Here’s the latest article from regular contributor to the site Rob Reid (The FPL Vet) where he reflects on the first month of FPL 2016-17. Rob Reid finished with a rank of 4,701 last season 2015/16 and 7,810 the season before so is well worth listening to.
Reflections on FPL 2016-17 Month 1
Here’s the first of a series on monthly articles reflecting on the previous months fantasy football action. Anyone who’s read a few of my previous articles know that I’m quite into reflecting back on what’s gone to try and look at where I can improve my team going forwards and I’ve found these monthly reviews quite useful. There’s a small degree of statistical analysis in it, but it’s more a series of light-hearted observations based on watching games and looking at how players and performing that then guide my ongoing strategy. I’ll also make some fun informal awards to the Player of the Month, One to Watch for next month and a Donkey Award! I hope you find it useful and any comments are of course greatly welcomed.
So we’re underway anyhow. I found the summer break pretty short this year, partly because of the Euros and partly because my club team had an early start in the Europa League (for the record by the way, I don’t actually support an EPL club, I’ll leave it to you guys to try and work it out!) So it didn’t seem that there was much time for taking stock and catching one’s breath this summer. This short break of course, also impacts the performance at the start of the season, with players starting back into training a little later and sometimes missing the early fixtures. There’s also been a number of managerial changes over the summer, so one of the big challenges in this first month was trying to find game-time security and work out which players were going to get worked into and out of new systems, with of course some high profile players being casualties of changes in playing style.
The old guard under new management
The 3 most successful EPL teams under recent years all entered this season under new management. I don’t think too many of us are surprised though to see them hit their form early. It’s probably fair to say that attacking coverage from Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea is considered essential now with several options from these teams presenting themselves over these first 4 weeks. Whichever combination you choose, it’s a brave manager that overlooks these teams in midfield and attack.
There are points to be had on Merseyside
Both Liverpool and Everton look like a good source of attacking returns. Take your pick from Mane, Firmino, Couthino or Lallana for the red side, while Lukaku looks set to go on a hot streak on the blue side, not to mention the likes of Barkley, Mirallas and Bolasie also attracting our interest. With no European distractions, these teams could provide us with some solid options over the next few weeks.
You pay Your money and you take your Cchance
Value hasn’t been the easiest to come by so far, with most of the top performers coming in at the higher end of the budget. It looks like a core of three or four £10m+ players is set to become the template, meaning you must choose those £7-9m differentials carefully as you’ll probably only be able to afford one or two. Select from Ibrahimovic, Aguero (once back), Hazard, Sanchez, De Bruyne and possibly now Kane for your double digits, but be prepared to work in any out of Costa, Lukaku, Firmino, Nolito, Ozil, Payet, Antonio, Rooney and more as well. On this basis, team value could become key in the second half of the season.
Aguer-no!
The super reliable Argentine let us all down in a big way with his untimely elbow into poor Winston Reid triggering a 3 game domestic ban. Cue 2 missed Gameweeks, a spate of Wildcards and many a spreadsheet planning for how we’re all going to buy him back! As if to back this latter statement, the little maestro banged in a timely hat-trick this midweek in the Champions League. Make no mistake, Aguero is FPL gold-dust. It’ll be a brave manager who dares not to buy him back in GW6!
There is value, but maybe not where you’d expect it
All that being said, the leading scorer in the game is the rather modestly priced £4.8m Etienne Capoue. He comes with absolutely no statistics to back this up from previous years, just a rather encouraging pre-season in an advanced role. Leave him on your bench at your peril (don’t do it 2 weeks in a row like a certain manager here did!) There are others too, Leroy Fer is the 5th highest scoring midfielder from a holding role in a team expected to be in a relegation fight and don’t right off Hull’s attacking prospects either, they’ve proven us wrong so far.
Defenders aren’t really paying out at the moment, but…
Not too unusual this in early season. Teams are getting systems figured out and playing a bit more freely without any relegation pressure yet. Clean sheets tend to come more readily from late October onwards where other factors come in such as rotation, injuries and weather. Still, 2 clean sheets Week 1, 5 clean sheets Week 3 and 3 cleans sheets Week 4 is pretty lean; meaning it’s not unusual so far to have weeks where your defenders are only scoring a tiny fraction of your weekly total. Stick with 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 folks…is this the best time to employ All Out Attack?
Player of the month
A few contenders here, but it has to be the already mentioned Etienne Capoue. Starting the season at £4.5m, he is value personified. 3 goals, 1 assist and 8 bonus points so far is astounding from a guy who only had 1 goal and 1 assist in his previous 3 seasons! He seems to be in a more advanced role this season, this definitely needs monitored but let’s not take away from what has been a great month for the Watford midfielder. Honourable mentions to Zlatan and Michail Antonio as well who have started the season on fire.
One to watch
It’s my fantasy league nemesis – Romelu Lukaku! He’s been in woeful goal-scoring from since his notorious Double Gameweek blanks last season, but he broke his duck in style with an 11 minute hat-trick last night and could have had 5 or 6 on the night. This is a player who loves to go on a scoring streak, ignore him at your peril. He’ll stop scoring as soon as I transfer him in though. You’ve been warned. Honourable mention to Dimitri Payet who seems to have shaken off his Euro 2016 hangover, his second assist last Saturday (Cryuff turn followed by a Rabona) was simply outrageous!
Donkey Award
This can be awarded on a few criteria – it can be a player who’s under-performed, a glaring error, a bad miss or a hideous red card that gets the award. It’s a joint one this month for Adrian and James Collins. Their comical cock-up was the catalyst to West Ham totally blowing it against Watford last Saturday, costing FPL managers potential clean sheet points and also de-valuing the performances of Antonio and Payet and thus losing them vital bonus points. As bad as their mix-up was, credit to Troy Deeney though. His finish was as composed as the earlier mentioned assist from Payet was audacious.
So reflecting on the the first 4 Gameweeks, it seems to be about a core of 4 £9-13m players, getting those 1 or 2 £7-9m players right and how you’re going to buy Aguero back! Also, remember everyone that Gameweek 5 starts tomorrow night, with the deadline at 7pm tomorrow evening instead of our usual Saturday lunchtime. Chelsea vs Liverpool is first up and this looks like a potential cracker (cue boring 0-0 now I’ve said that!)
That’s it for Month 1 folks – good luck for month 2 and I’ll have the next instalment for you in mid-October.
Rob
Cheers Rob. Thanks for the excellent article and good luck this gameweek
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