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.
“Bye, bye baby, baby goodbye”
The Great and The Good waved a collective fond farewell to Erling Haaland (£12.0m) this week as his eight goals over the last couple of games was not enough to prevent us from kicking him out for the lure of the Double Gameweek. I’m sure that won’t come back to bite them!
In other news, Antonio Conte took a unique approach to requesting his P45, Bukayo Saka’s (£8.6m) brace determined the colour of our arrows and in the midst of all this Mark Sutherns played his Wildcard.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Ben Crellin moves into the top 1,000 overall for the first time this season, with a score of 66, thanks to a shrewd Saka captaincy and a goal from his differential James Ward-Prowse (£6.3m).
He now just has to wait and see whether FPL Harry can take advantage of his Bench Boost in Gameweek 29 as they seem to playing their own personal game of cat and mouse at the top of The Great and The Good table.
In other news, Mark Sutherns overhauled his team and his rank, with a 205,000 green arrow as he scored 64. He is now up to 682,000 thanks in the main to the Saka swing.
He was not the only one to get a Bukayo Boost as Lets Talk FPL Andy also moved up with his fifth green arrow in a row, which now sees him inside the top 200,000.
MARK’S WILDCARD
Mr Sutherns surprised us all with a Wildcard this week, with the big talking point his decision to stick with three Arsenal as their fixtures start to turn after Gameweek 28, particularly if your strategy is to Free Hit in Gameweek 32.
The play to gain rank appears to be the triple up on Chelsea’s defence with Reece James (£5.8m) and Ben Chilwell (£6.0m) drafted in to join Kepa Arrizabalaga (£4.7m).
There may be a temptation to call his Wildcard a Mildcard with only seven moves made. The other ones of note were James Maddison (£8.2m) and Ollie Watkins (£7.5m). The slightly underwhelming nature of his moves may explain his absence from the BlackBox.
I, of course, jest and maybe the last laugh is on me as his moves had the immediate impact of giving him the biggest green arrow of the week.
- IN – James, Chilwell, Botman, Gabriel, Maddison, Kane, Watkins
- OUT – Estupinan, Alexander-Arnold, Ake, Tarkowski, Salah, Haaland, Toney
TRANSFERS
When it came to transfers this week, I did a lot of Ctrl-Cing as everyone made the same moves with Watkins and Chilwell the choice of The Great and The Good groupthink, with some bloke called Erling and an accompanying defender shown the exit door.
Magnus at least tried to add a bit of spice by taking a minus-eight and going with Kai Havertz (£7.6m) instead of the Villa striker and Joe went his own way moving out Mohamed Salah (£12.8m), who disappointed him so much last week, as he was already ahead of the Chilwell/Watkins curve having delayed his Wildcard by a week.
The full list of transfers is below:
- Az – Watkins, Chilwell (Tarkowski, Gnonto)
- LTFPL Andy – Watkins, Chilwell (Henry, Haaland)
- Ben Crellin – Watkins, Chilwell (Henry, Haaland)
- Fabio Borges – Watkins (Haaland)
- Finn Sollie – Watkins, Chilwell (Estupinan, Haaland)
- FPL Harry – Watkins, Chilwell (Estupinan, Haaland)
- Joe Lepper – Maddison (Salah)
- Geoff Dance – Watkins, Chilwell (Estupinan, Haaland)
- FPL General – Watkins (Haaland)
- Magnus Carlsen – Havertz, Chilwell, Maddison (Haaland, Lewis, Gakpo)
- Mark Sutherns – Wildcard
- FPL Matthew – Watkins, Chilwell (Haaland, Zinchenko)
- Neale Rigg – Watkins, Chilwell (Estupinan, Haaland)
- Pras – Watkins, Chilwell (Haaland, Henry)
- Suvansh – No Transfers
- Tom Freeman – Watkins, Chilwell (Estupinan, Haaland)
- Tom Stephenson – Watkins, Chilwell (Henry, Haaland)
- Zophar – Watkins, Chilwell (Zinchenko, Haaland)
TEMPLATE
The changes in the template won’t come as a major surprise based on the moves mentioned above, with Watkins and Chilwell coming into the squad for Haaland and Pervis Estupinan (£4.8m).
Those who kept the Ecuadorian will no doubt be looking at flight times as we near the end of the international break to see if he makes it back in time from Australia for Gameweek 29.
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:
Kepa (14), Raya (12)
Trippier (17), Chilwell (15), Botman (14), Henry (10), Gabriel/Zinchenko (9)
Saka (18), Rashford (17), Mitoma (13), March (12), Odegaard (10),
Toney (17), Kane (17), Watkins (17)
TOP TEAMS
A look now at which Premier League teams dominate the investment of The Great and The Good, and it’s been quite a change since last time we looked with not one Man City player gracing their squads.
The most popular teams are Arsenal, Brentford and Brighton but expect this to fall away for the Gunners and the Bees as their potential Doubles dwindle. In return I expect to see a few more Newcastle and Manchester United players join the fray – Bruno Fernandes (£9.6m) will no doubt be pushing and shoving his way into being a template pick.
CONCLUSION
Time for a rest. The international break is upon us and no doubt the usual fretting over injuries will be heightened as the majority of the FPL Community appear to be Bench Boosting in Gameweek 29, but I highly recommend a detox as there is very little you can do until deadline approaches.
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
