Here’s our fantasy premier league teams GW4 article where we outline our early thoughts on the FFGeek team now that GW3 is complete. We review GW3 and talk about potential transfers, captains and lineups for GW4
fantasy premier league teams GW4 – early thoughts on the FFGeek team
I outline my FPL strategy along with 10 other FFGeek contributors in our new EBook.
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Introduction
Firstly if you’re new to the site my last 4 seasons overall ranks are 17k, 36k, 17k and 21k.
GW3
GW3 points: 47 (FPL average 43) Total points 166, Overall Rank: 1,608k, green arrow 253k Team Value: £99.7m
I haven’t used any chips yet
Here’s the points:
In simple terms a 1.6 million overall rank resulting from a 2.4m gameweek rank for a small 253k green arrow.
In even more simple terms a gameweek rescued by Andy Robertson really is how to describe this one. That’s rescued from a disastrous gameweek rather than Robertson being hoisted on my shoulders as part of a gameweek victory parade. Most of the gameweek I was looking at a 400k-600k red arrow according to live FPL but the Robertson score gave me, what in the context of my current overall rank, a fairly small green arrow
A captain fail with Werner but neither De Bruyne or Salah scored heavily so no damage there.
5 returning players is definitely an ok return rate.
Not where I want to be but it’s worth remembering, as I’ve said before, that overall rank is a pretty misleading figure at the moment. I’m still only 47 points away from 50k overall rank which is not insurmountable over the next 35 gameweeks. Also as I said last week some managers made 41 points in 1 gameweek last week with Son and Calvert Lewin.
How the players did in GW3?
Here’s my team with xG/xA plus shots and key passes and defensive team stats. Plus I’ve added in potential exit points:
So disappointing performances from Saiss and Ward Prowse again. The main negative about Ward Prowse is that Ings has taken over penalties. Ward Prowse has WBA next so after that will be his exit I think. I think the Wolves defence has enough credit in the bank for me not to panic at the moment but Saiss himself had another poor defensive game and must be wobbling in Nuno’s eyes.
Everyone else either had a good team defensive performance or at least ok underlying stats. Obviously when West Ham and Chelsea score 7 goals and Antonio and Werner don’t return it’s disappointing. Especially as they had 7 shots between them.
Overall it’s hard not to feel lucky to escape with a small green arrow
FPL Team Structure
Regular readers may want to skip past this section but this is how I classify players in my team:
Template – 7 of the 10 10 top FPL managers I follow own the player or defence. You can see this in yesterdays 10 top FPL managers article
Template replacement – If I don’t own a template player then a player who is the designated replacement who will fight it out weekly for points
Bench – a player who will primarily sit on the bench
Difference maker – the rest. These will generally give you the rank boost. Not defined by ownership so not called differentials
So 4 difference makers in Robertson, Digne, Ward Prowse and Antonio. Robertson and Digne returned and luckily Robertson did so reasonably big to squeeze out a small green arrow.
Transfer thoughts
At the moment my thoughts on a transfer is Werner out and Jimenez in. I don’t like breaking the template before it’s broken by the 10 top managers and I don’t like the idea of selling Werner before a home game to Palace but Fulham’s performances and Jimenez’s fixtures overall have made me think long and hard about doing that.
Jimenez has been performing well and should have penalties which is looking like a pretty crucial part of a players armoury at the moment. He shoots at more than 3 times per 90 minutes and generally plays 90 minutes as well as the aforementioned penalties. He is one of the few strikers who really has assists and creativity in his locker. I’m not wild about Wolves being a counter attacking team and being only 12th in possession last season but they were still 7th in xG and 6th in shots per game which is still ok.
That would mean next week Ward Prowse leaves the team for Foden is my current thinking.
Unhelpfully I have 2 bench players who didn’t start in GW3. Saliba looks a long term problem but I could live with that given that you rarely need your third sub. Unfortunately Reed didn’t play vs Villa and wasn’t even in the subs list. I couldn’t find any reasoning as to why but Reed being dropped permanently would be a problem that I don’t really want to use a transfer to solve.
There are a few players with some attacking promise to watch in March at £5.0m or Alzate and Burke at £4.5m or the safer options of £4.5 CDM’s Bissouma or Romeu. For the moment I’m going to leave it and hope it resolves itself. I’m a few gameweeks away from making a decision.
I won’t be doing anything particularly early on the transfer front at the moment but will keep an eye on price change predictions on the FPL statistics
Lineup issues
No real issue. I lost the Soucek v Ward Prowse battle last week by ignoring the bookies but I’ll find it hard to do not have Ward Prowse in against WBA whatever they say.
Otherwise Reed and Saliba make up the bench.
Captain
In the graphic I’ve put it on De Bruyne but I’m still very much up in the air. I’ve not really had much success when I’ve drifted from a few core captains and that’s why I’m a little reluctant to think about Jimenez even if Fulham are looking atrocious. Hopefully I’ll get a captain poll up today which will help my thinking
Here’s the lineup as of now
Pretend Werner is Jimenez
Hope you had a good gameweek but if not remember we’ve only just finished GW3. Use this link on Livefpl and you can see how far away you are from your target rank. It won’t be anything like insurmountable.
Other posts
Analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers
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