Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW11 article where the 2nd group of the FFGeek contributors show their teams for GW11. In this part there’s Rick Porter, Costas Chari, Scott Taylor and Andrew Whitfield
Fantasy premier league team tips GW11 – FFGeek contributor’s teams part 2
This is part 2 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 as well
Rick Porter
Rick last 3 seasons overall rank were 1k, 30k and 2k.
GW10 points: 61 (FPL average 49) Total points 548 Gameweek rank 1,327k, Overall Rank: 349k, green arrow 104k, Team Value: £103.5m
As I keep saying, sometimes you have to go with your gut. My last minute decision to switch Digne for Mendy resulted in gaining 7 much-needed points. This would have been even more if that goal hadn’t been removed from De Bruyne, as Mendy’s assist meant he was on for a very decent 12 points before it got credited to D. Silva. Of course, the main headline here is that I finally got a captain choice right – another last minute switch that paid off.
Despite all this good news, it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t have any of the big scorers in my squad. The Perez and Pulisic ownerships were nothing to worry about and, frankly, if you’ve stuck by them this long then you deserve a decent return just for your patience. Vardy, however, is owned by over 20% and is the main reason my OR has only improved moderately despite me being well above the average points.
Watchlist
Vardy is the first player on my mind for this exact reason. His ownership is swelling and his fixtures are good, however I have no obvious path to get him other than downgrading one of my premium midfielders – all of which are playing well – to someone at least 2.3m cheaper. I don’t want Vardy enough to take a -4 and lose Sterling, De Bruyne or Salah, so I guess I just have to sit tight for now. The only solace I can take is that he didn’t score anything in GW10 until Southampton were already on the ropes and such punishing scorelines are relatively rare.
Martial is the second player on my watchlist. Before his injury I deemed him essential due to his price and position and if he’s back playing 90 minutes then he’s once again a bargain – especially with the fixtures coming up.
Transfer
Now, for those paying attention, it’s clear that the two players on my watchlist combine perfectly. I need a cheaper midfield downgrade to free up cash to bring in Vardy for Pukki/King and I’d like to get Martial in the team for his great value and potential… there are certainly more difficult conundrums out there. The problem is I have no desire to lose any of my current premium midfielders considering the fixtures in GW11. Taking a hit to do it is even less appealing.
That being the case I’ll be rolling my transfer so, at the very least, I can make the above moves for free in GW12 if I still want to. Maybe by that point the right midfielder to lose might be clearer to me.
Captain
My captain will be Sterling due to him not playing midweek. Vice is De Bruyne.
transfer summary: carrying over a free transfer
Costas Chari
Costas’s last 3 seasons overall ranks were 84k, 29k and 27k
GW10 points: 77 (FPL average 49) Total points 611 Gameweek rank 242k, Overall Rank: 4k, green arrow 12k, Team Value: £101.2m
GW10
Great score with 28 points above the average. I was lucky to get the Alonso CS though a bit unlucky to have Sokratis’ 2nd goal disallowed. Sterling did his job as a captain. However, I cant help but being disappointed that my GK rotation is not working for the second week and by Hudson-Odoi being rotated. Nevertheless, I cant complain as the Gwk end saw me with a 4k overall rank.
GW11
2 FT and £0.1m itb. Team needs some changes moving forward and I would like to plan and address them without taking a lot of hits (already took 20 point hits this season).
The defence is a mess. Don’t get me wrong Alonso and Sokratis really helped me these 2 weeks BUT arsenal cant seem to keep a clean sheet, neither can Chelsea and Lampard clearly favours Emerson. He stated last night that Emerson will be back soon so its a clear message of dropping Alonso. Ottamendi did not start any of the 2 games since I got him (thankfully Rico delivered on both occasions). Sooo all 3 starting defenders from my WC in GW9 need to change.
Furthermore it seems that Hudson-Odoi will share minutes with Willian, Pulisic and Pedro so I have to drop him. The rest of the team I feel is fine.
Targets
Lascelles was a target and on the transfer in list from before and martial who I plan to get once I save funds in the place of Hudson-Odoi.
Alonso survives as he is assured for another Gwk and against Watford although I don’t fancy Chelsea getting a clean sheet he might offer an attacking return.
I have already done the Sokratis to Lascelles switch. I was going to do the Otamendi to Maguire switch but thankfully I waited until the cup game which ended with a flagged Maguire so I wont do it. Anyway ManU defensive assets in Maguire and Wan-Bissaka are too expensive given Man U concede often and these players don’t offer attacking returns. Therefore I have turned my attention to Saiss of Wolves after the Boly injury. I will not get him in this week though with Arsenal away. After that they have Villa, Sheffield and West Ham home in the next 5 and at £4.4m he offers a great opportunity.
Ottamendi will be given another chance. I cant sell him before Southampton at home given he had a good display against them mid week.
So to wrap everything up my next week planning will be 2 free transfers with Hudson-Odoi and Otamendi/Alonso making way for Martial and Saiss.
The worst case scenario is that all 3 of Alonso, Otamendi and Hudson-Odoi get benched. I wouldn’t like to think of it.
Lineup- Lascelles to the bench, Lundstram in. Roberto starts as GK.
Captain- rested midweek and in great form its got to be Sterling with the VC on De Bruyne.
Good luck to everyone
Transfer summary: Sokratis to Lascelles
Scott Taylor
Scott finished with an overall rank of 1k last season and 12k in 17/18
GW10 points: 65 (FPL average 49) Total points 554 Gameweek rank 884k, Overall Rank: 554k, green arrow 323k, Team Value: £102.0m
A second green arrow in a row! OR is now 550,000 after a climb of 220,000 meaning I’ve halved my OR since my WC, very pleasing.
7 returning players with one double figure return from Vardy and points from my captain De Bruyne meant I was comfortably above the average. 6 out of my front 7 returned.
So, I’m happy with the vast majority of my team. The only concerns are Cantwell (drop in his and Norwich’s form plus he may have lost his place to Hernandez following his scoring return from injury) and Wilson (blanked in last 3 and similar priced assets performing well (Martial, D Silva, Willian, Jimenez)). So they’re both out.
Who’s in? Martial and Ayew. Martial clearly is injury prone which is a risk plus MUFC seem to blow hot and cold. But he’s playing OOP for a big six side, has decent underlying stats, has scored in the 4 games he’s started this season, is a nailed on starter, has decent fixtures coming up and is still under priced. That leaves me with 5.2m for a bench striker (I’ll play 3-5-2). Connolly, Mousset and Ayew seem to be the best options. Connolly and Mousset have game time risk so Ayew it is who probably also has the best immediate fixtures anyway. I won’t do the transfers until after the midweek games and press conferences in case any fires need putting out but I’ll also have to keep an eye on price changes as I only have 0.1m spare and obviously don’t want to be priced out.
Pope, Alexander Arnold, Roberston, the 5 midfielders, Vardy and Tammy Abraham will likely start every week. That leaves Soyuncu, Lundstram and Rico to rotate the 3rd defender slot with Ayew on the bench.
This week Lundstram just about gets the nod although it’s a close call. Captain will be De Bruyne and I’ll be hoping that’s a sufficient shield against Sterling but I do expect Southampton to be better than last week. VC is Vardy given his performance last week (Tammy Abraham would also be a decent choice given his away form).
I hope GW11 is good to everyone.
Transfer summary: Wilson and Cantwell out. Martial and Ayew in (to be confirmed)
Andrew Whitfield
Andrew finished with an overall rank of 6k last season and 19k in 17/18
GW10 points: 47 (FPL average 49) Total points 549 Gameweek rank 3585k, Overall Rank: 330k, red arrow 143k, Team Value: £101.8m
Well after two back to back low scoring gameweeks when the average score only hit 36/37 points, and all the popular players went missing, it was certainly an eventful one this time. The week of the “Leicester explosion” and the week of “the three hat tricks” too !!
There were still some noticeable fails, particularly up front, where big guns Aguero and Aubameyang have now each surprisingly strung three blanks together, as has Wilson, with Firmino having four straight blanks and Pukki five !! But a lot of the top players were “back on it” with the likes of Sterling, D Silva, De Bruyne, Salah, Mane, Abraham, Mount, Kane, and Rashford all returning – oh and that man Vardy !!!
Five returning players wouldn’t normally be a bad week, but a disappointing one in the end for me, a score of 47, was two below the average, but resulted in a significant red arrow fall from 187k to 330k.
The bullets I feared most, I managed to dodge – Sterling and Aguero only managing one goal between them, and Auba blanking too, but in the end it was the lack of any Leicester players in my team that damaged me and meant my arrows were red rather than green …
The Italian nightmare:
GW10 coincided with a holiday cruise in the Med, which meant periods at sea, without signal, between stop offs. I left Barcelona on Friday evening and had to wake up to the Leicester result in Genoa on Saturday morning. I was hoping for a bland 1-1. I would normally expect 20-30 WhatsApp messages across my FPL groups and woke up to 290 so I sensed something “dangerous” – what a nightmare to wake up to that 9-0 with Vardy getting three, with a smattering of popular clean sheets and Maddison and Tielemans chipping in too – an overnight rank drop from 187k to 390k !! At least I had all 11 players to come but wow that’s not good .
I clawed it back a little over the rest of the weekend, with returns from De Bruyne ( captain ) Silva, Mount, Abraham and Salah. But the double Liverpool clean sheet lasted 48 seconds, Otamendi missed out on the City clean sheet, and Callum Wilson made it back to back blanks against Norwich and Watford after I bought him in for those two tasty fixtures. Three good examples of how an extra 15-20 points could still have rescued my week and left me with a green arrow, despite the Leicester debacle.
Pondering in Naples and Sicily:
I am not sure if having all this time sipping cocktails on deck is a good thing or overthinking hinders. But after a “deep dive” of my team, here are the big questions and decisions I have had to consider – with a few surprising stats too.
– I have 1.4M in the bank and two transfers, so good options:
– I looked at the top five FPL points scoring defenders and found the points range from just 43-48, compared to the top five midfielders 60-72 and strikers 57-74, which tells me that I need to move money out of defence further forward. Keepers are 39-44 which makes premium keepers poor value too.
– My Liverpool defensive double up continues to frustrate. They have conceded only 8 goals in ten games – 1110110111 so unluckily only two clean sheets and then a single goal eight times. Plenty of late goals and silly goals too. Just three more clean sheets would have my full backs right up there with the likes of Sterling and Aguero for points, at a fraction of the cost. Alexander Arnold and Robertson are still in the top three defenders, which emphasises their attacking qualities. Double figure hauls for both will surely follow when the inevitable clean sheets land.
– Man City don’t have a defender in the top 40 defenders !!!! Amazing !! Otamendi is best in 47th place !! He has now lost his place as well as having four blanks. It’s becoming impossible to get a nailed on City defender. Mendy is probably safest now but he only has 13 points in total !! So that’s where I need to take money from to move funds forward.
– I need Leicester players !! Vardy is now top FPL points scorer, with all the required plus points – he has the form, great fixtures, and his ownership is only 21% so he is a differential too !! What’s not to like. So I have used my banked 1.4M and brought him in as a 1.3M upgrade for Callum Wilson, after three cherries blanks ( cue the Wilson hat trick of course ) . I also have eyes on Maddison or Tielemans, given the Foxes fixtures.
– Greenwood is a 1 point per game bench problem now that needs dealing with. I could get him up to Connelly who is playing regularly at least, for only a 0.3M upgrade.. Frustratingly, through a combination of my cautious dislike of risky early transfers, and this week being unable, through travelling, to access the useful “price prediction” websites, I missed two rises on Vardy, a fall for Wilson and a fall for Greenwood, or I could have done Greenwood to Connolly and that would have sealed my two transfers for the week, which would have coincided nicely with Brighton v Norwich too. Having said that, Brighton’s fixtures turn very bad soon.
– I took the “dangerous decision” ahead of GW9 to sell a stuttering Sterling, something that’s scares me a lot. But the decision to slot D Silva in there instead releases a massive 4.5M. Silva matched Sterling 9-11 in GW10, he is only four points behind Sterling for the whole season, and he has an incredible 18 points MORE than Sterling over the last 8 weeks. Last weeks 11 points was Sterling’s first double figure haul since the opening day, Silva has four double digit hauls. The 4.5M saving is huge. If I had Sterling, Salah and KDB, and the double up on Liverpool defence, I couldn’t get anywhere near Vardy and Abraham. So hiding behind sofas watching Aguero and Sterling is the price to pay for the overall better balance to my team. At least I can enjoy the chaos that ensues when Sterling and Aguero get rested !! I was interested to see when browsing the top end teams that plenty don’t have Sterling or Aguero. In fact the overall FPL leader doesn’t have a single Man City player which is incredible !!
– I still prefer Salah to Mane. In Mo I trust !! This recurrence of his ankle injury is a pain ( no pun intended ). It’s irritating and worrying. I am very tempted to swap Salah to Sterling this week, and go triple City attack, bearing in mind that the Southampton side who lost 0-9 to Leicester now go to the Etihad !! It covers a huge potential risk fixture, particularly if Salah’s fitness is in doubt too. It would also mean having to take out Otamendi ( a 4th city player ) and take a hit. But still tempting for “risk management purposes”. I was hoping that De Bruyne would closely match Sterling in the polls most weeks. He did last week. Then D Silva could cover Sterling. But this looks an exceptional week. The captain polls seem hugely in favour of Sterling. My game is built around managing risks well. If Sterling was to haul this week, it could do enormous damage to my rank. The risks from Salah at Villa are much less damaging.
But after this week, it’s Liverpool v City, where I favour Salah at home and Sterling comes up against my Liverpool defence and then Liverpool embark on significantly easier fixtures than City. So effectively this is a one week “risk management call”. I expect a general swing from City to Liverpool after this week and I am not anticipating the same exposure to Sterling that there is this week. I don’t like one week punts. Look at Callum Wilson at home to Norwich which looked essential and a hat trick waiting to happen. But the risks here are high stakes based on ownership and captaincy polls. It could be Sterling’s turn for the Pep rotation treatment, which could backfire, but he was rested midweek, along with De Bruyne and Silva, with Mahrez and B Silva playing. Salah could outscore Sterling this week, but on balance, I feel it’s a move I need to make for game management purposes. So Salah will be Sterling this week for a -4 and probably flip back next week.
So what to do for GW11 and beyond:
– I have made the Wilson to Vardy transfer already… I will very likely be making Salah to Sterling once the Wednesday cup hurdles are cleared. I don’t want to commit to a -4 this far out before all the cup injury risks are safely navigated.
The question is who the Otamendi replacement will be. He was probably going anyway next week . I was going to keep him this week in case he played v Southampton, a clean sheet waiting to happen. He then has Liverpool away and fixtures worsen so he was going anyway next week.
Aside from the Salah / Sterling flip, I have 0.1M in the bank.
Depending on price changes, I could go Otamendi to Soyuncu which could give me funds for Greenwood to Ayew. Or Otamendi to Rico and then I could get McGinn to Tielemans as well as Greenwood to Connolly. So good options. McGinn represents a great 5th midfielder so can cover not getting Tielemans. I am liking the Leicester defensive coverage for upcoming fixtures, so going to go Otamendi to Soyuncu and hope Ayew stays within reach. If not, Connolly can at least step in.
Just to note – I am submitting this on Wednesday from Malta and I could be out of signal until Friday morning when I dock back in Barcelona for a final flight home, so it’s subject to any league cup injuries and other significant injury news.
Transfer summary:
Wilson to Vardy done.. likely further transfers of Salah to Sterling and Otamendi to Soyuncu for a -4.
Team selection:
I will likely go 442 this week, with Lundstram getting a game over McGinn who is up against my double Liverpool clean sheet. If players miss out, McGinn might have to play. The rest of my bench looks weak this week but the proposed changes ahead will certainly improve that with a third functional back up striker. I can play 442 or 352.
Captain will be Sterling as he is the overwhelming poll favourite and the catalyst for change. De Bruyne is vice which worked very well last time Sterling sat it out !!
Screenshot is pre transfers so bear in mind that Salah is Sterling and Otamendi is Soyuncu. Captains will change accordingly.
Good luck everyone !!!!!
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FFGeek contributors show their teams part 1
GW11 captain and transfer poll
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