Here’s our fantasy premier league tips 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 tips – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers GW5
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). See his GW3 team 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 anount 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 4 review
A tough week for the 10 FPL managers. 9 of the 10 had a red arrow
The average score of the managers in GW4 was 46 compared to the game average of 44. That’s 2 pointS and 5% above the game average score. High score of the 10 was 58. The low score was 39. A spread of 19 for a relatively low scoring gameweek.
Although meaningless at this stage. The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 210k. A worsening of rank of 37k from last week. The best overall rank is 35k and the lowest 1,062k.
The average total points are 268
The average team value is still £101.6m
My score as you may have seen in my early FFGeek team thoughts article was 56. That was higher than all but 1 of the managers and my total points of 284 and OR of 40k is better than 9 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
Mendy is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Wan-Bissaka is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Robertson is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Alonso, Foster, Fabianski, and Peltier are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Coleman is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Goalkeeper/Defence by team
Man City 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
Liverpool GK/Defs are represented 9 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
Chelsea, Watford and Bournemouth GK/Defs are represented 5 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
West Ham and Cardiff, GK/Defs are represented 4 times in the 10 FPL managers teams
Midfielders
Salah is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Mane and Mkhitaryan are in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Bernardo Silva, Walcott and Richarlison are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Fraser is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Stephens, Hazard and Jota are in 2 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Forwards
Aguero is in 10 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Zaha is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Kamara is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams
Gameweek 4 captain choice
9 of the 10 FPL managers went with Aguero.
1 of the 10 managers went with Salah
The FFGeek poll was 82% Aguero and 8% Salah.
The Site 1 poll in my GW4 captain choice article was 64% Aguero and 12% Salah
Formations
Sorry didn’t get to this in time this week
Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits
No one used any of their chips this week including the wildcard
Transfers in and out
1 of the 10 managers carried over their free transfer to GW5. I only summarise the transfers when a player is transferred in more than once.
Transfers in
Walcott was transferred in by 4 managers
No one else was transferred in more than once
Transfers out
Richarlison was transferred out by 5 managers
No one else was transferred out more than once
The top 10k overall rank vs the 10 FPL managers
I won’t be doing this until GW8 when it will have hopefully settled down. The weeks before hand could see too much rank volatility.
The highest ranked manager
This is his team:
This week the Richarlison out Walcott in transfer. His OR is 35k
The combined FPL managers teams
I imagine some of the FPL managers could be wildcarding which may change this below.
Here’s a team which tries to make a combination from the most represented players. It fits within the £101.4m budget of my team. I will use this team as a guide for the template team which is part of the FFGeek alternate strategy teams. The base team is my FFGeek team
So who’s essential?
Anyone or any defensive team that is owned by 7/10 of these managers 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.
That would mean:
A Palace defender (any Wan Bissaka or Van Aanholt), a Liverpool defender (probably Robertson) and a Man City defender (Mendy)
Salah and Aguero (both owned by the 10 managers)
I would think that by next week Alonso could fit into this category.
See also our underlying stats GW4 article, the early thoughts on the FFGeek team article and the fixture ease article
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