How ‘The Great and The Good’ did in FPL Gameweek 22

Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead presents his series of The Great and the Good articles, analysing the transfers and strategies of some well-known Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.

The Great and The Good this season are the BlackBox pair of Mark Sutherns and Az, Scouts Joe Lepper and Tom Freeman, Scoutcaster Andy North, Pro Pundits FPL General, Pras, Zophar, FPL Harry and Lateriser, FPL “celebrities” Ben Crellin, Luke Williams and FPL Fran, Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Jan Kepski, Markku Olaja and Seb Wassell, plus last year’s mini-league winner Geraint Owen.

“That’s a name I’ve not heard for a while”

We had a trip down memory lane this past weekend with some old names making a reappearance.

Manchester City turned good again with Phil Foden (£9.3m) reverting to his 2023/24 form, Justin Kluivert (£5.6m) honoured his family name and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.4m) woke up just before Double Gameweek 24 – it’s a trap, isn’t it?

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

This was one of those weeks where you could throw a small net over the scores with a difference of just 18 points between the top and bottom. This is reflected in the size of the arrows with some jostling for the elusive grey dot. Tom Freeman got the closest with a 0.66% change in rank.

As it doesn’t happen very often I should call out Andy North as our top scorer for the week. Obviously he had Chris Wood (£7.1m) – after all, he is a fit, virile young man. However, it was the double-up on the Liverpool defence that gave him the boost with Allison Becker (£5.5m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.2m) scoring him 20 points in total. This sparks the thought on the upcoming debate as to whether double Liverpool defence or a rotation-prone attack is the right play.

The captaincy debate wasn’t one with most going Mohamed Salah (£13.7m), although he did blank again. Lateriser should’ve been rewarded more for his Erling Haaland (£14.8m) armband and Seb Wassell’s excitement on Monday as the flagged Cole Palmer (£11.4m) captainer probably faded pretty quickly.

TRANSFERS

Getting Wood was the order of the day as his stock continues to rise. It raised my eyebrow that Nottingham Forest fan Mark Sutherns was only just bringing him in this week.

Elsewhere, it seems keeping those precious transfer supplies high was key with Fabio Borges almost in danger of burning one with five in his hand.

TEMPLATE

Solid, solid as a rock. That’s what this template is, that’s what we’ve got.

Fabianski (44.4%) , Raya (38.9%)
Gabriel (94.4%), Alexander-Arnold (88.9%), Hall (66.7%), Munoz (44.4%), Mykolenko/Robinson (27.9%)
Palmer (100%), Salah (100%), Rogers (55.6%), Gordon (44.4%), Sarr (38.9%)
Isak (100%), Joao Pedro (61.1%), Wood (61.1%)

TEAMS TO TARGET

A look now ahead of the double at the current ownership across the teams with a cross-check against the fixtures.

Liverpool are top for ownership with 40 players sitting in The Great and The Good squads. That’s an average of 2.2, so I expect that to rise to the full triple-up this weekend with Ipswich Town and then the double ahead.

Speaking of which, I suspect we will be delving into the Everton bargain bucket with that Double Gameweek 24 in mind. There are only six players in the squads so far, but will any of them go for Calvert-Lewin?

It will be interesting to see if the faith in Newcastle United continues. They sit second in terms of popularity right now but the Season Ticker suggests a turn in fortunes at the Gameweek 25 stage and then a potential blank in Gameweek 29.

CONCLUSION

All the focus will be on Merseyside over the next two weeks.

The Triple Captain Salah brigade will be out in force, the Liverpool defence vs attack argument will consume much of the FPL content, and of course, all eyes will be on whether David Moyes has really performed a miracle and turned Everton into a free-scoring bunch of entertainers or whether that was just the Tottenham Hotspur defence.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now, and remember don’t have FPL nightmares. 

For those affected by any of the topics raised above, you can find me here on Twitter or over at BlueSky