fantasy premier league transfer tips GW30 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW30 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. We also look at what the 10 managers appear to be doing for the doubles and blanks.

fantasy premier league transfer tips GW30 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

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 and I’m delighted to say that one of them is our own FFGeek contributor Keith Spencer. You can find Keith on twitter here by the way Keith’s last 3 years history are 17/18 (3,940), 16/17 ( 325) and 15/16 (9,280).

We’ve also added Paul Williams to the FFGeek team who is also part of the 10 top managers. His history is 17/18 (412), 16/17 ( 1,382) and 15/16 (7,164). See his latest article 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 amount 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 29 review

A bad week for the 10 FPL managers. Only 3 of the 10 had a green arrows.

The average score of the managers in GW29 was 42 taking into account point deductions for extra transfers. That’s 2 points and 5 % higher than the game average of 40. High score of the 10 was 57 -4. The low score was 35. A relatively small spread of 18 even for a low scoring gameweek.

The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 57k, a worsening of rank from last week of 3k. The best overall rank is now around the top 500 and the lowest 269k.

The average total points are 1,754

The average team value is £105.1m

You can see my score and rank in the early FFGeek team article which I’ll do today (Monday).

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 by player

Doherty is in 9 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Wan Bissaka is in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Fabianski is in 6 of the 10 managers teams

Robertson and Alexander Arnold are in 5 of the 10 managers teams

Bednarek and Pereira are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Allison, Shaw, Kolasinac, Button and Hamer are in 3 of the FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by team

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

Wolves GK/Defs are represented 11 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

C Palace, West Ham and Leicester GK/Defs are represented 7 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Brighton and Southampton GK/Defs are represented 4 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Man Utd, Arsenal and Huddersfield GK/Defs are represented 3 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Midfielders

Salah is in 10 of the FPL managers teams

Pogba is in 9 of the FPL managers teams

Son HM is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Anderson is in 5 of the FPL managers teams

Mane is in 4 of the FPL managers teams

Riacharlison, Maddison and Sterling are in 2 of the 10 managers teams

Forwards

Jimenez is in 6 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Aguero, Vardy and Rashford are in 4 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Higuain is in 3 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Rondon, Kamara and Barnes are in 2 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Gameweek 29 captain choice

3 of the 10 FPL managers went with Pogba

2 of the managers each went with Salah and Sterling

1 of the managers each went with Hazard, Higuain and Aguero

No FFGeek poll this week to compare.

Formations

Not done this week sorry.

Wildcards, chips, transfers and hits

1 of the managers has used their 2nd wildcard

2 have used their triple captain chip.

None have used the free hit or bench boost chip.

Transfers in and out

I only summarise the transfers when a player is transferred in more than once.

7 of the 10 managers made a transfer.

Transfers in

Higuain was transferred in by 3 managers

Sterling and Fabianski were transferred in by 2 managers.

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

Aubameyang was transferred out by 5 managers

Son and Patricio were transferred out by 2 managers

No one else was transferred out more than once

Hits

4 managers took a 4 point deduction for an extra transfer.

Blanks and doubles strategy

Obviously it’s impossible to know what’s going on in their minds exactly.

However there are 8 teams that play in the blank weeks of GW31 and GW33.

They are Liverpool, Everton, Chelsea, Bournemouth, Burnley, Huddersfield, Leicester and West Ham.

10 of the 13 transfers were players from those teams.

To me that’s a sign they are following the strategy of preparing for GW31 using free transfers or hits rather than using a chip. Then they are likely to free hit in 32

The top 10k overall rank vs the 10 FPL managers

The schedule shows the players in the top 10k overall rank teams percentage wise vs the 10 top FPL managers I follow.

The top 10k average score was 44 compared to the 10 top managers average of 42.

I use 30% as a rule of thumb as a significant variation between the two player sets.

No player fits that criteria of difference

All the information is provided by the truly fantastic free site FPL discovery.

So the 10 manager template is very similar to the top 10k one.

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 nothing like achievable.

So who’s worth considering as essential?

I define this by either 70% of the top 10k own a player or defensive team or 7 of the 10 top FPL managers own him

Liverpool defence (GK/Def represented 12 times of the 10 FPL managers)

West Ham defence (GK/Def represented 7 times of the 10 FPL managers)

Leicester defence (GK/Def represented 7 times of the 10 FPL managers)

Salah (owned by 10 of the 10 managers)

Pogba (owned by 9 of the 10 FPL managers)

Plus maybes

Wan Bissaka (owned 10 of the 10 top FPL managers but is often a bench player so maybe avoidable)

Jimenez (owned by 79% of the top 10k and 6 of the 10 top managers) – doesn’t fit the seemingly used blanks and doubles strategy so could be eased out soon.

Doherty (owned by 9 of the 10 FPL managers ) – doesn’t fit the seemingly used blanks and doubles strategy so could be eased out soon.

So that’s 5 essentials and 3 maybes. This leaves room for 7 differentials/bench two pointers.

Focus on 1 managers team

This week we look at one of the lower scores.

Here’s his points this week:

He scored 35 which was a poor week comparatively. He lost 3k in OR to 12k.  His team value is £105.9m.  His last 3 seasons are 774, 629 and 6k.

He has all the 5 essentials above of Liverpool defence, West Ham defence,  Salah,  Pogba and Leicester defence. He also has maybes of Doherty and Wan Bissaka but not Jimenez. His bench players are Kamara and Chambers plus the GK bench of Button.

His template replacement player for Jimenez is Vardy.  His 4 remaining differentials are Almiron, Son, Mane, Aguero.  The 4 of them blanked.  Even if you cover the template as he did pretty well if all 4 differentials blank then you’re going to see a red arrow.

He has 7 players who are guaranteed fixtures in GW31 meaning he can have 9 starters for that gameweek.

Hope you found the above useful

Follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

Geek League links and details

fantasy premier league 

Sky Sports fantasy football

Enter PIN: 8367679

Sun Dream Team

League PIN is SGDKX9Y3