fantasy premier league teams GW29 – some early thoughts on the FFGeek team

Here’s our fantasy premier league teams GW29 article where I give my early thoughts on the FFGeek team for GW29. I look back at gameweek 28 and give my thoughts on the gameweek ahead including potential transfers and captain choice.

fantasy premier league teams GW29 – some early thoughts on the FFGeek team

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Introduction

Firstly if you’re new to the site my last 3 seasons overall ranks are 36k, 17k and 21k.

Gameweek 28 review

GW28 points: 27 (FPL average 26) Total points 1,611 Gameweek rank 3,258k, Overall Rank: 69k, red arrow 13k, Team Value: £103.6m

Here’s the points:

So after a few good weeks back down to earth with my lowest point score of the season if not my lowest gameweek rank.  At least the overall rank damage was fairly low with a worsening of rank from 56k to 69k.  Only 1 returning player if you can believe that and that was Calvert Lewin who was pretty fortuitous to score that’s for sure.  The real winners this week were the Doherty owners.

The transfer in of Barnes for Grealish bought no rewards.

The attacking players

The gameweek started badly with Vardy not being in the lineup v Norwich which is all you need to hear when you have just held him through a tricky patch to get to this run of fixtures.   It seems he will be fit for GW29 vs Aston Villa though.

New transfer in Barnes statistically did alright with 4 shots and 4 key passes for an xG .16 and xA 0.32 but watching it I though his performance was pretty ordinary.  Still Villa next.  Hopefully there’s not a mass cull reaction by Rodgers.

The less said about Salah and Mane the better. It’s incredible to think that Liverpool’s xG was a mere 0.20 from a miserly 7 shots and that Salah’s 2 shots were all that the front 3 produced in total including no key passes between the 3 of them.

It was one of those Martial days although at least he started so that was 2 points I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.  He produced 2 low quality shots and in 3 of his last 4 games he’s poured out some pretty low underlying stats although those games have been against Everton, Wolves and Chelsea.

Calvert Lewin scored, albeit luckily, but it was a good 4 shot performance.  At least he matched Jimenez for points

The defensive players

No clean sheets at all for the 5 defenders/GK.  Those who could afford Doherty were well rewarded with 12 points so I’m glad I’ve been pointing him out as a fixture punt option.

Soyuncu missing out on a clean sheet v Norwich was disappointing but I didn’t expect much from Boly at Spurs, Holgate v Man Utd and Rico at Chelsea.  I would have been hoping for more from McCarthy but it was a terrible personal and team performance from him and Southampton

My FPL team structure

Again apologies to regular readers for the definition preamble.

If it’s the first time you’ve seen it here’s how I classify each player in my FPL team:

Template player: 7 of the 10 top FPL managers I follow have him in their team. I use the 10 managers as a proxy for serious FPL managers who will finish in the top 100k or so. People have different interpretations of what is an FPL template. There’s no true definition though.

Template replacement player: the player you choose to go head to head against a template player with.

Bench player: A player who will for the most part be on your bench. Sometimes there are bench rotaters but I won’t muddy the waters

Difference maker: these are the rest and the players who can move you forward or back. I don’t call them differentials as this implies an ownership threshold which I don’t use

Here’s my squad using these categories:

Blank GW31

You can see more detail in my blanks and doubles article

Gameweek 31 clashes with the FA Cup 6th round.  Teams playing in those 6th round games will have their fixtures postponed.  At the moment only Burnley v Watford and Wolves v Bournemouth are guaranteed fixtures in GW31.

This midweek the FA Cup 5th round matches will take place which will bring the clarity were looking for.  There are no replays so as games progress the fixtures in GW31 will be come more apparent.  Unfortunately  the games go on to Thursday so we won’t know then the full extent of the fixtures until after the last game then.

I’ll be doing a fixture ease and a blanks and doubles update after those games to help you decide on your transfers and strategy.  Remember the postponed games will, amongst other postponements likely form a DGW 34 and DGW 37.

At the moment my guaranteed starters are Boly and Rico if Rico somehow gets his place back.  Therefore it’s going to need some good result luck if I’m to have any chance of avoiding the need for using the free hit chip.

Transfer thoughts

1 free transfer and £0.8m in the bank.

At the moment I’m going to leave the transfer decision until after the games in the FA Cup have concluded.  At that point I’ll know whether I will need to play my free hit or if I can navigate the blank GW31 with the 3 free transfers I’ll have before it.

Captain

Again Salah looks like the obvious captain choice but it will be interesting to see how the polls react to the loss vs Watford

Lineup issues

I’ve heard that some FPL managers are interested in bench boosting mainly because their bench is so strong.  That’s a surprise to me as this week the lineup of my bench is pretty straightforward whereas usually I have to think long and hard about it

Here’s a lineup pre any transfers

I hope you had a good gameweek

Other posts

Analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

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