“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
This tornado of a season continued as we saw more unexpected results on our trip down the yellow brick road, with some beginning to doubt whether we are ever going to find the Emerald City aka a top 10k rank.
The preparation for The Great and The Good in Gameweek 12 was simple, get Salah, but at what cost? As many gave up valuable Vardy points leading to a ruby red arrow or two.
Gameweek 13 saw us in familiar territory as we left trying to second guess the team sheets of that cheeky munchkin Pep and the captain choice provided us with a fork in the road.
The Great and The Good are the Scouts Neale Rigg and Joe Lepper, Pro Pundits (Mark Sutherns, Az, Lateriser, Fabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General, Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville Ronka, Matthew Jones and Sean Tobin
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
The results for The Great and The Good are below:-
Joe proved to have the Scarecrow’s brains as he topped the scores over the last couple of Gameweeks with 117 points in total, Justin, Coufal and Soucek proving the unlikely heroes.
Forget the holy trinity, his four heavy hitter strategy has seen him with six green arrows and a gain of over 2.6 million places. He has also overtaken the wonderful Wizard of Az, but gentleman Joe has yet to mention this to his Scoutcast colleague.
Gameweeks 12 and 13 could have been conjured up by the wicked witch of the west as Fulham and then West Brom’s newfound resilience dented the anticipated Salah and De Bruyne shows which led to falling ranks across the board.
WEEKLY TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for these weeks :
Az
GW12 Salah, Bamford (Vardy, Ziyech)
GW13 Soucek (Jota)
Fabio Borges
GW12 Salah (Fernandes)
GW13 Watkins, Fernandes (Werner, Jota)
Joe Lepper
GW12 None
GW13 Coufal (Justin)
FPL General
GW12 Salah, Lewis (Robertson, Rodriguez)
GW13 Martinez (Ramsdale)
Lateriser
GW12 Salah (Sterling)
GW13 Adams, Fernandes (Werner, Jota)
Magnus Carlsen
GW12 Bamford (Martial)
GW13 De Bruyne (Mahrez)
Mark Sutherns
GW12 Salah, Bamford (Kane, Jota)
GW13 None
Matthew Jones
GW12 Bamford (Calvert-Lewin)
GW13 Wilson, Fernandes (Vardy, Podence)
Neale Rigg
GW12 Salah, Welbeck (Vardy, Jota)
GW13 None
Sean Tobin
GW12 Salah, Watkins (Kane, Jota)
GW13 None
Tom Freeman
GW12 Salah, Watkins (Vardy, Mahrez)
GW13 Grealish (Jota)
Ville Ronka
GW12 Salah (Sterling)
GW13 None
*transfers out are in brackets
Not much head scratching, whilst thoughts were busy hatching when it came to the priority transfer for Gameweek 12 with Salah drafted in by most.
Elsewhere, patience finally ran out on Werner as he was moved out by Fabio and Lateriser, Joe found the secret of success was doing very little with a dullard 4.5 defender move proving smart and FPL General deserves a medal of courage for finally getting rid of Ramsdale, who has still to keep a clean sheet.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-
Steer (6), Martinez (6)
Chilwell (9), Ayling (6), Mitchell/Lamptey/Dias/Walker-Peters(5)
Salah (12), Bruno Fernandes (11), De Bruyne (10), Grealish (8), Son/Soucek(5)
Bamford (12), Calvert-Lewin (9), Watkins (5)
Salah and Bamford prove to have the Tin Man’s heart and are now in all of The Great and The Good squads, Jota moves on for Soucek and we see the holy trinity in the midfield at the expense of the premium strikers of Kane and Vardy.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD NETWORK
Dreams that you dare to dream really do come true, well that’s the hope for those looking to find their way into The Great and The Good. I continue to scout some of the other talented FPL managers and the table below show some of the other prominent managers on my radar:-
The Great and The Good network are the Scouts David Munday and Geoff Dance, the Pro Pundits (LTFPL Andy, Sam Bonfield, Zophar, FPL Hints, Luke Williams, Stephen Harrap, Darren Wiles, Simon March, Holly Shand) and Jay Egersdorff from the Hall of Fame.
Ash from FPL Hints continues to have a great season and is proving no cowardly lion sitting at 22,000 although it should be noted he has already deployed his Wildcard and his Free Hit chip.
He has followed the four big hitter strategy but has avoided De Bruyne after his Wildcard back in Gameweek 5, apart from a brief return on his Gameweek 11 Free Hit.
Kevin the great and powerful appears to be struggling for points with a City team around him failing to fire. Without a double in Gameweek 19 is it time to say, ding dong the De Bruyne is dead and transfer him out?
Darren Wiles is having a good audition to be the new Dorothy as his star continues to burn bright, his captain points total of 232 outstrips even the best of The Great and The Good FPL General who can only muster 210. He also has his Wildcard to play so is one to watch.
Geoff Dance continues to skip along as happily as Toto and is proving a wheeler dealer in the transfer market with immediate returns of 94. He is not afraid to chop and change the big players as his decision to bring in and captain Bruno for Gameweek 9 and De Bruyne for Gameweek 10 proved a masterstroke.
Sam Bonfield from FPL Family has decided there is no place like home and has made very few moves with only eight transfers all season, but as she is sitting at 158,000 so this strategy is clearly working for her.
CONCLUSION
Whilst we lick our wounds after a challenging couple of Gameweeks, somewhere over the rainbow we can see the much-anticipated blank/double in Gameweeks 18/19.
This is a big opportunity, even bigger if you have your first Wildcard to gain some ground for the more engaged FPL manager. Interesting to note that Mark, Fabio, Tom, Matthew and FPL General are the members of The Great and The Good who still hold this trump card.
Be prepared for lots and lots of advice of chip strategy over the coming weeks, particularly about not neglecting points today for points promised tomorrow and remembering there will be other doubles to come later in the season.
However, pay no attention to this man behind the curtain, but my wisdom to pass on is that you are the only Wizard in charge of your team so only you can decide what is best for your team and make your own calls on how to navigate your way round the wonderful world of FPL.
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 or simply want to follow along with unnerving Xmas FPL countdown then you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19
#Learning #Great #Good #Gameweek
