Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW1 article where the 2nd group of the FFGeek contributors show their teams for GW1. In this part there’s Rick Porter, Scott Taylor, Rob Reid, Prakhar Patel, Mikael Danielsen and Alex Ball.
Fantasy premier league team tips GW1 – FFG contributor’s teams part 2
Geek note: If you join our Patreon site you will get access to an FPL contributor tracker team which combines the contributors individual teams each week to show their favourite players, transfers and captains. It will always be completed on a Friday/Saturday in a normal gameweek. There will also be a spreadsheet of each managers teams, transfers and captains so you can drill down further.
You also get:
Joe’s interactive transfer planner and points projection tool
Weekly podcasts with myself and the contributors
FFGeek private leagues
Access to the FFGeek Slack channel for discussion with the contributors and members
$2 and $3 tiers per calendar month. No commitment beyond 1 month
As it’s a Friday gameweek I’m getting the “finalish” contributors teams in, hopefully, mostly today to avoid any timing issues tomorrow.
This is part 1 of the FPL managers who contribute to the FFGeek site with good histories who show their teams each week. This will give people a feel for what other managers are doing. It’s a fairly informal thing with no obligation on anyone and these teams may change at anytime before the deadline without further notice. In the future it also wont cover early transfers. It’s just to give an idea of the trends for the week no more.
See the part 1 contributors teams article here
Rick Porter
Rick finished with an overall rank of 1k last season 30k in 17/18 and 2k in 16/17
See an interview with Rick where he outlines his FPL strategy
So, the match on Sunday ultimately gave me no reassurance that Aguero was ready to play – the opposite, in fact. I was adamant I would start the season with him if I could justify it, but despite my big talk I’ve folded like a wet hoover bag and brought in Sterling instead. There’s no way I’m chancing having 12m sat on the bench GW1 and, as about a third of all managers currently have Sterling, it was getting too dicey not owning him anyway. It’s kind of a relief.
As predicted this has led to a fair few changes.
As it stands, I have downgraded Aguero to Vardy. His price is great considering what he’s capable of. Kane was tempting but the 1m saving wasn’t enough to bring Sterling in without serious downgrades elsewhere.
The move to Vardy didn’t quite free up the cash to switch Siggy to Sterling outright, so I let Fraser go too – though, in his place I now have Perez who looks to be amazing value if pre-season is anything to go by (which, admittedly, it usually isn’t).
I’ve also switched Adams to Ings. While I’m more excited about Adams as a player, Ings is more likely to start and also has pens. It just seemed like a risk that didn’t need to be taken considering both have a low ownership.
After following them throughout pre-season, I decided that Wilson was worth the extra 1.5m over King. I’ve wanted Wilson in my team from the start, so I needed very little convincing. Despite not having penalties he’s a greater threat than King and my team feels more solid for his inclusion. Besides, now I’ve lost Fraser it’s comforting to know I have at least one of them should they repeat their joint hauls from last season.
I mentioned in my previous update that I was keen on Wan-Bissaka. A tough first match, but I can see him getting me more points over the first few weeks than any budget midfielder, so a formation change saw him enter my defence.
By this point I had overspent by 1m and I also wanted double Liverpool defensive cover – the sensible way to solve this was to downgrade Ederson. While Ederson will still likely start on Saturday, the fact that he wasn’t ready to play last Sunday has made this decision a little easier to swallow. His downgrade to 4.5m Ryan levelled out my overspend and allowed me to switch Digne to VVD. Digne is highly owned and has great fixtures, but I’ve lost a bit of faith in Everton as a whole so I’m not too concerned.
I’m pretty happy with this team. Barring any bombshells being dropped in the press conferences, this could well be it…
Scott Taylor
Scott finished with an overall rank of 1k last season and 12k in 17/18
So, since my last draft, I’ve made a few changes.
As I expected, Lloris has come in for Gunn. I like the Spurs defence especially with their defensive transfer activity and want a premium keeper. As I also expected, Digne has come in for Azpil. Everton have had a good pre season defensively and they have great opening fixtures. Van Dijk has come in for Robertson for budget reasons. Not a bad replacement though! Depending on Everton’s early season form which will dictate whether Digne goes, I can see Zinchenko being the only early transfer risk in my defence due to Mendy’s imminent return – I’ll likely do a straight swap.
Given Perez’s position pre season, I’ve moved from Tielemans to him. Finally, Lamela has come in for Jota as an opening few weeks punt given the midfield injuries at Spurs. He will likely be an early transfer too once everyone else is fit and their (potential) new signings start playing. I’ll wait to see who emerges in the 6-7m forward/midfield bracket to decide who replaces him. Other than that, I can see my attacking players remaining as they are for a while. The only other possible transfer being one of Fraser or Wilson.
That’s the plan anyway…!
Rob Reid
Rob finished with an OR of 148k last season, 94k in 17/18, 22k in 16/17, 4k in 15/16 and 7k in 14/15
See Rob’s player picks article
GW1 Team
After a long summer and one of the earliest releases for the FPL game in history, the time for talking is over. GW1 is happening this Friday. Rather strangely I think I’ve probably tinkered less this pre-season than I have in previous years, despite the early game release. I’m not sure if this means that I’ve been happier with my pre-season approach than I have been in the past but I guess this suggests so! So without further ado, here’s my team for the start of the season.
Formation
There’s been a lot of debate this summer about a change in FPL mindset with regards to which formation we should use. Traditionally, 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 have been the most favoured formations allowing managers the chance to max out on what have historically been the higher scoring players from the midfield and the forward categories. However this season, there is definitely a school of thought that there is more value in the defence category and that 6-7m defenders are providing better value points potential than to some extent their equivalents in midfield and certainly up front.
While I agree with this to a point, I am however wary about over-committing in defence early. Teams tend to play a bit more openly in the first couple of months of the season and as such in general terms, there is often fewer clean sheets. I also see it as more difficult to move funds forward from the back seeing as you have to divide them between a few players. Therefore, I’ll be starting the season with 3 at the back again, but this is a 3 that can quite easily become a 4 or indeed a 5 if needed.
What I will be doing is loading more funds into midfield. There’s a lot of players I like in the midfield bracket between 7 and 12.5m and a few around the 6.5m as well. The category where I’ll be spending less is up front, where there are 3 good big budget premiums but less around that mid price 7-10m range and slim pickings under 6.5m. Here’s what I’ve settled on.
Goalkeepers
It was a straight choice between a premium option and a 4.5 here, with the keepers in the 5m range looking a bit over-priced for me. Ederson at 6m does appeal as a pretty much guaranteed route into City defence and I like Lloris and Kepa at 5.5m. But the lure of the 4.5 is too much this season with 4 standout options here. I’d sat on Pope for most of the pre-season, but Burnley don’t have the greatest fixtures. Heaton at Villa will probably rack up some good save points and Gunn plays in probably the most trustworthy of the ‘4.5m’ defences. I like Ryan the best however, mainly because of the first 6 week’s fixtures. He’s in with his reserve Button the back-up at 4.0m.
Defence
While I’m sticking to 3 at the back in GW1, my concession to defensive value is that these 3 players will all be premiums. This is a big cultural change for me where in previous seasons I’ve tended to start with only 1 premium and a set of rotating 4-5m players.
Liverpool and City simply have to be covered as the standout defences from last season. How I do that is the question. For Liverpool I’ve gone for Van Dijk who at 6.5m is the cheaper nailed on option. I worry that I’ll ship points to Robbo and TAA over the season, but that extra 0.5m is very handy and I think VVD will get fairly close to his full-back counterparts scoring-wise. To cover City I’ve gone for Zinchenko. This is kind of a short-term pick as I expect him to lose his place to Mendy once the Frenchman is fit and the arrival of Cancelo does complicate things further, but 5.5m for a City defender is good value and if Stones gets a settled place then there’s an easy swap later on.
My 3rd premium is Digne of Everton. This is both a fixture pick and an attacking returns pick. Everton have the best fixtures for the first few weeks and Digne is a busy player going forward with some set piece responsibility. Hopefully he’ll bring home some clean sheets and attacking returns, but if he doesn’t, again it’s easy to swap him across to another premium at his 6m price tag. My final 2 defenders are 2 cheaps. Lundstram looks the best 4m option to me so he’s in and he’s joined by 4.5m Diop who I’m likely to give some gametime to over the first few weeks. He’ll sit out GW1 for the visit of City, but after that The Hammers have nice fixtures so I won’t be too worried about playing him.
Midfield
So this is where I’ve splashed the cash! It should come as no surprise that Salah was the first name on my team-sheet. The top-scoring player from the last 2 seasons and a regular captain pick – he’s a set and forget for the moment. What probably will surprise you though is that I only slotted Sterling into my team last week. I’d played around with several options where I found ways around having him, but in the end his pre-season form and his potential from the last 2 seasons is just too tantalising. So that’s a quarter of my budget spent on 2 premiums then!
I need a cheap filler here and really the only feasible option to me is Dendoncker at 4.5m. If he gets gametime, he could be an absolute bargain as a box to box midfielder. Next up is one of the Leicester boys – they’ve got some great midfield options. Maddison at 7m seems to have the bulk of the set piece responsibility, but is 0.5m more than Perez and Tielemans. Both look good prospects, but I prefer Perez who it looks like Rodgers may use as a second striker to Vardy. The Foxes have a slightly mixed bag of fixtures first up, but I actually like their GW1 match against a Wolves team who will have just returned from a tricky Europa League trip to Armenia.
My final midfielder was the biggest source for deliberation and in the end I’ve decided to double up on City and splash out on Kevin De Bruyne. I think he’s under-priced for a midfielder that can potentially score 200+ points in a season and at 9.5m he also gives me the flexibility to move funds into other areas if he doesn’t fire in the first few weeks.
Forwards
All this cash in midfield has meant I’ve had to scrimp a bit up front. I must confess as a traditionalist in terms of the way I approach FPL, part of me is a little uncomfortable at not having Kane, Aubameyang or Aguero at the start but hey, that’s the way it is! So I’ve gone 2 cheaps and a mid-price here. My cheaps are Wood and Locadia and both have had strong pre-seasons. I’ve always liked Wood – he’s a bit of an old school striker and I think he’ll continue to give teams trouble this year. Locadia is my hedge pick. New Seagulls boss Graham Potter seems to like a 3-4-3 and Locadia played as one of the front 3 back in his PSV days so he should be more at home in this than he was under Hughton. At 5.5m, he’s a low risk spend as well.
And so to my last pick and it’s FPL warning time – it’s Callum Wilson. This is a pick that makes me very nervous as my track record with Wilson isn’t great. Whenever I own him he blanks, whenever I don’t he fires. So I’m sorry folks, I’m officially cursing him for the start of the season, though to be honest there’s no-one else who appeals in that bracket. Plus, Bournemouth have 2 nice fixtures first up so I think there’s a good chance he’ll be in the goals.
Comparison to Last Season and Targets for 2019-20
Looking at how I spent my GW1 funds last season, there’s certainly been a shift. I’ve spent 1m less on my goalkeepers, 3m more on my defence, 5.5m more on my midfield and 7.5m less on my strikers. A big swing away from the forward players, obviously with the lack of a premium the key factor here.
I traditionally set myself targets each season and I have to say that the last 2 seasons have not been fruitful in this respect at all. So for 2019-20, my targets are very conservative. They are:
1) Win my main mini-league
2) Finish in top 65k
3) Get through 2 rounds of the Cup
4) Finish in top 2/3s of the FFG Contributors League
Anything beyond this is a bonus!
So that’s me set for GW1. I hope you all are too and I wish you the best of luck for the coming campaign!
Prakhar Patel
Prakhar finished with a rank of 17k last season and an incredible 17th overall in 17/18
Here’s Prakhar’s team:
Alex Ball
Alex finished with an overall rank of 523k last season and 17k in 17/18, 10k in 16/17, 28k in 15/16 and 3k in 14/15
Well the deadline is nearly here. Very quick rundown I’m afraid as heading out.
Keepers- goodness this was a toss up between Heaton and Pope. In the end the early fixtures till likely wildcard decided it.
Defence- pretty template but template for a reason. All four offer either excellent clean sheet potential or attacking options. Or both. Lundstram looks a possible starter at £4.0m.
Midfield- Salah and Sterling where first in as my captain options then it was about price points Lucas/Fraser will be in as the £7.5m options and Perez was my preferred £6.5m. Dendoncker is a likely starter at £4.5m with a few routes to points beyond the standard 2 points from a bench player.
Forwards I’m still not set on. I may go triple Bournemouth but that’s risky come GW3 with fixtures turn but I’m struggling to see a £6.5m I like alongside Wilson. Jota depending on minutes played in the Europa League maybe.
Good luck for the season everyone.
Mikael L Danielsen
Mikael finished with an overall rank of 12k last season, 100k in 17/18 and 5k in 16/17
Here is my finally draft (I hope).
I will only comment on some of my choices. The “template guys” need no explanation :-)
Gone for Pope as my only starting goalkeeper in order to upgrade elsewhere
Gone for a £4.5m defender rotations pair in Cathcart and Dunk. Watford and Brighton rotate extremely well over the season
Also, I’m not convinced, that the popular cheap defender Lundstram will get many minutes.
Alli is injured and Son is suspended, so Lucas Moura is locked in for now. I will probably swap him for Perez (or Zaha) when Son is back
I’m picking Wickham over Greenwood, as the ownership of Greenwood it is a bit worrying from a potential price drop point of view.
Cheers Mikael
Geek note: If you join our Patreon site you will get access to an FPL contributor tracker team which combines the contributors individual teams each week to show their favourite players, transfers and captains. It will always be completed on a Friday/Saturday in a normal gameweek. There will also be a spreadsheet of each managers teams, transfers and captains so you can drill down further.
You also get:
Joe’s interactive transfer planner and points projection tool
Weekly podcasts with myself and the contributors
FFGeek private leagues
Access to the FFGeek Slack channel for discussion with the contributors and members
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