Fantasy premier league template – Yaniv Salomon gives his views on the Geeks “template”

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s Yaniv Salomon with his views on the players I have named as being part of a template and to be seriously considered by managers as essential.  Yaniv finished last season with an 8k OR and is currently ranked 12,041 overall

Fantasy premier league template – Yaniv Salomon gives his views on the Geeks “template”

Hi guys, so this article will deal with the question of do we really have to keep all the template players in our team to be top player and to avoid big drops in our rankings?

To define a template (or can we say at all essential?) player I am going back to the Geek’s wonderful weekly article of “Analysing The Teams Of 10 Top FPL Managers” where a template player in owned by at least 70% of the top 10k managers or 7 of the top 10 FPL managers owns a player.



The list of those 10 specific players or a non-specific players in a specific team in a specific position is this:

1. Digne (owned by 8 of the 10 FPL managers)

2. Doherty (Wolves defence represented 12 times in the 10 FPL managers teams)

3. Fabianski (West Ham defence/GK represented 11 times of the 10 FPL managers teams)

4. Liverpool defence (GK/Def represented 7 times of the 10 FPL managers)

5. Hazard (owned by 7 of the 10 FPL managers)

6. Salah (owned by 7 of the 10 managers)

7. Richarlison (owned by 8 of the 10 FPL managers)

8. Pogba (owned by 7 of the 10 FPL managers)

9. Kane (owned by 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams)

10. Wan Bissaka (owned 10 of the 10 top FPL)

As for my team, my OR is 12k and I own only 6 (I count it as 5 and I will explain later why) of the 10 template players.   I think that some of them are must have for me, no matter what happens, and some of them are there, not because they are template, but due to fixtures / form, and some of them just don’t need to be there at all.

I do own Digne, Doherty, Salah, Richarlison, Kane and Allison, and the last one is not really a template as he is owned by only 8% of the top 10k managers and by only 1 of the top 10 FPL managers.  In my view, a Liverpool defence in the template really means only a defender and not defender or a GK.

Digne

Excellent player in an excellent form but only ranked 23rd in PPM (points per match) with 3.9 PPM.  In his price and form you can easily switch to Kolasinac (in my team also) (3.9 PPM) or Pereira (5.1!! PPM).   Everton seems in bad defensive shape but I keep him because his ability to score specially from SPs and he has good assist potential.

Doherty

The surprise of the season and maybe the best value for money in the game this year. He plays almost like a striker.   His stats tell the story, 1st in the FPL threat index and 5th in the creativity index among all defenders.  He already comes with 3 goals and 4 assists, and buying price for most mangers of 4.5 (selling price is 4.9).  He is super essential and a season keeper for me.

Fabianski

Here, I look only about PPM and not about saves that a lot of managers talk about.  That’s because it calculates CS+ saves. In this category, Fabianski, who really plays for one of the worst and slow defences in the league is ranked only 9th from starting GKs.

His price is  not so cheap anymore at £4.8m.  For me in this position it’s always better to pay more (but only little bit more cause you pay for a premium GK 5.5-5.9 and you will get more points in most cases.   You will get way more CS’s for example in City or Liverpool games and you will get a ticket to these CS’s without rotation for a very cheap premium.  So for me Fab is really not essential and I wouldn’t keep him.

Liverpool defence

I do have Allison as I wrote, but don’t have a defender, Liverpool are the best defensive team in the league by far and have some (or maybe 3) players than most of the time are not rotatable, VVD, Robertson and TTA. For his price bracket I think that Trent is the most valuable player, with nice chances in every game for either CS / goal / assist. I do plan to up on their defence very soon.

Hazard

So nothing bad to write on the fantastic Belgian, only that he tends to run hot and cold. He had 74 points in the first 8 games, then he had 9 points in the next 5 games, than he had 50 points in the next 6 games, and I think (maybe) now he starts slowing the shape again with 6 points in the last two games. For me, for this fact I don’t hold him, I really had him for 5 matches (of course in those matches I only got 9 points) and I swapped him to Raheem and then for the most recent games to the fantastic and cheaper Son.

Son for me is one of the best players in the league in a funny price.  The problem was rotation risk but once he got into his amazing form the rotation risk disappeared.   Anyway after the United game I will swap Son due to his trip to the Asian cup. So here again here, for me, Hazard is not essential, it’s more about form and less fixtures, but in this bracket, we need to monitor players carefully.

Richarlison

I have had him from the start of the season (minus the games when he was suspended).   He always look to score and is involved in almost every Everton attack.  Above, I wrote that their defence is not the best one, but their attack has been good most of the season.  Richarlison also ranks very high in most indexes (PPM, threat and value for money), I do like him and I think that he develops from week to week and he will become a world class player, so for me he is essential.

Pogba

Of course he became a template player only after “the special one” had left the building.   I do think that most managers got him after his first or second heroic performances against CAR or HUD (after that came the third one against BOU).   I really thought he couldn’t keep this form and decided to wait after Spurs game to see whether to bring him in.   For now it’s 1 blank and a very tough match away vs Spurs.   I’ll be keeping Rashford for now, who I think  is cheaper price and can bring in the same points as Pogba, if he can keep his starting place over Lukaku.  So he got the form , fixtures and better position on the field plus a decent price.   I don’t know if Pogba is essential for the long term but I will monitor whether to swap Son for him after the next game

Kane and Salah 

I put them together because I have built my team around them.   I think they will be the top 2 in the Golden Boot race.   Salah, even more than Kane, is now in his best form of the season and I think he will return in most games.  He is also becoming a captain favourite now in almost every game. Kane’s desire to score every match and win personal trophies too as well as the desire to be on the field 90 minutes every game makes him essential as well.

Wan Bissaka

Most of the managers hold him from the beginning of the season due to his price tag, but most of the games he is benched.  Palace do get CS’s, they have 8! That’s 4th in the league (a very surprising stat!).  However if you won’t play him, so I would rather get a better fifth defender and change by the fixtures.

I own a very balanced defence (except expensive Alonso who is in real monitor for my team) – Alonso, Digne, Doherty, Shaw and Kolasinac, as they all could play almost every week.  As I wrote I am considering getting TAA soon also. So Wan Bissaka is not essential either in my view.

That’s it for now, no cutting conclusion, but my case shows that you don’t have to go with the template to have a high OR. So, always look around who everybody else holds, and still be active but go with your gut feeling if you wanna go up!

Best wishes for GW22 and beyond.

Yaniv

Here’s Yaniv’s current team (TV 104.7m)



Fantasy premier league template

If you want to see any players underlying stats see our cumulative season article and also our GW21 only underlying stats review

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