fantasy premier league team tips GW17 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW17 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 GW17 – 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 16 review

A good week for the 10 FPL managers. 7 of the 10 had a green arrow

The average score of the managers in GW16 was 66 taking into account point deductions for extra transfers. That’s compared to the game average of 55. That’s 11 points and 20% above the game average score. High score of the 10 was 96-4. The low score was 51-4. A high spread of 45 for a relatively high scoring gameweek.

The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 168k. An improvement of rank of 4k from last week. The best overall rank is now in the top 50 and the lowest 1,307k. The low score distorts the average significantly. The median overall rank is better at 47k an improvement of 13k from last week

The average total points are 989

The average team value is £103.3m

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 7 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 is in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

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

Fabianski and Robertson are 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

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

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

Liverpool GK/Defs are represented 7 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Everton are represented 5 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Huddersfield are represented 4 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Midfielders

Richarlison is in 10 of the FPL managers teams

Salah in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Sane is in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Fraser and Anderson are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Forwards

Kane is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Jimenez, Aubameyang, Wilson and Lacazette are in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Gameweek 15 captain choice

5 of the 10 FPL managers went with Aubameyang

2 of the 10 FPL managers went with Salah

2 of the 10 FPL managers went with Lacazette

1 of the 10 FPL managers went with Kane

The FFGeek poll was 40% Aubameyang and 31% Kane

The Site 1 poll in my GW15 captain choice article was 46% Aubameyang and 17% Kane

The top 10k captain choice (from the excellent free site FPL discovery) was 40% Kane and 39% Kane. The FFGeek poll this time was pretty consistent.

Formations

5 managers played 3-4-3

2 managers played 4-4-2

2 managers played 3-5-2

1 manager played 4-3-3

Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits

1 manager used their wildcard this week the total now is 9 managers who have used it

Here’s his team:

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.  I don’t count the wildcard transfers.

10 of the 10 managers made a transfer.

Transfers in

Lacazette was transferred in by 3 managers

Aubameyang, Anderson and Jimenez was transferred in by 2 managers

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

Arnautovic was transferred out by 9 managers

Hazard 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

So on this 1 limited bit of information the FFGeek transfer in and out polls do an ok 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.

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 59% of the top 10k but only 2 of the 10 top FPL managers

Owned by more of the 10 top FPL managers

Salah owned by 8 of the 10 top FPL managers but only 40% of the top 10k

Balbuena owned by 6 of the 10 top FPL managers but negligible 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 but here it fits into my value of £102.6m

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

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

Alonso (owned by 7 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)

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

Richarlison (owned by 10 of the 10 FPL managers)

Kane (owned by 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams)

Plus

Wan Bissaka (owned 8 of the 10 top FPL managers but is often a bench player so maybe avoidable)

So that’s 7 essentials and 1 maybe.  This leaves room for 7 differentials/bench two pointers.

The leading manager’s team

Here’s the top scoring manager who’s currently in the top 50. His team value is £104.8m.

A great score of 86 this week. His 2 transfers this week were Arnautovic out and Kamara in plus Hojbjerg out and Anderson in

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

He owns 6 of the essential 7 with no Liverpool defender.  Plus the 2nd tier “essential” of Wan Bissaka.

He also has a bench player in Kamara.

That makes 8. He therefore has 7 differentials to make up ground with

Patricio for double Wolves defence

Digne (his template replacement player for a Liverpool defender.)

Sane

David Silva

Wilson

Felipe Anderson

Yedlin

That’s it. Hope you found it useful

One place to look for differential players is our fixture ease article

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