fantasy premier league team tips GW16 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

See where the Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW16 article where we analyse the teams of 10 top FPL managers. These 10 managers have not finished outside the overall rank of the top 10k in the last 3 seasons. Considering how variable the last 3 years have been this is remarkable consistency and shows an ability to adapt strategy in different seasons. It also gives you a view other than my own on strategy and player selection.

fantasy premier league team tips GW16 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

If the article is too long there’s a template team for the top 10 FPL managers analysed towards the end of the article.

Firstly, there are 9 new managers in the 10 this season and I’m delighted to say that one of them is our own FFGeek contributor Keith Spencer. Keith’s last 3 years history are 17/18 (3,940), 16/17 ( 325) and 15/16 (9,280).

We’ve also added Paul Williams to the FFGeek team who is also part of the 10 top managers. His history is 17/18 (412), 16/17 ( 1,382) and 15/16 (7,164).

The criteria I’ve always been looking for is managers who’ve finished in the top 10k for the last 3 years when FPL has become considerably harder due to the amount of people playing and the information available.

It took me hours and hours to track down 10 managers who’ve been so consistent and my opinion after doing so is that there are probably only 20 or so in the world that qualify.

The 10 managers stats

These managers are unbelievable and every bit as impressive as last season

1. The overall average finishing overall rank of the top 10 managers in the last 3 seasons is 3,667

2. The top 10 FPL managers have not been out of the top 10k in the last 3 seasons (ie 30 times playing)

3. 7 of the 10 have finished in the top 1,000 in the last 3 seasons

Gameweek 15 review

A reasonable week for the 10 FPL managers. 6 of the 10 had a green arrow

The average score of the managers in GW15 was 56 taking into account point deductions for extra transfers. That’s compared to the game average of 45. That’s 11 points and 24% above the game average score. High score of the 10 was 77. The low score was 40. A high spread of 37 for a relatively average scoring gameweek.

The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 172k. A worsening of rank of 33k from last week. The best overall rank is now in the top 250 and the lowest 1,315k. The low score distorts the average significantly. The median overall rank is better at 60k a worsening of 2k from last week

The average total points are 923

The average team value is £102.9m

I’ll go through my score in an early FFGeek team article.

The combined total of individual players

I’ve included where there is a minimum of a player in 3 out of the 10 FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence

Alonso is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Wan Bissaka is in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Doherty is in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Balbuena is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Digne and Hamer are in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Patricio, and Robertson are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Fabianski is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by team

Wolves GK/Defs are represented 13 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Chelsea GK/Defs are represented 10 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

West Ham GK/Defs are represented 9 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

C Palace GK/Defs are represented 8 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Liverpool are represented 7 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Huddersfield and Everton GK/Defs are represented 5 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Bournemouth and Man City GK/Defs are represented 3 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Midfielders

Salah and Richarlison are in 10 of the FPL managers teams

Hazard and Hojbjerg are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Fraser and Sane are in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Forwards

Arnautovic is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Kane is in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Wilson is in 3 of the 10 FPL teams

Aubameyang and Jimenez are in 2 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Gameweek 15 captain choice

5 of the 10 FPL managers went with Kane

5 of the 10 FPL managers went with Salah

The FFGeek poll was 35% Kane and 20% Salah

The Site 1 poll in my GW15 captain choice article was 35% Kane, 18% Salah

The top 10k captain choice (from the excellent free site FPL discovery) was 41% Kane and 23% Salah. This time not particularly close to the FFGeek poll but a not too dissimilar margin.

Formations

4 managers played 3-4-3

3 managers played 4-4-2

2 managers played 3-5-2

1 manager played 4-3-3

Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits

No manager used their wildcard this week the total now is 8 managers who have used it

None have used their triple captain, free hit or bench boost chip

Transfers in and out

I only summarise the transfers when a player is transferred in more than once.

10 of the 10 managers made a transfer.

Transfers in

Kane was transferred in by 8 managers

Aubameyang was transferred in by 2 managers

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

Aguero was transferred out by 10 managers

Hazard was transferred out by 3 managers

Barkley was transferred out by 2 managers

No one else was transferred out more than once

Hits

1 manager took a 4 point deduction, another an 8 and another a 12.

Transfer poll comparison

The purpose of this is to see how close the FFGeek transfer in and out polls predict the top 10k transfers and the 10 top FPL managers transfers

Transfers in

Transfer out 

So on this 1 limited bit of information the FFGeek transfer in and out polls do a reasonable job on predicting the top 10k transfer trends.  Less so for the 10 top FPL managers.

I’ll keep doing this to see how helpful it is

The top 10k overall rank vs the 10 FPL managers

The schedule shows the players in the top 10k overall rank teams percentage wise vs the 10 top FPL managers I follow.

The top 10k average score was 54 compared to the top 10 FPL managers of 56

I use 30% as a rule of thumb as a significant variation between the two player setss.  Here’s a breakdown:

Owned by more of the top 10k

Sterling owned by 60% of the top 10k but only 1 of the 10 top FPL managers

Owned by more of the 10 top FPL managers

Salah owned by 10 of the 10 top FPL managers but only 49% of the top 10k

Kane owned by  8 of the 10 top FPL managers but only 45% of the top 10k

Balbuena owned by 6 of the 10 top FPL managers but negligible of the top 10k

Digne owned by 5 of the 10 top FPL managers but only 17% of the top 10k

All the information is provided by the truly fantastic free site FPL discovery.

The combined FPL managers teams

Here’s a team which tries to make a combination from the most represented players. It is meant to be a menu of players rather than a realistic team. The TV is £104.7m.

So who’s worth considering as essential?

I define this by either 70% of the top 10k own a player or defensive team or 7 of the 10 top FPL managers own him

Wolves defence (represented 13 times in the 10 FPL managers teams)

Alonso (owned by 9 of the 10 FPL managers)

West Ham defence or GK (represented in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams)

Liverpool defence (represented in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams)

Richarlison (owned by 10 of the 10 FPL managers)

Kane (owned by 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams)

However:

Salah (owned by 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams)  could see transfers out this week to fund Aubameyang/Lacazette

Arnautovic (injury will see mass sales)

C Palace defence ( Wan Bissaka is often a bench player so maybe avoidable)

So that’s 6 essentials and 3 maybe nots.  This leaves room for 5 differentials/bench 2 pointers.

The leading manager’s team

Here’s the top scoring manager who’s currently in the top 150.  His team value is £104.6m.

A good score of 68 this week. His transfer this week was Aguero out and Kane in.

So his team structure isn’t particularly unusual or inconsistent with my thinking. Using my categories above:

He owns 5 of the essential 6 with no Liverpool defender.

All 3 of the 2nd tier “essential” of Salah, Arnautovic and Wan Bissaka.

He has 1 bench 2 point player in Hojbjerg

That makes 10.  He therefore has 5 differentials to make up ground with

Patricio for double Wolves defence

Digne (his template replacement player for a Liverpool defender.  Personally I think he’ll lose that battle)

Sane

David Silva

Wilson

That’s 4 pretty good players plus Digne to make up overall rank ground up with.  He has £3.3m in the bank so not quite enough for Arnautovic to Aubameyang but enough for Lacazette.

That’s it. Hope you found it useful

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