FPL Season analysis – an interview with FFGeek Contributor Yaniv Salomon

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s an FPL season analysis article in interview form with FFGeek Contributor Yaniv Salomon who finished last season with an overall rank of 3k.  His 2 previous seasons overall ranks were 4k and 8k.   

FPL Season analysis – an interview with FFGeek Contributor Yaniv Salomon

I outline my FPL strategy along with 10 other FFGeek contributors in our new EBook.

Join the FFGeek FPL Patreon site

* access to the FFGeek Contributor tracker team incl live transfers (52k OR)

* Weekly podcasts

* Joe’s interactive transfer planner & team incl live transfers (32k OR)

* imaginary wildcard articles

* Slack channel access

$2 & $3 tiers.

No commitment beyond 1 calendar month 

https://www.patreon.com/fantasyfootballgeek




Congratulations Yaniv on your finish of 3k overall rank to add to your last 2 seasons of 4k and 8k. Next season you will be one of our 10 top FPL managers I follow who’ve finished the last 3 seasons in the top 10k. You must be very pleased?

Follow Yaniv on twitter here

Thank you, Geek, for the warm words, I must say that my main goal in beginning of the season was to finish in the top 10k for the third consecutive season.  In the end it did happen so generally I am pleased.   However,  I was already ranked inside the top 600 before the league returned from the Covid19 suspension.   Some different moves could have put me in a different place,  maybe top 100?, who knows? But I will try to look on the glass half full.

What was your overall strategy for playing the game this season.

My overall strategy is go with form and try to get the in form players as soon as possible. This was different to last season for example when I missed the good run of Pogba.  That is the main reason my team value was around £107m very early in the season.   Some examples of implementing this strategy were De Bruyne in GW3, Soyuncu in GW7, Grealish in GW18 and Calvert Lewin in GW20. I can say that I did watched more than 100 games this season so the eye test was very important for me.

What was your favourite gameweek and your nightmare gameweek

My favorite one is for no doubt GW29 before the break when I scored 103, more than double m the average score and gameweek rank of 725 which was my best ever gameweek. The last game before the break when Leicester won Villa 4-0  was especially satisfying as I received 36 points from their 3 players with a stunning 19 from Barnes who was less than 2% ownership.   I still have this feeling that if the league had not stopped and there had been no unlimited transfers I would have finished inside the top 500 at least.

I guess my nightmare gameweek was in GW34 when my GW rank was 4.3m. I scored 55 points with was only 4 above the average.   I had double Wolves defense who lost their clean sheet in the 96th minute vs Sheffield plus having Mane vs Salah cost me 18 points!!! Salah scored 18 points vs a 29 minute cameo from Mane who even got a yellow card.

What do you think you did well and what do you think you did not so well this season?

I guess the best thing I did this season was to get De Bruyne very early after I talked about him in the preseason that he can comeback in a 200+ points season , I even underestimated his quality, I can see him getting even better next season plus add to it penalty kick duties.  Another good decision was Trent Alexander Arnold who I had all season except for GW38+ where he wasn’t in my Free Hit team

The worst thing is very easy, After the project restart choosing De Gea over Pope.   This caused me 2 problems.   The first was the extra points lost of Pope over De Gea.  The second and the worst consequence is that the extra value tied up in De Gea, prevented me of having 3 attacking Man United players who just exploded during the last part of the season.  Not having Martial was a nightmare for me.




Who was your favourite player this season and your least favourite this season

My favorite player of the season from fantasy perspective and generally was Alexander Arnold who is just a world class player.  My least favorite player was De Gea due to the reason I mentioned in the previous question.

You used your first wildcard in GW20 which was about as late as possible. That’s very late compared to a lot of managers? What was the reasoning?

Most of the managers planned and eventually used it during the international break (I think after 4 and 8 GW’s).   I can say that after GW4 my OR was a disastrous 2m!.  That shows to keep believing in your way of playing FPL even if you have a bad start.  However, I had a feeling that this squad was a bit unlucky and I subsequently got 9 green arrows out of the next 10 gameweekss. I guess you need to use an early WC when your team is out of form or when you want to make at least 4 FT’s.  Playing it late was a good call.

You were very efficient with your bench with only 2 Contributors having less points. Do you concentrate on players with secure gametime in your starting 11 or a low value bench?

I guess it is a mix of both.  I try to have secure starters which gives me the option the have a lower bench value.

You were well above average of the Contributors on total captain score. How do you pick your captains? Your most successful captain was Salah by far yet you only used him 6 times and Sterling 8 times with a much lower average?

It is funny, I always remember the weeks when my captain picks don’t succeed.   An interesting point is that my Vice Captain would have got me 36 more points if I reversed my picks,  554 points vs 518 points. I don’t remember who said it from the Contributors but don’t pick your captain if he plays in the early kick off game 😊.   I had exceptional bad luck with it.   I guess try to pick a captain from one of the top 2 teams.  I picked a Captain in 29 out of 36 games from Man City or Liverpool.  I’ve taken out both matches they played each other for this stat.

Only 1 contributors team scored more goals than your team. Do you emphasise goalscorers in your team rather than assist based players or is it the overall player you look at?

Except for De Bruyne, I do prefer goalscorers rather than assist based players in my team.

Your most successful player with over 10 starts in your team was Salah and in fact in points per match terms no Contributor used him more successfully. Yet you only had him in your team for 12 gameweeks compared to Mane for 32 weeks at a much lower PPM? What have you got against Mo?

I prepared well for this question! Believe it or not one of the main reasons of my good season was bringing in Mane for Salah in GW3 after a bad start of the season.   I had 26 games when Mane was in my team and Salah was not, in those games Mane outscored Salah by 175 points to 139 points. It also gave my a team value a boost and it saved the extra £1m which I invested to get extra points in different places around my team. I do think Salah is very dangerous, and for the upcoming season when they will start in the same price I think I will start with Mo as he will be the template one out of both.

Who will be the first few players on your team sheet in GW1. Lets assume no staggered starts by teams

For me it is really Trent Alexander Arnold plus 14, as I just love the attacking style of this amazing youngster with one of the best right feet in world football. I guess his number of goals from direct free kicks will just climb, plus don’t forget they lost some clean sheets in the beginning of the season due to the Allison injury. After getting tonight some price reveals I am going to build my team with De Bruyne who I guess has a good chance of being the top points scorer 19/20 and 20/21 season

Also Salah (yes Geek and as I have written above), Van Dijk/Robertson.  Yes I will start again with Liverpool double up in defence I think.  I maybe will take a punt on Werner with a decent price of 9.5m – after scoring almost 30 goals in the Bundesliga last season.

Thank you, Geek, for all your help, this amazing platform has helped me so much during the previous seasons and designed the way I play. I hope I can keep the good form next season to finish again in the top 10k for the 4th consecutive season.  A 3rd time in a row a top 5k will be amazing, and maybe finishing inside the top 1k for the first time? it will not be easy with so many good players in this amazing community .

I hope you found this interview interesting.

Good luck all, can’t wait for the start of the season, stay safe all! May your arrows be green when the season starts!

Thanks very much Yaniv that was an enjoyable and inciteful interview.  Stay Safe and enjoy the break.

Follow Yaniv on twitter here

Here’s Yaniv’s ANEWPLA report

 

Other posts

The FFGeek season review

Andrew Whitfield season review

Costas Chari end of season review

A deep dive on the FFGeek Contributors

Final wrap up of the 10 top FPL managers

Rob Reid’s season review

Rob Reids overview of the Promoted Teams

Player Rankings Defenders

Player Rankings Midfielders

Player Rankings forwards

The Underlying Stats team of the season

For more  FPL season analysis articles follow  FFGeek on   twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

You may also like to read one of these too: