fantasy premier league team tips GW8 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers 

Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW8 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. Another wildcard last week which we show you

fantasy premier league team tips GW8 – 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 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

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 7 review

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

The average score of the managers in GW7 was 63 compared to the game average of 51. That’s 12 points and 24% above the game average score. High score of the 10 was 78. The low score was 50. A spread of 28 for a slightly above average scoring gameweek.

Although meaningless at this stage. The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 125k. An improvement of rank of 33k from last week. The best overall rank is 4k and the lowest 503k. The low score distorts the average. The median overall rank is better at 70k.

The average total points are 457

The average team value is still £102.4m

My score as you may have seen in my early FFGeek team thoughts article was okish at 58.   That was higher than only 3 of the managers and my total points of 468 and OR of 40k is better than 7 of the 10 managers. Although again it’s of little relevance at this stage of the season.

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 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Wan Bissaka is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Robertson and Trippier are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Foster, Hamer, Fabianski, Shaw, Trippier, Bennett (Wolves) and Doherty are in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by team

Wolves and Chelsea GK/Defs are represented 11 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

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

Bournemouth and Liverpool GK/Defs are represented 5 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Spurs GK/Defs are represented 4 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Man City, Huddersfield, Watford, West Ham, Man Utd and Arsenal GK/Defs are represented 3 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Midfielders

Hazard is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Fraser, Richarlison, Salah, Maddison and Hojbjerg are in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Forwards

Aguero is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Mitrovic is in 5 of the 10 FPL teams

Zaha is in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Wilson and Ings are in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Gameweek 7 captain choice

10 of the 10 FPL managers went with Aguero.

The FFGeek poll was 81% Aguero and 6% Kane.

The Site 1 poll in my GW7 captain choice article was 62% Aguero and 9% Kane

Formations

Sorry didn’t get to this in time this week

Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits

1 managers used their wildcard this week making it a total of 7 managers who have used it

Here’s the team:

Transfers in and out

I’ve disregarded wildcard transfers this week as they’re too hard to track.

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

Transfers in

Richarlison was transferred in by 3 managers

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

Mane was transferred out by 2 FPL managers

No one else was transferred out more than once

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 teams and the only players that are different to this extent are

Mane (51% 10k OR vs 10% top 10 FPL managers)

Hojbjerg owned by the top 10 FPL managers more but not relevant as a bench warmer for FPL teams.

I’m quite shocked at the lack of variation in the 2 sets of teams.

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 fits comfortably within the £101.8m budget of my team although to do that I had to put Ings in the team instead of Zaha. I will use this team as a guide for the template team which is part of the FFGeek alternate strategy teams.

So who’s essential?

Anyone or any defensive team that is owned by 7/10 of these managers or by 7/10 of the top 10k I would take a lot of convincing not to own irrespective of my thoughts about them. In terms of serious managers likely to finish with high overall ranks I won’t be getting left behind by players that are owned by a large proportion of these managers or by a large proportion of the top 10k.

That would mean:

A Palace defender (Wan Bissaka) and a Chelsea defender (Alonso) and a Wolves defender (Doherty for me)

Hazard (owned by 9/10 managers) and Aguero (owned by the 10 managers)

Salah drops out of that essential status by that definition because now owned by 6/10 of the managers and 40% of the top 10k.  I would think about the fact that Liverpool have Huddersfield and Cardiff in GW9 and GW10

That’s it. Hope you found it useful

See also the  fixture ease article,  underlying stats for players up to GW7 and a  review of GW7 in isolation

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