Here’s the 9th article in the series. I’ve sought out the teams of 10 top fantasy premier league managers and analysed who they’ve got in their teams. This is not the current top 10 fantasy premier league leaders but 10 managers who are currently successful and have been successful for the last 3 years. It continues to make interesting reading.
fantasy premier league – analysing 10 top fantasy premier league managers teams – GW24
Background
Just to put a bit of context around this if you haven’t seen the article before. In any part of life, sport or business it’s natural to look at the best and see what you can learn. It also helps challenge your thinking and make you question what you’re doing. if the best are doing it and so are you it may also give some comfort. I also know that going on to fantasy premier league sites if you get a bad tip then you can kind of ditch the site. So if you can see that other tried and tested fantasy premier league managers also believe in that player then it can provide some justification for the sites pick
The reason I haven’t just picked the current top 10 leaders is that these top 10 leaders will change over the season so the top 10 now will be totally different at the end of the year. In my mind it means nothing. Its more important to pick people in my mind who’ve consistently finished high in the overall league over the last 3 years.
Here’s some stats on the 10. First remember that there 10 fantasy premier league managers and I’ve looked at the last 3 years overall finish rank. Meaning there are 30 times they have played in the last 3 years. Sorry if you found that insulting, just for clarity. Again, I swapped a couple around and I now have a set of 10 managers with an even more impressive current and historic record. I’m fixing it now with this group though.
1. The average overall position of the 10 currently at the moment took a small upturn again this week and is now 12,600 up from 13,500 in fantasy premier league. 12,600 is top 0.4% of 3,100,000 fantasy premier league managers. No one is currently lower than 46,000
2. The average position over the last 3 years is around 3,500 (this is the top 0.1 % of fantasy premier league teams)
3. 10/10 have finished in the top 1000 in the last 3 years
4 6/10 have finished in the top 100 in the last 3 years
The above is pretty impressive consistency in fantasy premier league. What these teams look like is certainly something to take note of. My average over the last 3 years is 7,900 by the way.
There are 2 issues with doing this though. Firstly just because a player is owned by a fantasy premier league manager doesn’t mean he wants to own him. He could be wanting to transfer him out but can’t due to other priorities, injuries etc. That’s probably more for cheapies though as expensive players are probably ditched earlier. Secondly it obviously s a look back and not forward to the next gameweek
Ok so here’s the break down of their teams (obviously I don’t mention every player just the ones that appear frequently). There’s quite a few changes due to the January Wildcards
What was the average round score?
The average GW24 scored of the 10 fantasy premier league managers was 54 points compared to the average of 45. 9 points and 20% above the average
What is the average team value?
The average value of the 10 fantasy premier league managers was £110.2m
Interestingly I noted the time when the transfers were done for this week. Its not that relevant this week as the gameweek post the games played only went from 30th January (Thursday) to the 1st February (Saturday). The average day of the week where transfers were made was the 31st (Friday).
GK/DEFs by player
There was 1 Jan Wildcards played so the make up of the teams has changed a little.
Coleman and Chester are owned by 6 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Ward is owned by 5 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Koscielny is owned by 5 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Mertesacker Mannone Davis and Gabbidon are owned by 4 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Baines is owned by 3 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
GKs/DEFs by team
Palace GKs/DEFs appear 11 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Arsenal and Southampton GKs/DEFs appear 10 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Everton GKs/DEFs appear 9 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Cardiff GKs/DEFs appear 5 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Sunderland GKs/DEFs appear 4 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Chelsea GKs/DEFs appear 3 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Interestingly City only appear twice
Midfielders
Hazard is owned by 10 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Lallana and Mata are owned by 6 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Silva is owned by 5 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
YYT and AJohnson are owned by 3 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Mutch Noone Barkley and Janzaj are the most owned cheapies at twice
Forwards
Suarez is owned by 10 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Sturridge is owned by 5 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
GW24 Transfers
I cant analyse the transfers in full as 1 fantasy premier league manager used their January Wildcard which shows all transfers even if undone. Here’s the summary of the rest of the transfers
The most transferred in players were in fantasy premier league GW24:
Sturridge x 3
Mata x 2
Baines x 2
No one else was transferred in more than once.
The most transferred out were:
Aguero x 7
Cabaye Coleman x 2
The most popular transfers were:
Aguero – Sturridge x 3
Coleman – Baines x 2
GW24 Captain Choices
Suarez was the captain 9 times.
Giroud was captained once
How many took hits?
4 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers took point hits.
What was the most popular formation
8 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers played 3-4-3. 3-5-2 and 4-3-3 was used once
How many have used their Wildcard?
All 10 people have activated their January Wildcard. I’ll report on the regular wildcards next week
So what does this mean?
Here’s a few things which jump out:
- For the gameweek
The season average of 13,500 compared to their last 3 year average of 3,000 shows what a hard year its been for even the best fantasy premier league managers. However the 10 managers are hitting their straps with an average of 70 this gameweek compared to the league average of 52
Mass selling of Aguero
Increasing transfers in of Mata
More signs of selling Coleman. Baines being the target for the cash showing faith in the Everton defence
Koscielny becoming more popular than Mertesacker
The first sign of 1 person buying RVP
- For the season
An Arsenal and Palace defender look like defensive must haves. Hazard and Suarez look the must haves elsewhere.
These managers take hits
Transfers appear to be done early in the week
3-4-3 is still the most popular formation.
All have created valuable teams.
Lallana and Rodriguez are the only players over £6m outside the top 4 challenging teams owned by more than 2 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
That’s it I hope you found it interesting. I hope it also challenged your thinking on some fantasy premier league players or provided some comfort if you’re holding on to someone and doubting yourself for doing it.
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