Learning from ‘The Great and The Good’ FPL managers ahead of Gameweek 23

Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead continues with his series of articles analysing the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) transfers and strategies of some noted Fantasy managers, from serial top 10k finishers to well-known faces.

The Great and The Good this year are the Scouts Joe Lepper, Neale Rigg, Geoff Dance and Tom Freeman, FPL Wire’s Zophar, from the Hall of Fame Fabio Borges, FPLMatthew, Yavuz Kabuk and Tom Stephenson, Blackbox’s Az and Mark Sutherns, FPL “celebrities” LTFPL Andy, Magnus Carlsen and FPL General plus last year’s mini-league winner Les Caldwell.

“You cannot stop Ragnarok. Why fight it? Because that’s what FPL heroes do.”

Whether you are a fan of Marvel films or not, we face our very own FPL Ragnarok with Double Gameweeks becoming singular, Burnley’s refusal to play any games, arguments about luck versus skill and some stalking of Cristiano Ronaldo’s (£12.5m) Instagram feed. This really did feel like the end of days.

Yet we plucky FPL heroes continue to fight on with Jarrod Bowen (£6.8m) acting as our own West Ham warrior, Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.4m) hammering away with more points and an FPL legend was restored to former glory as Bruno Fernandes (£11.7m) stole everyone’s thunder.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

The return of the king! Fabio Borges has soared to the top of the table in what has been a miraculous turnaround over the last ten weeks, from being outside of the top 200k in Gameweek 12 to now being in the top 5k.

Yes, he has been on the right side of the last two captain swings – with the armband on Bruno a critical factor this time – but it has been his smart spread of squad funds over this period of turmoil that has allowed him to climb where others have fallen.

Fabio was not the only high-scoring manager this week, with both Tom Freeman and Magnus Carlsen just shy of hitting a century. The Chess Grandmaster was even able to leave 17 points on his bench.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – Fernandes (Son)

LTFPL Andy – King, Trossard (Son, Broja)

Fabio Borges – Fernandes (Son)

Joe Lepper – Mount, De Gea (Son, Ramsdale)

Geoff Dance – Dennis (Antonio)

FPL General – King, Raphinha (Broja, Son)

Les Caldwell – Mount, Jota (Son, Foden)

Magnus Carlsen – Fernandes (Sterling)

Mark Sutherns – Dennis, Mount (Broja, Son)

FPL Matthew – Foden, Fernandes (Son, Bernardo)

Neale Rigg – Ronaldo, Mac Allister (Pukki, Salah)

Tom Freeman – Fernandes (Salah)

Tom Stephenson – Foden (Son)

Yavuz Kabuk – Trossard, Ronaldo (Son, Toney)

Zophar – Trossard (Son)

The Friday deadline, combined with postponements and injury speculation, led to a stressful deadline for many of ‘The Great and The Good’, with no clear and obvious plan of attack for a Gameweek with so much uncertainty.

Plenty of hits were again flying around, as eight used a minus four to navigate the fixtures. Many moved out Son Heung-min (£10.7m) but it was their choice of replacement which proved key. Mason Mount (£7.7m), Leandro Trossard (£6.1m) and Phil Foden (£8.0m) all seemed sensible but were nothing compared to Bruno.

We have to mention Neale’s pick of Alexis Mac Allister (£5.3m) who proved a canny purchase, contributing nine points after his double-digit return of Gameweek 21.

TEMPLATE

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

De Gea (8), Foster (6)

Alexander-Arnold (15), Cancelo (15), Livramento (9), Alonso (6), Dawson (5)

Bowen (15), Jota (15), Gray (7), Foden (6), Bruno Fernandes (5)

Antonio (14), Ronaldo (11), King (11)

The template is solidifying, with the fantastic four of Joao Cancelo (£7.0m), Bowen, Alexander-Arnold and Diogo Jota (£8.4m) in all 15 teams. I suspect we may see an influx of Villans this week.

CAPTAIN CALLS

The captaincy swings have been huge throughout the last few weeks and have had a major impact on ‘The Great and The Good’ fortunes so let’s look at the armband data so far.

Obviously, Mohamed Salah (£12.7m) dominates over the season but some have been willing to gamble, with Magnus, in particular, going with the likes of Harry Kane (£12.3m) Raheem Sterling (£10.7m) and of course Kai Havertz (£7.8m).

However, perhaps the biggest shift came around Gameweek 19 when we saw some move out Salah prior to his African Cup of Nations adventures.

This opened up the field to a wider variety of captaincy picks and you can see Fabio has taken full advantage, with an armband total of 116 over those four weeks, this has given him an 88-point swing over LTFPL Andy who has not fared so well. Full data is below:

CONCLUSION

Here we are then, another fast set of decisions required with much dependency on the announcement of any doubles, with Aston Villa likely to be top of the menu.

However, amongst all the excitement, don’t forget your Salah return plans and take time over your marvelous armband picks, as a poor choice of captain can leave you feeling Thor.

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

For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me here on Twitter.