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.
“It’s, oh, so quiet
Shhhh, shhhh”
For those in the United Kingdom, the big noise this week was the lack of a certain television presenter and a muting of our usual Saturday night entertainment, so it was left to the football to do the talking.
In FPL land, all the chat up to Gameweek 27 was how many doublers was enough, which of the M&M&M Brighton midfielders was your favourite flavour and whether to Steele yourself and use a transfer on a £3.9m goalkeeper.
As the action kicked off, Solly March (£5.1m) scored, then didn’t score, then was adjudged to have scored but not on FPL and then finally did actually score. Confused? You should be.
The Great and The Good added their own drama with two of them Bench Boosting, Joe playing his Wildcard, and Az taking the top-scoring forward in the game out for a hit.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
I should’ve, would’ve, could’ve Bench Boosted this week was a familiar cry as those who decided to roll the dice hit the jackpot, with Arsenal players scoring well from the sidelines.
Ben Crellin and Fabio Borges were the ones to benefit with Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.2m) timing his haul to perfection for these two Hall of Fame managers. They were this week’s highest scorers, with tallies of over 130 points – and this took Ben back to the top of The Great and The Good.
Ben sits just outside the top 1,000 and if he continues this momentum, this will be the first time in his FPL career that he will hit the magic three digits. FPL Harry is not that far behind, sitting at an overall rank of 1,239, so it looks to be a two-horse race between them for top spot in this made-up mini-league.
Fabio’s Bench Boost with double Arsenal defence paid off handsomely and he had a rank increase of 74% – the ‘GOAT’ is back!
They were not the only ones to score well, with 12 of the managers hitting centuries. All of those who Wildcarded in the last couple of weeks saw a surge in their ranks, so the likes of Az and Mark – who have held back on their chips – will be hoping to regain the advantage in the final weeks of the campaign.
WILDCARD
Joe pulled the trigger a week later than most and so was able to benefit from last week’s Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) haul and bring in some of the must-haves for the schedule ahead, including Ben Chilwell (£5.9m) and, of course, Alexis MacAllister (£5.5m).
He Wildcarded out Erling Haaland (£12.1m) for Ollie Watkins (£7.4m), who most have designs on now thanks to his extra couple of games in Gameweeks 28 and 29, plus a good run of form.
Perhaps the eyebrow raise was over his ditching of Gabriel Martinelli (£6.6m) but it was a sacrifice that needed to be made to maximize the doubles.
- IN – Steele, Botman, Henry, Chilwell, Pinnock, MacAllister, Toney, Watkins
- OUT – Ward, White, Shaw, Tarkowski, Coleman, Martinelli, Haaland, Gnonto
TRANSFERS
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Toney, MacAllister (Haaland, Odegaard)
- LTFPL Andy – No Transfers
- Ben Crellin – Steele (Sanchez)
- Fabio Borges – Steele (Sanchez)
- Finn Sollie – No Transfers
- FPL Harry – No Transfers
- Joe Lepper – Wildcard
- Geoff Dance – No Transfers
- FPL General – No Transfers
- Magnus Carlsen – Henry (Bueno)
- Mark Sutherns – MacAllister, Steele (Andreas, Ederson)
- FPL Matthew – No Transfers
- Neale Rigg – No Transfers
- Pras – No Transfers
- Suvansh – No Transfers
- Tom Freeman – No Transfers
- Tom Stephenson – No Transfers
- Zophar – No Transfers
Following last week’s groupthink Wildcard, it was a case of as you were, with the majority having based their overhaul on this week’s double-header for Brighton and Brentford.
Remarkably, a £3.9m goalkeeper was the major popular transfer as the two Bench Boosters tweaked their plans due to Robert Sanchez’s (£4.6m) omission last time out.
Mark also secured his services and took a hit in the process, but this was nothing compared to the headline-grabbing Az who used a minus four to kick out Haaland. Bold.
TEMPLATE
The full details for The Great and The Good is as follows, with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:
Raya (13), Kepa (10)
Trippier (17), Henry (14), Estupinan (13), Botman (9), Zinchenko (8)
Saka (18), Rashford (17), Mitoma (14), March (13), Odegaard (11),
Toney (18), Kane (16), Haaland (15)
Solid as a rock.
Suvansh and Mark were the ones without Harry Kane (£11.7m) as they missed out on the forward’s brace against Forest – a particularly difficult pill for the Trees-supporting Mr Sutherns to swallow.
DIFFICULT SEASON
There has been lots of talk in this campaign about variance and the level of difficulty going up a notch due to the continued influx of both players and content into the game, so I thought it was worth seeing whether the stats play it out.
The chart below calculates the average rank of The Great and The Good up to Gameweek 26 in the last two seasons.
The results are startling, with the difference in average rank at this time last season being significant: last year they managed 53,000, whereas this season it’s 290,000.
This has played out over the full campaign, as even from the kick-off we saw a gap of 485,000 (2021/22) vs 1.6m (2022/23).
The other interesting point is the rollercoaster nature of the season, suggesting variance has played a greater part. The progress last year was a steady improvement whilst this campaign has been a wild ride for most.
I hope this has given a crumb of comfort to those suffering this time out.
CONCLUSION
The term “casual” is often used as a dirty word by the FPL community, but maybe it is now obsolete.
The comparison of The Great and The Good’s performance over the last two years suggests climbing up the ranks is getting harder, with more players and more information available to even those who are less engaged; yes, even that bloke in the office mini-league you had to explain xG to.
So, we have two choices: accept that our rank targets need to be adjusted or find a new edge, a different advantage that will allow us to gain rank on Malcolm from accounts.
A couple of days ago we lost Dick Fosbury, inventor of the Fosbury Flip in the high jump, who revolutionised the sport and gained an advantage over his competitors. I wonder if there is a Fosbury-like innovator amongst us who can discover a way to get the upper hand in FPL land?
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
