The summer of a dedicated fantasy football manager is not so different from that of a real life manager. Hours are spent devising strategies, with a focus on learning from the previous year’s mistakes. Long-term plans are made, with contingencies in place for difficult situations. Players moving into the league are rigorously researched and marked down as ones to watch. Yet all the preparation in the world cannot overcome a manager’s toughest issue; sometimes, players are just rubbish.
The Biggest Disappointments of the Fantasy Football Season
We are going to look at the biggest disappointments of the 2016/17 season, from those players with sizeable reputations who failed to deliver to those tipped as value signings who proved to be anything but. The source of all statistics will be from the vast database of the official Fantasy Premier League game.
Some big hitters turned out to be a swing and a miss this season, taking up a substantial chunk of the budget but failing to deliver a suitable points return. Sorting all of the players by a decline in price across the course of the season proves interesting reading. The biggest drop in price is that of Divock Origi, from £7.0m to £5.9m, but few expected the Belgian to establish himself as a regular in Jurgen Klopp’s rotation of Liverpool’s rich attacking talent. One marked out as a likely starter throughout the season is Olivier Giroud, whose price has fallen by £1.0m as a result of his inability to nail down a regular starting berth.
Source: Arsenal via Facebook.
Giroud has previously been a reliable option for FPL managers avoiding the costly premium players, but this campaign has seen the Frenchman muster 10 goals and 4 assists in his least prolific season at Arsenal. However, a double game week lies ahead for Arsenal. A Giroud goal flurry may well propel the Gunners to late-season success, with Arsenal available at odds of 2/1 to finish in the top four and welcome bonuses of up to £200 being available via comparison sites such as Footy Accumulators. It has been a season dominated by cameos from the bench for Giroud, with a series of one-pointers making him particularly annoying to own. It would be classically Arsenal if Giroud finds his goalscoring boots at the end of the season to help his side reach their traditional top-four finish.
Source: Manchester United via Facebook.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan arrived at Old Trafford with a reputation as a reliable provider of goals and assists, demonstrated by over a quarter of a million FPL managers including him in their team at the start of the season. However, the Armenian has struggled with injury and with the whims of Jose Mourinho. Anthony Martial is another expensive purchase who seemed set for a breakout season, with his status in the game as a midfielder cause for excitement, but he has failed to inspire similar excitement in his manager.
Riyad Mahrez was selected by almost one million managers, making Mkhitaryan seem distinctly unpopular in comparison, but has struggled to match his outstanding feats of last season. The Leicester winger has only scored more than three points in a game week on ten occasions. Of course, few expected Leicester to match their feats of the previous season, but many managers selected the likes of Robert Huth in the hope that the champions would put up a stern defence of their title. With Huth amassing just 88 points and two own goals, it is likely that fewer bosses will be plumping for Leicester players in their starting squads next season.
There are few things more exciting for an FPL manager than new players arriving in the Premier League, with each boss hoping to be the one to get ahead of their opponents by uncovering a free-scoring addition from abroad or a value buy from a promoted side. However, most players do not turn out quite like Michu or Charlie Austin. The likes of Michu or Charlie Austin. The likes of Nolito and Islam Slimani, in addition to the aforementioned Mkhitaryan, were high-profile new arrivals who were expected to secure regular starting berths but have failed to meet lofty expectations. Borja Baston, Viktor Fischer and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg were trendier options that were hoped to deliver success, but have struggled to get onto the pitch.
Source: Hull Tigers via Facebook.
Tom Heaton has been the poster boy for the promoted sides, with goalkeepers and defenders very much the value buys from Burnley, Hull and Middlesbrough. No Hull player has managed more than 86 points, with Abel Hernandez rarely a promising option to fill an FPL team’s troublesome third striker spot. Alvaro Negredo has fared better at Boro, especially of late, and is perhaps unlucky to be included in this list. His haul of nine goals is slightly lower than a player of his pedigree may have expected, with extended dry spells making him a purchase difficult to justify across the season.
Such is the unpredictability of football that these players could be the highest points scorers of next season, the players that everyone is scrambling to buy around October. Fortunately, a well-deployed wildcard can temporarily solve the problem of having all of the wrong players to begin with. You cannot hope to predict all of the disappointments of next season, but you can take comfort that even a team of no-hopers could be enough to scrape victory in that league of work colleagues where everyone else has stopped changing their team by Christmas.
