fantasy premier league transfer tips GW31 – analysing the teams of 10 top FPL managers

Here’s our fantasy premier league team tips GW31 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 GW31 – 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 30 review

A mixed week for the 10 FPL managers. 5 of the 10 had a green arrows.

The average score of the managers in GW30 was 52 taking into account point deductions for extra transfers. That’s 4 points and 8 % higher than the game average of 48. High score of the 10 was 74. The low score was 26. A very big spread of 48 for quite a low scoring gameweek.

The average overall rank of the top 10 FPL managers is 52k, a improvement of rank from last week of 5k. The best overall rank is now around the top 500 and the lowest 182k.

The average total points are 1,807

The average team value is £104.6m

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

Wan Bissaka and Alexander Arnold are in 7 of the 10 FPL managers teams

Fabianski and Doherty are in 6 of the 10 managers teams

Robertson is in 5 of the 10 managers teams

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

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

Digne, Kolasinac, Clyne and Chilwell are in 2 of the FPL managers teams

Goalkeeper/Defence by team

Liverpool GK/Defs are represented 15 times in the 10 FPL managers teams

Wolves GK/Defs are represented 8 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, Bournemouth 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 7 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

Hazard is in 3 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 30 captain choice

5 of the 10 FPL managers went with Salah

4 of the managers each went with Aguero

1 of the managers went with Sterling

The FFGeek poll was 42% Aguero, 39% Salah and 9% Sterling.  The site 1 poll was 29% Aguero, 27% Salah and 10% Sterling.  The top 10k was Salah 44%, Aguero 38% and Sterling 9%

Formations

5 managers played 3-4-3

4 managers played 3-5-2

1 manager played 4-4-2

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.

8 of the 10 managers made a transfer.

Transfers in

Hazard, Alexander Arnold and Clyne was transferred in by 2 managers

No one else was transferred in more than once

Transfers out

Doherty was transferred out by 3 managers

Pogba transferred out by 2 managers

No one else was transferred out more than once

Hits

No manager took a 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.

7 of the 8 transfers were players from those teams.

To me that’s a sign that most 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 52 compared to the 10 top managers average of 52.

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 template?

I’m changing the wording to template from essential as essential seems to have emotive connotations for some managers.  Defining the template allows you to assess players that you could consider owning in order to mitigate downward rank movement risk.

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 15 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)

Plus maybes

Pogba (owned by 7 of the 10 FPL managers) – doesn’t fit the seemingly used blanks and doubles strategy so could be eased out soon.

Wan Bissaka (owned 7 of the 10 top FPL managers but is often a bench player on our FPL teams so maybe avoidable)

Jimenez (owned by 71% 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.

Wolves defence (owned by 8 of the 10 FPL managers ) – doesn’t fit the seemingly used blanks and doubles strategy so could be eased out soon.

So that’s 4 template and 4 maybes. This leaves room for 7 differentials/bench two pointers.

Focus on 1 managers team

This week we look at the highest scorer this week.

Here’s his points:

He scored 74 which was a great score with a 362k gameweek rank. He has been struggling and this week he went from 269k to 182k. His team value is £103.0m. His last 3 seasons are 5k, 2k and 4k.

He has 7 of the above 8 template players of Liverpool defence, West Ham defence, Salah, Pogba,  Leicester defence and Wan Bissaka.

His template replacement player for Jimenez is Barnes.

His bench player is Llorente.

His 6 remaining differentials are Bennett (double Wolves defence) Ryan, Brooks, Mane, Sterling and Vardy.  His differentials were incredible with 3 double figure scores.

He has 7 players who are guaranteed fixtures in GW31 meaning he can have 8 starters for that gameweek before points deductions.

Hope you found the above useful

See also the underlying stats for GW29 alone and the form tables

See the early FFGeek team article and the 10 top FPL managers we follow

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

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