Here’s our FPL team tips GW2 article where the 3rd group of the FFGeek contributors show their teams for GW2. In this part there’s Joseph Crilley, Alex Ball, Rob Reid, Mikael Hietala and Jordan Sadler.
FPL team tips GW2 – FFgeek contributors show their GW2 teams part 3
Here’s part 3 of the FPL managers who contribute to the FFGeek site with good histories who show their teams each week. This will give people a feel for what other managers are doing. It’s a fairly informal thing with no obligation on anyone and these teams may change at anytime before the deadline without further notice. It also wont cover early transfers. It’s just to give an idea of the trends for the week no more.
You can see Part 1 of the contributor articles here and part 2 of the contributor articles here
See also top 1k finisher in FPL, TFF and Sky Andrew Ferguson with his GW2 plans
Note: These contributions were written before the Guardian story that Pep is thinking of dropping Aguero for the GW2 match
Joseph Crilley
Joseph finished with an overall rank of 7k last season and 13k in 16/17
GW1 points: 76 (average 53) Total points 76, Gameweek rank 368k, Overall Rank: 368k, no arrow obviously, Team Value: £100.4m
GW1 Summary
It was a solid opening gameweek for my team with some positives, but it was tainted with frustration due to a rather late change I made. After Pep’s press conference where he announced that KDB was looking fully fit and I couldn’t resist bringing the Belgian into my team. This meant that Mané and Bernardo Silva were unable to stay in my team which meant I missed out on their points unfortunately.
Nonetheless, double figure hauls from my back three of Shaw, Mendy and Robertson along with Richarlison were very pleasing while there was the usual goal from captain Salah. The main worry was the lack of returns from the strikers and the Lucas Moura punt isn’t looking so good at the moment, but I’m hoping the good fixtures this week will help them to rebound.
GW2 Team
I was aware when choosing KDB over Mané that it could hurt me in the first gameweek, but I thought with City’s upcoming fixtures that it would pay off in the long term. Unfortunately, the injury that De Bruyne picked up in training has rather put me on the back foot now as I have been forced into a transfer. I had previously planned on rolling the transfer, but I have little choice in the matter now.
There are two obvious moves to make; a straight swap to either Mané or Bernardo Silva who are both players that I regret not already owning. I have elected to bring in the City man as I would like to triple up for their Huddersfield fixture and it gives me plenty of cash in the bank to upgrade Lucas Moura next week while assessing premium assets this week including Mané, Hazard and Eriksen.
Captaincy is surprisingly tricky this gameweek as I have the same dilemma as many other managers with Aguero and Salah in my side. I am currently on Aguero as I think that Pep will start him and that a trip to Palace is a tricky fixture for Liverpool. Hopefully the Argentine can bring home plenty of points!
Best of luck to everyone this weekend and may your arrows be green!
Alex Ball
Alex finished in 17k last season 10k in 16/17 28k in 15/16 and 3k in 14/15
GW1 points: 87 (average 53) Total points 87, Gameweek rank 108k, Overall Rank: 108k, no arrow obviously, Team Value: £100.4m
Well that was a great way to start the season! 87 points and just outside top 100k. More pleasing was that even my raft of £4mil players started meaning hopefully I’ve managed to get a full squad for the first 4/5weeks if the season. Fingers crossed on that! No problems in the team that need to be solved this week. Mahrez’s minutes need to be monitored and King’s position is a little deeper and wider than I’d like but another weeks info will be useful.
On to this week and the team picks itself except for the last defender position which will go to Peltier. I know Cardiff are tipped by a lot to go down but they should be tight at home and my other defenders are are both from palace who are up against Liverpool so they’ll be bench. Captain is a three way shootout between Mane, Salah and Agüero. Good luck everyone.
Rob Reid
Rob finished with a rank of 94k last season 22k in 16/17 4k in 15/16 and 7k in 14/15.
GW1 points: 80 (average 53) Total points 80, Gameweek rank 243k, Overall Rank: 243k, no arrow obviously, Team Value: £100.4m
Gameweek 1 review
Overall a pleasing start. If you’d offered me 80 points and a rank inside 250k for GW1 I’d have certainly taken it, it’s one of my best starts in years. Perhaps I’m being over-critical in that I’m slightly kicking myself that I could have done better – selecting King instead of Fraser from Bournemouth, not going for Zaha or Robertson, blanks from all 3 strikers and leaving Wan-Bissaka’s 12 pointer on the bench. But hey, I’m not going to complain too much. 6/11 starters returned; 4 of them got double figures – I’d be happy with that every week.
It was also nice to see such a strong start from the other FFG contributors – looks like it’s going to be a really competitive league this season and I’m already thinking the target of a top half finish in this league is going to be a very tough ask. Great work folks!
Gameweek 2
Onto Gameweek 2 then. I’ve got Gunnarsson injured but I’m not wasting a transfer on someone who is bench fodder anyway so there will be no changes to my squad this week. A couple of decisions to be made – I’ve got to pick one of Boly (lei), Peltier (NEW) and Wan-Bissaka (LIV) in defence. At the moment, despite their awful defensive display last week I’m favouring Peltier’s home fixture against Newcastle. The big decision though is the armband. It’s Aguero or Salah for me, though I did consider Mendy as well. With no KDB, I think it would be a huge surprise if Aguero doesn’t start. He’s got the easier fixture, but Salah is certainly the Shield pick in terms of ownership and gametime security. I’m on Aguero at the moment, but if Pep’s Presser gives any clues this may change (who am I kidding – Pep will give nothing away!)
Looking further forward, I’ll be carrying 2 transfers into GW3 and one or both of my Wolves players are likely to go. I wasn’t impressed with their defence in GW1 and Jota looked a little off the pace, his assist coming from being brought down for the Neves free-kick rather than an outstanding piece of creativity. I’m also keeping an eye on King. Wilson and Fraser were the standout players for The Cherries last weekend, King got sucked out wide a lot and when he did find himself well placed he didn’t get the ball.
Some big 50/50 calls already then, I think there could be a wide spread of scores in what looks like quite a tough week. Good luck whoever you go for, fingers crossed for green arrows on Monday night.
Mikael Hietala
Mikael finished with an OR of 22k last season
GW1 points: 64 (average 53) Total points 64, Gameweek rank 1,058k, Overall Rank: 1,058k, no arrow obviously, Team Value: £100.1m
I know, right! I was unsure whether there was too much hype around Mendy, he didn’t play particularly well in Russia, but I have no excuse for Robertson, damn! Luckily doubling up on Aubameyang and Aguero will bring lots of points this week.
Even though I really want to be an aggressive manager this week, I think it is better to let the dust settle. I carry over my transfer to GW3 so I can restructure to include Mendy or Robertson (or maybe both depending on how Auba plays). I’m a bit on the fence about my captain, and will have a look through the polls before I decide tomorrow morning. I think everyone can guess who the two choices are.
Jordan Sadler
Jordan finished with an OR of 76k last season
GW1 points: 96 (average 53) Total points 96, Gameweek rank 28k, Overall Rank: 28k, no arrow obviously, Team Value: £100.5m
I couldn’t have asked for a much better start with 8 players returning and a great score of 96. I started very poorly last year which meant I had to claw my rank up all year, I’m hoping this year I can start high and stay high! There were only 2 negatives really for me last week. Even though Jota returned, watching him against Everton didn’t fill me with much confidence. He looked out his depth and if he doesn’t perform well against Leicester I think he’ll be first on the chopping board. The other negative for me was King not returning and putting in such poor underlying stats after such a positive preseason.
I will be rolling over my transfer this week. I’m expecting after the weekend I’ll be switching out King and Jota for Jimenez and Ramsey. Jimenez looked excellent against Everton and looks far better value at £5.5m than Jota at £6.5m and Ramsey’s fixtures coming up are excellent.
Captain wise I’m still unsure but right now I have it on Mendy as I feel it is the most safe pick. I can’t see Huddersfield scoring and I do think there is a risk of Jesus playing over Aguero and a potential 2 point captain haul is not something I’m interested in! I know Van Aanholt doesn’t have Salah in his fantasy team so I’m sure he’ll be doing everything in his power to nullify Salah so I won’t be putting Salah this week. It’s between Mendy and B Silva for me, might just flip a coin.
Good luck for GW2.
FFGeek contributors league
Here’s the contributors league as it stands at the moment
See also 1k finisher in FPL, SKY and TFF plus 15k in Dream Team Andrew Fergusons GW2 article
Follow us on twitter and facebook for article updates and news
Geek League links and details
Enter PIN: 8367679
League PIN is SGDKX9Y3
Telegraph free to enter £100 prize League PIN 8000919 Passcode 0417
Telegraph £2 cash league League PIN 8161359 Passcode 0050
