‘How the chips have fallen’: Lateriser analyses recent strategies in FPL

It’s been a good few weeks for me personally from a Fantasy Premier League (FPL) point of view. I’ve consumed more chips than my monthly McDonald’s allowance and it would be fair to say, it’s helped me ketchup the guys in front of me (sorry not sorry).

I still feel like I could have had more but you can’t really complain with a rise of 46k to 3.6k from Gameweeks 25 to 30, where you’re hitting weekly ranks under 300k in four successive rounds.

That said, I did want to delve deeper into how the chips have fallen and get an idea of what I’m up against in the coming weeks given that I only have one chip in hand. I also wanted to see how my competition has fared between Gameweeks 26 and 30, which has been a crucial chip period with loads of blanks and doubles in play.

There’s only one man who can help me with this data and not before long, I found myself sliding into Ragabolly’s DM’s and the great man that he is (check the interview we did with him here, it’s worth a watch), he obliged and provided me with the data I needed in looking at ‘how the chips have fallen’.

What you can see in the above image is data from the top 20k which includes the net points (includes hits that are subtracted) that the three buckets of players have scored from Gameweeks 26 to 30, the number of chips they have remaining and the number of doublers they have in place for Gameweek 31 and 33. This little image above just gives you the full lay of the land in terms of how much the early Wildcarders have scored compared to the others in terms of average gains made and what they have to defend going forward.

Some of the results definitely surprised me. What we see here is there were two primary weeks in which FPL managers used their Wildcard – in Gameweek 26 and Gameweek 28. Largely, based on how I’ve seen managers go, the Wildcarders in 26 have likely used the Free Hit chip in Gameweek 27 and the Bench Boost chip in Gameweek 28. However, some of them might not have used the Bench Boost chip in 28 given that Arsenal did not get a double in that week. That said, they have gained 17 points on average against the crowd that has likely not Wildcarded in this period and have gained six points on average on the 28 Wildcarders. This is despite them losing out on Mohamed Salah’s (£13.3m) monster haul in Gameweek 26 to the majority of the rest of the field.

My assumption and inkling is that those that have Wildcarded in Gameweek 28 trail the Gameweek 26 Wildcarders by six points because a higher percentage of 26 Wildcarders will have likely used the Bench Boost Chip which is indicated by the 28 Wildcarders having 1.69 chips remaining on average compared to the 26 Wildcarders who have 1.18.

I saw massive variance in scores in the community but looking at this data, the averages are a lot closer than I expected them to be but that may be due to the 26 Wildcarders losing to that Salah Triple Captain haul which the majority of the rest of the field might have gained in comparison.

I wanted to understand what I am up against going into the final stretch of the season. If you average out the number of chips remaining for Gameweek 28 Wildcarders and the ‘other’ bracket, it looks like approximately 70% of the Top 20k has two chips remaining on average compared to my one chip.

Based on the value above, you’re roughly 15-20 points behind against the field per chip that you have less. That said, for me, the Gameweek 26-30 period has proved one big thing. It is not about the volume of Double Gameweekers but more about the about the quality of the Double Gameweekers. If you had two of Kai Havertz (£7.9m), Philippe Coutinho (£7.5m) and/or Reece James (£6.2m), you were making massive gains in Gameweek 28. If you captained one of them, even more-so. Going Harry Kane (£12.5m) over Son Heung-min (£10.9m) from Gameweeks 26 to 30 has led to an 18-point gain. If you used the Free Hit Chip in Gameweek 30 and went Kane and Son, you have gained massively on the rest of the field. It’s mainly been about a few, explosive picks who play for good teams. If I filter by total FPL points between Gameweeks 26 to 30, this is what the data shows.

The table is dominated by Tottenham Hotspur (because they played more games than anyone else), Arsenal and Liverpool (plus Havertz) who have players in there despite playing only four games. This comes down to one thing that my pod partner Zophar told me while I assembled my Gameweek 28 Wildcard. He simply said – “don’t get tunnelled into looking at just doublers. Remember, stick to one principle. Good players from good teams”.

The table above screams exactly that and being an FPL manager who punted on Richarlison (£7.5m) – who looked really lively – and Anthony Gordon (£4.5m) on my Gameweek 29 Bench Boost, good players, good teams is just ringing in my ears.

We have Liverpool and Manchester City engaged in a title race. We have Spurs and Arsenal locked in a battle for Europe. Only one of the above three teams double in Gameweek 31 or 33. In addition, Liverpool, Man City and Spurs have pretty good looking home fixtures in Gameweek 33 as well. Look at Man City’s fixtures beyond Gameweek 33 and you begin to wonder whether you’re unnecessarily getting distracted looking at Burnley players. Chelsea have a great run of fixtures from Gameweek 31 onwards but if they seal their third place soon, they will likely focus more on the Champions League.

The ownership for Man City players as things stand in the top 10k will be very low. The same might apply for Chelsea. The question FPL managers need to ask is are we diving into a ‘poisoned chalice’ trying to increase the quantity of games we have and ignore the quality? It almost makes me think it might be worthwhile Free Hitting in Gameweek 33 but do we even need that many Double Gameweekers in 33 given the strong home fixtures that Spurs, Liverpool (I know, I know) and Man City have?

Early Wildcarders like me might be behind the pack in terms of number of chips left but is it a worthwhile strategy to stay in touch by just focusing on “good players, good teams” instead? The majority of the pack has about 0.2 doublers in 31 and five doublers in 33 as things stand. Do we really need that many more? More doublers also means lesser players from the ‘good teams’.

This is the question I’ll be asking myself. As always, it is a fine balance between quality and quantity and you can’t ignore the higher number of games. At least, now knowing how the chips have fallen, I’m hoping this article will help you with what to expect. A big thank you to Ragabolly again for providing me with this data.

PS: I scored a net 509 between Gameweeks 26-30. Get in! :p

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