fantasy premier league transfer tips GW12 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

Fantasy Premier League, top 10 FPL managers

Here’s our fantasy premier league transfer tips GW12 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 transfer tips GW12 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

Introduction

If the article is too long there’s a combined FPL managers 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. The only repeat manager I’ve found again finished in the top 100 last season

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 a long time to track down 10 managers who’ve been so consistent and I imagine it will get harder and harder

The 10 managers stats

These managers are incredible 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 3,800

2. The top 10 FPL managers have not been out of the top 10k in the last 3 seasons (ie 30 times playing)

3. 3 of the 10 have finished in the top 1,000 in the last 3 seasons

4. 2 of the 10 have finished in the top 100 in the last 3 seasons




Gameweek 11 review

A mixed gameweek for the 10 managers with 6 getting a green arrow but some low scores lead to a big average rank drop.

The average score of the managers in GW11 was 60 after taking points deductions for extra transfers into account. That’s 7 points and 13% better than the game average of 53. High score of the 10 was 77. The low score was 31

The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 718k. That’s worsened by 124k from last week. The best overall rank is 191k and the lowest 1,948k.

The average total points are 599

The average team value is £102.2m.

You can see my score and rank in the early FFGeek team article which I will do today hopefully. You can see my GW11 team selection article here

The combined total of individual players

I’ve generally only included where there is a minimum of a player in 3 out of the 10 FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by player

Pope, Lundstram and Soyuncu are in 8 of the FPL managers teams

Alexander-Arnold and Rico are in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Tomori is in  6 of the 10 managers teams

Button is in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Robertson and Van Dijk are in 3 of the 10 managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by team

Liverpool GK/Defs are represented 13 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

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

Leicester and Sheffield are represented 8 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Bournemouth are represented 7 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Chelsea and Brighton are represented 6 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Midfielders

Sterling is in 10 of the FPL managers teams

Mount and De Bruyne are in 8 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Dendoncker is in 7 of the FPL managers teams

Salah is in 5 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Cantwell, Hayden, Maddison and Hudson Odoi are in 2 of the FPL managers teams

Forwards

Abraham is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Vardy is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Pukki is in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Aubameyang and Connolly are in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Gameweek 11 captain choice

9 of the 10 FPL managers went with Sterling

1 of the 10 FPL managers went with De Bruyne

The FFGeek poll for the GW11 captain choice was 57% Sterling, 1% De Bruyne and 13% Aguero.

FFGeek contributors in the same article were 65% Sterling, 30% De Bruyne 5% Aguero.

Formations

Not done this week sorry

Wildcards and Chips

none of the managers used their wildcard this week. 5 have now used the wildcard in total and none have used a chip.

Transfers

6 of the managers made transfers, 4 carried over a free transfer. 1 manager of the 6 took a 4 point hit.

Transfers in

Vardy was transferred in 4 times

Rico and Tomori were transferred in twice

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

Otamendi was transferred out 5 times

C Wilson was transferred out 3 times

No one else was transferred out more than once

The top 10k overall rank vs the 10 FPL managers

Unfortunately the excellent site FPL discovery isn’t going this season. However the livefpl.net does a version which isn’t as extensive but is still very helpful. Live FPL is a must view though for live FPL ranks and live league ranks and I’d recommend anyone to use it on match days.

Here I compare the most popular players in the top 10k  and of the 10 top managers and show the difference. Remember the make up of the top 10k will change week to week which is why I’ve left this to now. On the first 2 weeks it does look reasonably stable.  A negative means that the top 10k ownership % is higher than the 10 top FPL managers

PlayerTop 10k10 top FPL10 top FPL – top 10k
Button365014
Pope258055
Ryan2610-16
Lundstram658015
Kelly4520-25
Alexander Arnold307040
Robertson28302
Rico307040
Soyuncu238057
Van Dijk22308
De Bruyne76804
Mount618019
Mane4310-33
Sterling5710043
Salah255025
Dendoncker147056
Abraham699021
Vardy7660-16
Aubameyang153015
Pukki155035
Connolly93021

The template

I use the 10 managers as a proxy for serious managers teams and have a basic rule of thumb that if 7 of the 10 managers have a player or a team defence then I will seriously consider getting that player in.

Here’s the template on that basis. The difficulty with tracking the template is that you’re 1 game behind it as you obviously can’t see what their transfers are leading up to the gameweek opening.

1 Liverpool defender – Alexander Arnold

Leicester defender – Soyuncu

Pope

Lundstram

Rico

Sterling

Mount

De Bruyne

Dendoncker

Abraham

Vardy

That above includes Vardy even though he is only owned by 6 at present.  I expect that to increase to the template 7 threshold this week.

That’s 11 players.  With a non playing GK.  That leaves 3 difference makers for your FPL team.  It’s a pretty strong template at the moment even with the divergence of scores.

One managers team

Here’s 2nd placed manager of the 10. His overall rank is 238k on 621 points. His last 3 seasons overall ranks are 1k, 6k and 3k.

fantasy premier league transfer tips GW12

He has 9 of the 11 template players above only missing Rico and Dendoncker who you would think are at the lower end of the risk scale.

His permanent bench players are Woodman and Hayden leaving him with Aubameyang, Cantwell, Tomori and Digne as his difference makers.

The combined 10 top FPL managers teams

Here’s a team which tries to make a combination from the most represented players. Please note that it is meant to be a menu of players to help you choose your transfer rather than a realistic team and it’s value is not necessarily achievable. It’s about £104.7m




fantasy premier league transfer tips GW12

That’s it. Hope you found it useful

More content

Geek note:  If you join our Patreon site you will get access to an FPL contributor tracker team which combines the contributors individual teams each week to show their favourite players, transfers and captains. It will always be completed on a Friday/Saturday in a normal gameweek. There will also be an accompanying spreadsheet so you can drill down further.  Currently 565 points 135k overall rank

You also get:

Weekly podcasts with the Geek and the other contributors

Joe’s interactive transfer planner and points projection tool

FFGeek private leagues

Access to the FFGeek Slack channel for discussion with the contributors and members

NEW Weekly FFGeek contributor imaginary wildcard articles

$2 and $3 tiers per calendar month. No commitment beyond 1 month

FFGeek league codes:

fantasy premier league:  fnqq66

Sky Sports fantasy football:  fantasyfootball.skysports.com/leagues/join with PIN 8426114

Telegraph fantasy football:  passcode 8693.  PIN code 8000919.  The telegraph have also offered a prize of £100 to the winner.

Telegraph fantasy football European Super League:   League PIN: 8186902  League Passcode: 2113

Sun Dream Team:

Classic League PIN:  SGDKX9Y3

H2H PIN:  SGFU3CR9

Social Media

For more fantasy premier league transfer tips GW12  follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

You may also like to read one of these too: