Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead returns for the 2022/23 season 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 season are the BlackBox pair of Mark Sutherns and Az, Scouts Joe Lepper, Tom Freeman, Neale Rigg, Geoff Dance, Pro Pundits Pras, Zophar and FPL Harry, FPL “celebrities” Magnus Carlsen, FPL General, LTFPL Andy, Ben Crellin, from the Hall of Fame, Fabio Borges, FPL Matthew, Finn Sollie and Tom Stephenson and of course last year’s mini-league winner and overall no.2 Suvansh.
“Here you come again
Just when I’ve begun to get myself together
You waltz right in the door, just like you’ve done before
And wrap my heart ’round your little finger”
All right, now, let’s see. Where were we? Yes, after the distraction of Qatar, FPL has waltzed back into our lives and, like seeing some of our more distant family relatives at this time of year, we looked forward to it with some excitement, before quickly remembering why those loved ones are distant.
With the Premier League returning over the festive season, it was good to see so many old favourites and traditions return; the Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) brace, the regular Reece James (£5.8m) injury and, of course, Marco Silva playing his own version of press conference call my bluff by making an Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.9m) misdirection.
Of course, FPL managers did get their own Christmas presents via unlimited free transfers. Many of ‘The Great and The Good’ went the template socks route, some veered off the festive list (hello Mr Sutherns), whilst Magnus Carlsen will be on the naughty list as he seemed to completely forget.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Huge scores this week, with five of these managers achieving centuries, so well done to FPL Harry, LTFPL Andy, Tom Stephenson, Pras and FPL General.
The first three hit the holiday high notes with 104 points. As well as Salah, Marcus Rashford (£6.8m) and Kieran Trippier (£5.9m), their other common denominator was the much derided Mason Mount (£7.5m). One to watch with the imminent Double Gameweek?
It was a time for big green arrows, with four of the ‘100 Club’ making gains of over 200,000 places and FPL Harry moving back into the top 15k in his quest to finish above 5k for the third time in a row.
Despite small red arrows, Ben Crellin remains at number one, closely followed by Finn Sollie and – as it’s Christmas – I won’t mention the lower regions of the table.
NO LIMIT
Unlimited free transfers brought in some herd mentality, so there were some common themes amongst the squad selections but also some festive squabbles about the best ‘other’ premium, the right balance of Arsenal and Manchester United players and the identity of the third forward.
All went for a two-premium formation but it was a split down the middle on who was best between Kevin De Bruyne (£12.6m) and Salah. The Egyptian’s backers have won this round.
When it came to strikers, six managers decided to play just two upfront after the Mitrovic false injury news, including Tom Freeman, FPL Harry, FPL General, LTFPL Andy, Fabio Borges and Tom Stephenson.
The rest went with three – usually Haaland, Darwin Nunez (£9.0m) plus one other. Ben Crellin put Mitrovic on the bench for future rounds and will be fuming at missing out on 15 points.
Anthony Martial (£6.7m) was the popular choice, closely followed by the poorly Callum Wilson (£7.4m) but the two wise men of Mark and Joe decided Eddie Nketiah (£6.5m) was the chosen one.
As for triple-ups, I assumed that it would be a foregone conclusion that all would have a Manchester City trio but six of them, including LTFPL Andy, decided not to play Yuletide Pep Roulette.
Instead, Andy was one of four to go with three Chelsea players in preparation for their upcoming double.
The final big decision was determining how many Arsenal and Man United players to go with. Fabio was the only one to go with his Portuguese countryman Bruno Fernandes (£9.8m) and Az stood out for not picking any players from the league leaders.
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:
Kepa (13), Ward (12)
Trippier (17), James (17), Cancelo (14), White (12), Patterson (7)
Rashford (16), Martinelli (13), Salah (11), Andreas (11), Saka/De Bruyne (7)
Haaland (18), Darwin (14), Martial (6)
It’s as solid as ten-day-old Brussels sprouts, with twelve players in double-figure ownership amongst the eighteen managers.
The star atop the Christmas tree is Haaland with 100% ownership amongst, well, everyone who is still playing FPL.
A festive surprise was noticing that Trippier was not in everyone’s stocking. You may want to sit down for this but it was Fabio Borges who deemed the Newcastle United defender surplus to requirements.
It brings a strange sense of comfort that almost all of them went down the Reece James route. His new injury will now allow content providers to dust off their videos, threads and articles for potential replacements.
Magnus was the only one not to suffer here but that doesn’t really count, as he didn’t bother making any transfers.
EVERYONE LOOKS THE SAME
Using the LiveFPL template rating, I’ve unwrapped the 18 squads to see exactly how much they stick with the pack.
Unsurprisingly, Zophar, FPL General and FPL Matthew are the most template with a rating of 85 per cent. Mark has tried to shake things up in an attempt to regain ground, with a rating of 61% but perhaps most interesting is that Crellin and Borges are not as aligned as you would’ve expected from such model-based managers, both sitting in the mid-seventies.
CONCLUSION
There is barely time for us to shake off or revel in our Gameweek 17 scores before it’s time to jump into the next set of fixtures. Many will roll their free transfer but the temptation of Mitrovic and avoiding a price drop on James may be too much for some.
Whatever you do, remember to enjoy the ride – FPL has strolled back into our lives and we missed it, I think.
Also, whilst I have your attention, massive thanks to FPL Doodles for his excellent artwork again at the top of this article and below, reimagining how ‘The Great and The Good’ celebrated such recent festivities:
For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article, you can find me here on Twitter.
