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.
“Walking on Son-shine!”
Fabio Borges and all those who captained Son Heung-Min (£11.1m) were walking on sunshine this week as the Spurs striker scored a hat-trick, helping the Portuguese Hall of Famer to a stellar score of 99 points.
After falling behind to Az in recent weeks Fabio must have been beaming as he roared back to top spot, making up a 34-point deficit to overtake the Blackbox host.
While Fabio was doing Fabio things, the rest of us were still puzzling over when to use our Free Hits. The courage levels of those ready to hit the button in Gameweek 33 were tested again this week as Man United and Arsenal players failed to sparkle. Perhaps investment in another United, Newcastle, is a better option.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Unsurprisingly, Fabio was the top scorer this week thanks to his Son captaincy, Ivan Toney (£6.9m) doing what he was meant to do at the start of the season and Raphinha (£6.5m) finally scoring a double-digit return, just before many managers plan to sell him.
The rest of the Son armband army also did well, Magnus moved up to his highest rank of the season at 15k and Andy totalled 86 points with Dejan Kulusevski (£6.3m) continuing to show unbelievable value for him.
However, Andy faces a defensive injury crisis due to Lucas Digne (£5.0m), Kieran Tierney (£5.0m) and Matt Doherty (£4.9m) all being flagged. With the Spurs man causing many of us to look for alternatives, I suspect Fabian Schar (£4.4m) will be a popular choice because of his home double against a couple of potentially fatigued teams.
I do expect the table to change over the coming weeks with Tom Freeman, Neale Rigg, FPL Matthew, and Magnus still to activate their Wildcards.
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week:
- Az – No transfer
- LTFPL Andy – No transfer
- Fabio Borges – No transfer
- Joe Lepper – Dewsbury-Hall (Ramsey)
- Geoff Dance – James (Tierney)
- FPL General – Doherty (Tierney)
- Les Caldwell – Fernandes (Salah)
- Magnus Carlsen – No transfer
- Mark Sutherns – Schar (Tierney)
- FPL Matthew – No transfer
- Neale Rigg – No transfer
- Tom Freeman – Fernandes (Salah)
- Tom Stephenson – No transfer
- Yavuz Kabuk – Doherty (Davies)
- Zophar – No transfer
Some big calls were made this week, with Tom Freeman and Les Caldwell selling Mohamed Salah (£13.2m) for Bruno Fernandes (£11.6m). Unfortunately, he failed his audition and it was a particularly bitter blow for Tom, who put the armband on him.
Geoff Dance was another to gamble as he signed Reece James (£6.3m) and handed him the captaincy – in another week it would’ve paid off but this time all he got was splinters.
Kieran Dewsbury-Hall’s (£4.4m) refined brace will no doubt give Joe hope of things to come even if he did bench him this time around, whilst FPL General and Yavuz picked the wrong week to transfer in Doherty.
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:
Ramsdale (8), Sa (2)
Doherty (13), Alexander-Arnold (13), Robertson (6), Rudiger (6), James (6)
Saka (13), Raphinha (13), Salah (11), Kulusevski (8), Son (5)
Kane (12), Weghorst (9), Lacazette (6)
The template remains rock solid but even a casual glance suggests change is on the way, with Son on the rise whilst Doherty and Wout Weghorst’s (£6.4m) days are probably numbered.
BUDGET SPREAD
With the continuing decline in the forward options, I thought it would be interesting to see where ‘The Great and The Good’ are spending their money. The percentages below show the comparison against the top 10k, all courtesy of LiveFPL.net
This shows the variety in approaches currently being adopted by ‘The Great and The Good’.
Led by Az, the majority have gone for investment up front with Harry Kane (£12.6m) the big-ticket item. Yet he is not a pre-requisite for success, as Fabio and LTFPL Andy have seen more green of late with most of their spend in midfield.
Elsewhere, FPL General has gone all-in on at the back with Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.4m), Andrew Robertson (£7.3m), Joao Cancelo (£7.0m) and Reece James, although it’s worth noting that this backline bravado is made easier by his lack of Bench Boost allowing him to invest in a cut-price set of forwards.
It’s an FPL cliche but never before has ‘play your own game’ been so appropriate, with so many different chip strategies and team set ups in play.
THE NEXT GREAT AND THE GOOD
Before we close, let’s check in on the contenders for next year’s magical mini-league.
What a competitive league it is, with the top five all in the top 400! Current leader Tanveer Singh is the India number one, with a 23-point gap, but be aware that Suvansh Sing has a Bench Boost and Wildcard in hand.
All I know is that Mark Sutherns should be looking nervously over his shoulder.
CONCLUSION
This season is proving to have one of the most intriguing finishes to date with chips chasers, multiple heavy-hitter combinations, plus risk and reward being at its most extreme when it comes to deciding which week to double-down on in the final weeks.
Don’t be sure of your rank just yet, as so much can and probably will change over the coming weeks. Prepare for extreme bouts of sunshine and maybe a little bit of stormy weather ahead.
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 on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19
