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.
“Life is like a game, there are many players. If you don’t play with them, they’ll play with you.”
The FPL Squid Games continued with Dean Smith, Steve Bruce, Nuno Espirito Santo and Daniel Farke losing the managerial tug of war, a red light not a green light for our Brentford players and owners of Robert Sanchez (£4.6m) losing their marbles with his sending off.
In all the excitement, we have a new front man for The Great and The Good in Az, whilst others faced elimination due to VIP party spoilers Norwich and Burnley but who will be contestant number 456 and win the pig filled with cash?
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Az was the secret inspector in Gameweek 11 with an impressive 75 points which sees him reach the top of the table, thanks to an impressive defensive performance from the fabulous threesome of Joao Cancelo (£6.4m), Reece James (£5.9m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.7m).
The Blackbox host has also been canny in his purchase of Arsenal assets with Aaron Ramsdale (£4.7m) and Emile Smith-Rowe (£5.8m) delivering for him yet again, entering the top 10k for the first time this season.
Joe also scored a creditable 70 with his faith in Adam Armstrong (£5.9m) paying off, Geoff Dance was only a point behind thanks to his smart purchase of Conor Gallagher (£5.8m) – now the fifth-highest point scorer this season – and Yavuz is making a comeback by moving up 139,000 places. Could an eighth successive top 10k finish still be on?
A new game was introduced this week called ‘Bench Bother’, as members of The Great and The Good competed to leave as many points on the bench as possible, with an average of 18.1 between them.
FPL Matthew and FPL General shared the dishonour with 26 benched points as messers Ben Foster (£4.0m), Ben White (£4.4m) and Tino Livramento (£4.5m) ended up doing just fine whilst on their pine.
TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week :
Az – None
LTFPL Andy – None
Fabio Borges – Sanchez (Raya)
Joe Lepper – Chilwell (Christensen)
Geoff Dance – Toney, James (Antonio, Tierney)
FPL General – Son, White (Dias, Mount)
Les Caldwell – Smith-Rowe, Alexander-Arnold (Son, Alonso)
Magnus Carlsen – Toney (Antonio)
Mark Sutherns – None
FPL Matthew – None
Neale Rigg – None
Tom Freeman – Sanchez (Raya)
Tom Stephenson – Jota (Raphinha)
Yavuz Kabuk – None
Zophar – Jota (Raphinha)
The variance went against Tom Freeman and Fabio Borges who picked the wrong week to make a goalkeeper change, as Sanchez proved to be less than a safe pair of fans with his sending off, just as they brought him in for an injured David Raya (£4.5m).
Elsewhere, Les Caldwell continues his uncanny knack of timing his moves as he brought in the double-barrelled double-digit scoring Smith-Rowe and Alexander-Arnold.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-
Foster (11), Ramsdale/Sanchez (6)
Alexander-Arnold (14), Cancelo (13), Livramento (12), Rudiger/Chilwell/James (5)
Salah (15), Raphinha (12), Foden (10), Mbeumo (10), Brownhill (7)
Antonio (13), Toney (11), Vardy (10)
Some small tweaks to the template, with three Chelsea defenders scrapping it out for the fourth and fifth spot, Sanchez comes in but will probably go out again and it’s worth noting that the template forward line failed to score this weekend.
KING OF THE TRANSFER
A deep dive this week into the season transfer activity of The Great and The Good, showing not only the immediate success of the transfers but also the spread across their squads:
Andy and Magnus lead the way with some high-impact transfers, gaining 64 and 63 points respectively with their moves. We’ll move swiftly past how Mark’s trades have performed so far.
Midfield appears to be this season’s battleground for making advances in the rankings, as 40% of all moves have been in this position.
Defensive moves are of a similar number to forward switches and the importance of getting your back line right is backed up by the stat that three of the top five total scorers this campaign are defenders in the form of James, Alexander-Arnold and Cancelo.
CONCLUSION
A break for us, away from the FPL struggle, as we enter our final international break before entering the hectic festive season.
Already we have seen the requirement for a strong bench, as well as Salah’s domination of the captaincy debate leading to more funds being available elsewhere.
The rotation will only get worse, so best prepare and build your squads. However, also brace yourself for more lost points as there will undoubtedly be a high chance that the added squad depth will cause pain.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now and, remember, don’t have nightmares.
For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me here on Twitter.
3 years, 13 days agoWould you get Cancelo into this squad?
Sanchez / Foster
TAA James Chilwell White Livra
Salah Foden Havertz Gray Sissoko
Vardy Toney Antonio
Thinking: White&Havertz out for Cancelo&Gallagher