Here’s our fantasy premier league tips article where we analyse the teams of 10 top FPL managers. These 10 managers have not finished outside the overall rank of the top 10k in the last 3 seasons. Considering how variable the last 3 years have been this is remarkable consistency and shows an ability to adapt strategy in different seasons. It also gives you a view other than my own on strategy and player selection. 5 wildcards this week. We show them all.
fantasy premier league tips – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers GW6
If the article is too long there’s a template team for the top 10 FPL managers analysed towards the end of the article.
Firstly, there are 9 new managers in the 10 this season and I’m delighted to say that one of them is our own FFGeek contributor Keith Spencer. Keith’s last 3 years history are 17/18 (3,940), 16/17 ( 325) and 15/16 (9,280). See his GW5 team here
We’ve also added Paul Williams to the FFGeek team who is also part of the 10 top managers. His history is 17/18 (412), 16/17 ( 1,382) and 15/16 (7,164). See his first article here
The criteria I’ve always been looking for is managers who’ve finished in the top 10k for the last 3 years when FPL has become considerably harder due to the anount of people playing and the information available.
It took me hours and hours to track down 10 managers who’ve been so consistent and my opinion after doing so is that there are probably only 20 or so in the world that qualify.
The 10 managers stats
These managers are unbelievable and every bit as impressive as last season
1. The overall average finishing overall rank of the top 10 managers in the last 3 seasons is 3,667
2. The top 10 FPL managers have not been out of the top 10k in the last 3 seasons (ie 30 times playing)
3. 7 of the 10 have finished in the top 1,000 in the last 3 seasons
Gameweek 5 review
A mixed week for the 10 FPL managers. 6 of the 10 had a green arrow
The average score of the managers in GW5 was 67 compared to the game average of 47. That’s 20 points and 47% above the game average score. High score of the 10 was 82. The low score was 55. A spread of 27 for an average scoring gameweek.
Although meaningless at this stage. The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 141k. An improvement of rank of 69k from last week. The best overall rank is 7k and the lowest 572k.
The average total points are 335
The average team value is still £101.8m
My score as you may have seen in my early FFGeek team thoughts article was a disaster with 49 points. That was lower than all of the managers and my total points of 333 and OR of 109k is better than 5 of the 10 managers. Although again it’s of little relevance at this stage of the season.
The combined total of individual players
I’ve included where there is a minimum of a player in 3 out of the 10 FPL managers teams
Goalkeeper/Defence
Mendy is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Wan-Bissaka is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Alonso is in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Fabianski and Robertson are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Foster and Hamer are in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Goalkeeper/Defence by team
Man City GK/Defs are represented 11 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
Chelsea GK/Defs are represented 10 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
C Palace GK/Defs are represented 9 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
Wolves GK/Defs are represented 8 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
Bournemouth GK/Defs are represented 5 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
West Ham, Watford and Liverpool GK/Defs are represented 4 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
Midfielders
Salah is in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Hazard and Pedro are in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Walcott is in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Hjoberg and Mane are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Forwards
Aguero is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Ings is in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Wilson is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Gameweek 5 captain choice
10 of the 10 FPL managers went with Aguero.
The FFGeek poll was 80% Aguero and 11% Hazard.
The Site 1 poll in my GW5 captain choice article was 59% Aguero and 19% Hazard
Formations
Sorry didn’t get to this in time this week
Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits
5 managers used their wildcards this week
Transfers in and out
I’ve disregarded wildcard transfers this week as they’re too hard to track.
I only summarise the transfers when a player is transferred in more than once.
Transfers in
Alonso was transferred in by 2 managers
No one else was transferred in more than once
Transfers out
Mkhitaryan was transferred out by 2 managers
No one else was transferred out more than once
The top 10k overall rank vs the 10 FPL managers
I won’t be doing this until GW8 when it will have hopefully settled down. The weeks before hand could see too much rank volatility.
All 5 of the wildcard teams
The first one is Keith Spencers. The 5th one is Paul Williams
The combined FPL managers teams
Here’s a team which tries to make a combination from the most represented players. It fits within the £101.3m budget of my team. I will use this team as a guide for the template team which is part of the FFGeek alternate strategy teams. Neves was a plus to fit in into my value and is owned by 2 FPL managers. The base team is my FFGeek team
So who’s essential?
Anyone or any defensive team that is owned by 7/10 of these managers I would take a lot of convincing not to own irrespective of my thoughts about them. In terms of serious managers likely to finish with high overall ranks I won’t be getting left behind by players that are owned by a large proportion of these managers.
That would mean:
A Palace defender (any Wan Bissaka or Van Aanholt), a Chelsea defender (Alonso) and a Man City defender (Mendy if fit)
Salah (owned by 7/10 managers) and Aguero (owned by the 10 managers)
I imagine Hazard this week will move into that category as he’s currently on 6
See also our underlying stats GW5 article, the early thoughts on the FFGeek team article and the fixture ease article
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