Here’s FFGeek contributor Rick with his fantasy premier league opinion article on cutting through the FPL noise. Rick’s last 3 seasons overall ranks were 1k, 30k and 2k.
Fantasy premier league opinion – Rick Porter on cutting through the FPL noise
Dentally Does It
If you live in the UK and you watch any amount of TV then you’ve likely seen the Oral-B advert I’m about to discuss. It’s probably on TV roughly the same number of times as all other adverts, only I’ve become so acutely aware of this one that it seems to be broadcast constantly. To cut a short story even shorter, a woman with already excellent teeth is advised by her dentist to use Oral-B toothpaste. It’s what the dentist herself uses, apparently. The woman then declares through faux laughter “I didn’t even know that Oral-B made toothpaste!”
That’s weird, right? I mean… really? Oral-B? Okay, they were predominantly the toothbrush guys but they’ve been in the mouth cleaning biz since the 1950s. It’s not like it’s Birds Eye or Toyota churning out a toothpaste. It’s Oral bloody B – OF COURSE they do toothpaste.
I’m guessing that the message they are trying to put across with this line is ‘sure, you may not use Oral-B toothpaste at the moment, but that’s okay because a lot of people don’t even know about it. No, really, they don’t. But you know the secret now, so why not give it a go? The next level of oral hygiene awaits!’
Introducing Traoral-B
Traore is Oral-B toothpaste. Of course he’s not in your FPL team right now – you didn’t know his potential – but you’ve finally been told the secret of a 5m midfielder who can tuck away a brace. Everyone’s talking about it. He’s in loads of the Wildcard drafts you’ve seen. It’s only right you should consider giving him a go. The fact that he’s always been there in the background subtly not scoring goals for ages is something to be ignored. In his previous 49 appearances for Wolves he’s only scored 1 other goal, but don’t let that get in the way of you switching out Salah for him – after all, Salah has those tough Man U and Spurs matches coming up. Just ask Newcastle and Brighton how rough those are going to be…
I’m not picking on Traore here. He was brilliant in GW8. He may go on to score another brace next week. He might not stop. Who knows, he might end up grabbing himself the Golden Boot by the end of the season. I very much doubt it, but stranger things have happened. He’s just being used by me to represent how easy it can be to be pulled in by the noise of those who are just looking for something to say.
I’ve seen a number of posts/tweets highlighting Traore’s success in GW8 and questioning whether he should be slotting into our teams. Now, these guys aren’t seriously asking you to consider burning your transfer early during a two-week break to squeeze him in before his price skyrockets. They are just saying something about someone in what was otherwise a reasonably quiet week.
Noise Cancelling
People are hurting from poor scores and many managers will be looking for ways to fix things. Nobody wants to wait 2 weeks. The FPL community is vulnerable to suggestion right now. The problem is that there’s loads information out there already and many online voices are still trying to have their say as loudly and often as possible on top of that. If it means posing questions that don’t need to be asked to get the comments rolling then so be it. With this going on constantly it’s sometimes very easy to have your moves influenced. It can seem like a huge number of folk are going a certain way when, in reality, it’s only a small handful of people (who represent an already tiny percentage of players who chat about FPL online) who probably aren’t taking their own advice anyway.
I’m not saying all information is bad. I’m just saying look for sources that go beyond what has just happened in the last gameweek. Importantly, combine it with your own knowledge gained from watching the matches. There are loads of good sources out there, including some great Twitter accounts as well as a number of quality websites. This site is one of them. It offers lots of varied opinion, most of which comes with reasoned thinking, and there are often stats to back everything up.
FPL isn’t a machine, of course. You can’t just input the numbers and get the best results. It’s not that binary. Sometimes a gut feel or punt can yield great rewards and I encourage everyone to break template every now and then and do what you feel is right. Just make sure that the punt you’re taking is based on what you really think and not just the subliminal online chanting of a name from yesterweek echoing in your ears.
Thanks and hope you’re enjoying the International Break
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You can also see Rob Reid’s wildcard article as well as Keith and Costas’s , also Kris O’s wildcard drafts and Ben and Kev’s wildcard drafts
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