fantasy premier league team tips GW18 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW18 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 GW18 – 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).  See his last article on breaking the template here

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

Just to let you know I’ve taken out the person who was distorting the average very negatively and replaced them with someone else meeting the last 3 seasons less than 10k OR.  I haven’t amended the calculations below but they will be improved due to the substitution.

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 17 review

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

The average score of the managers in GW17 was 54 taking into account point deductions for extra transfers. That’s compared to the game average of 43. That’s 11 points and 26% above the game average score. High score of the 10 was 62. The low score was 46. A low spread of 16 for a relatively low scoring gameweek.

The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 44k now that I’ve removed the person distorting the average. The best overall rank is now in the top 100 and the lowest 98k. No need now for a median score

The average total points are 1055

The average team value is £103.9m

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

Wan Bissaka is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Doherty is in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Alonso is in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams

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

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

Bennett is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by team

Wolves GK/Defs are represented 14 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

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

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

Huddersfield GK/Defs are represented 6 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Everton and Brighton are represented 5 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Midfielders

Richarlison is in 9 of the FPL managers teams

Salah is in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Felipe Anderson is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Sane and Fraser are in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Sterling, Son HM and Hojbjerg are in 3/10 FPL managers teams

Forwards

Kane is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Aubameyang is in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Wilson is in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Lacazette and Jimenez are in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Gameweek 17 captain choice

9 of the 10 FPL managers went with Kane

1 of the 10 FPL managers went with Hazard

The FFGeek poll was 60% Kane and 15% Aubameyang

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

The top 10k captain choice (from the excellent free site FPL discovery) was 59% Kane and 14% Aubameyang. The FFGeek poll this time was very consistent.

Formations

7 managers played 3-4-3

2 managers played 3-5-2

1 manager played 4-3-3

Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits

9 managers now have used their wildcard

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.

6 of the 10 managers made a transfer.

Transfers in

Felipe Anderson and Chicharito were transferred in by 2 managers

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

No one was transferred out more than once

Hits

1 manager took a 4 point hit.

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 the limited amount of information with 3 test runs 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.

The top 10k average score was 52 compared to the 10 top managers average of 54.

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

Owned by  more than 30% of the top 10k

No one

Owned by more than 30% of the 10 top FPL managers

Balbuena owned by 5 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.

We’re now back to a situation where the top 10k and the 10 top FPL managers teams are reasonably similar

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 £105.8

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)

Liverpool defence (owned by 7 of the 10 FPL managers)

Alonso (owned by 7 of the 10 FPL managers)

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

Salah (owned by 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams)

Richarlison (owned by 9 of the 10 FPL managers)

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

Plus a maybe

Wan Bissaka (owned 9 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 2nd placed of the 10 top manager’s team

Here’s the 2nd top scoring manager who currently has an OR of 6k. His team value is £104.8m.

A good score of 60 this week.

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

He owns 7 of the essential 7 (Chelsea defence with Rudiger) but not the 2nd tier “essential” of Wan Bissaka.

He also has 2 bench players in Success and Hamer.

That makes 9. He therefore has 6 differentials to make up ground with

Balbuena for double West Ham defence

Duffy

Fraser

Sane

Snodgrass

Lacazette

3 of his 5 Differentials returned with Snodgrass and Sane getting double figures.  That’s always going to see a green arrow.

That’s it. Hope you found it useful

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