

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

10 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Rotation's Alter Ego
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 12 Years
    3 years, 2 months ago

    Cheers Greyhead! Interested to see what LR has up his sleeve for the rest of this season.

    Feels a strong year for the group, plenty in the top 100k despite a little gap opening up between Mark and Tom.

    1. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
      • 10 Years
      3 years, 2 months ago

      Werner TC

      1. Greyhead
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 5 Years
        3 years, 2 months ago

        Well it’s different

  2. alsybach
    • 14 Years
    3 years, 2 months ago

    I’m gonna bench robbo and start coufal. Sounds logic?

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      3 years, 2 months ago

      I’m benching TAA for Coulfal so I would concur

  3. Lateriser 12
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    3 years, 2 months ago

    Excellent as always.

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      3 years, 2 months ago

      Cheers - very kind

  4. FPL Theorist
    • 4 Years
    3 years, 2 months ago

    I've projected a final rank for each of the Great and the Good from their ranks after GW20 using the formula FinalOR = CurrentOR*0.5*0.6^n, where n is the number of chips left other than wildcard (which they all have left):

    General: 486
    Fabio: 2.2k
    Magnus: 3.6k
    Neale: 6.1k
    Mark: 7.0k
    Sean: 17k
    Tom: 33k
    Ville: 50k
    Matthew: 74k
    Lateriser: 146k
    Az: 160k
    Joe: 195k

    I'll revisit these at the end of the season and see how they came out.

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      3 years, 1 month ago

      Truly outstanding work - imagine General would love a 3 digit finish

    2. ⚔★Vibudh★⚔
      • 7 Years
      3 years, 1 month ago

      Interesting, do keep us updated!