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.
“Mamma mia, here I go again;
My, my, how can I resist you?”
Another week, another double, another announcement of a double, another week of VAR controversy. Mamma mia, here we go again.
Whilst we stared blankly at the fixtures map ahead of us trying to work out the best way to plot our teams through the myriad of blanks and doubles, only one thing seemed certain – we needed the right Arsenal triple-up.
Bukayo Saka (£8.3m) was sought after, Martin Odegaard (£7.0m) was obsessed over, Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.2m) was the go-to defender and Gabriel Martinelli (£6.6m), well he was seen as the makeweight midfielder.
During all this plotting and conniving, there was plenty of action over the weekend, which even VAR couldn’t spoil although it did its best, and don’t get the FPL Community started on Trent Alexander-Arnold’s (£7.3m) non-assist.
Kevin De Bruyne’s (£12.4m) owners were left smirking as he was the star turn in this week’s heavy-hitter hokey-cokey, Mohamed Salah (£12.6m) guaranteed his place back into our Gameweek 25 squads and Luke Shaw (£5.3m) delivered a brace while sat on many of our benches – but it’s fine I’m over it now, good decision, bad outcome and all that nonsense. Aaargh!
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
We have a new leader as FPL Harry climbed the mountain with a fine score of 97, toppling Ben Crellin who unfortunately had none of this week’s holy trinity of De Bruyne, Shaw or Riyad Mahrez (£7.8m).
Magnus was the lone centurion and he provided the captaincy excitement again this week with Saka being the armband differential of choice. It was this call plus Shaw, Ivan Toney (£7.6m) and David de Gea (£5.0m), yes really, that saw him to a green arrow of 555,000.
In other news, LTFPL Andy’s loyalty to Salah was at last repaid, FPL Matthew finally got around to using his Triple Captain on Erling Haaland (£12.2m) and watch out for Pras as since Gameweek 20 he has moved from being ranked outside 500,000 to inside the top 100,000.
TRANSFERS
A frenetic week of transfer activity with an Emirates epicentre as Arteta’s high fliers were top of both the arrivals and departures board.
Saka was the most in-demand and delivered a brace for his new owners, Fabio and Finn Sollie probably regret gambling on Pep’s defensive roulette with an absent Manuel Akanji (£5.0m) and in the midst of all this we saw the lesser spotted James Tarkowski (£4.2m) make an unexpected return to our thinking.
It was a week for hits, with six of them taking minus fours – FPL Harry and Suvansh are now joint top with Az for the most hits, six each as it stands.
The full list of transfers is below:-
- Az – Saka, Zinchenko (Shaw, Kulusevski)
- LTFPL Andy – Odegaard, Tarkowski, Gabriel (White, Shaw, Martinelli)
- Ben Crellin – Tarkowski, Odegaard, Gabriel (White, Shaw, Martinelli)
- Fabio Borges – Saka, Akanji (Martinelli, Cancelo)
- Finn Sollie – Saka, Akanji (White, Fernandes)
- FPL Harry – De Bruyne, Odegaard, Kilman (Fernandes, Martinelli, Stones)
- Joe Lepper – Saka (Fernandes)
- Geoff Dance – De Bruyne, Lewis (Fernandes, Doherty)
- FPL General – De Bruyne, Odegaard (Martinelli, Fernandes)
- Magnus Carlsen – No Transfers
- Mark Sutherns – No Transfers
- FPL Matthew – Odegaard (Martinelli)
- Neale Rigg – Saka (Almiron)
- Pras – Mahrez (Fernandes)
- Suvansh – Odegaard, Saka (Fernandes, Martinelli)
- Tom Freeman – Saka (Martinelli)
- Tom Stephenson – No Transfers
- Zophar – Saka, Tarkowski (Martinelli, Cancelo)
TEMPLATE
A midfield reshuffle was in order for the template, with an end to the “we don’t talk about Bruno memes” as Mr Fernandes left along with the much-maligned Martinelli, whose minutes are being munched at by Leandro Trossard (£6.7m).
Saka and Odegaard came in to fill the void. Despite Saka’s popularity, Rashford and Haaland are still the only ones at 100% ownership with FPL Matthew the only one not wanting to join the Bukayo party.
The full details for The Great and The Good are as follows, with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:
Ward (13), Kepa (13)
Trippier (17), Shaw (15), White (11), Patterson (7), Bueno (5)
Rashford (18), Saka (17), De Bruyne (13), Odegaard (11), Andreas (10)
Haaland (18), Mitrovic (12), Kane (8)
BENCH JAM
With reports of some jammy Rico Lewis (£3.9m) owners dodging a bullet as Luke Shaw’s points came off their bench, you know who you are (ahem, Geoff Dance), I thought it worth seeing who has benefitted the most from those benching skills:
FPL Harry has been the manager with the largest slice of variance having received 60 points from his bench over the season, although there was some bench wizardry earlier in the campaign which tarnishes this achievement.
Meanwhile, Pras and Andy have benefitted less from auto sub jam and Ben Crellin has stacked his bench over the season perhaps characteristic of his safety-first approach to fixture rescheduling.
CONCLUSION
There is a danger that chips, glorious chips will dominate our thinking as we try to determine the optimal strategy for our teams and this requires plenty of thought.
Much depends on what happens in the Fulham vs Leeds FA Cup game as that will determine how big the blank in Gameweek 28 will be for many of us, with a contingent of Craven Cottagers already in place in the template along with plans for some Anfielders to join them.
The result will dictate whether a Free Hit is worthwhile, plus of course how the big double falls in Gameweek 29 for the likes of Brighton and Brentford. See, I told you it requires thought.
So, for now, probably best to focus on what we know now and that is, making sure we have enough players for Gameweek 25 and giving room for that man Mo.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, but remember don’t have FPL 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
