Here’s our FPL team tips GW24 article where the 1st group of the FFGeek contributors show their teams for GW24. In this article there’s Ben Wooton, Joseph Crilley, Yaniv Salomon, Rick Porter, Andrew Whitfield and Rob Reid
FPL team tips GW24 – FFGeek contributors show their GW24 teams part 1
Introduction
This is part 1 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 won’t cover transfers in real time either. It’s just to give an idea of the trends for the week no more.
Ben Wooton
Ben’s last 3 seasons overall rank were 61k, 26k and 31k.
GW23 points: 59 (FPL average 44) Total points 1,392 Gameweek rank 1,105k, Overall Rank: 6k, green arrow 5k, Team Value: £104.9m
Transferred on Sunday night due to Salah price rise expectation.
In comes Maupay his easier fixtures for Tammy Abraham who seems to have some tough games. Maupay then becomes an easy fund raiser. Calvert Lewin was the alternative, but this feels more sensible and Maupay is easily benched.
Next out was De Bruyne. ( l don’t have lots of cash tied up). I have really pondered the no 3 Liverpool player this week, plumped Salah as top guy option with pens. Just felt it worth dropping De Bruyne as he has some chance of rest next week and City do have some tougher games.
Whether Salah stays medium term remains to be seen. He could still be capt next week but his away form worried me, in fact Firmino was interesting on that score.
Transfer summary: Salah and Maupay in. De Bruyne and Abraham out
You can see Ben’s GW24 imaginary wildcard article on our Patreon subscription site plus loads of other features outlined at the bottom of this article
Joseph Crilley
Joseph’s last 3 seasons OR were 28k, 7k and 13k
GW23 points: 35 -4 (FPL average 44) Total points 1,364 Gameweek rank 5,650k, Overall Rank: 23k, red arrow 12k, Team Value: £106.7m
A quick write-up given the short turnaround, but I have ultimately decided to go for the Robertson instead of Salah for the Liverpool double gameweek. Given how my first -4 of the season (Ings to Jimenez) went last week, the thought of taking another hit to bring in the Egyptian has become dramatically less appealing. Also, Mahrez would have to be removed when he looks very likely to start away to Sheffield United in midweek and remains in great form, while Salah would upset the balance of my team and reduce my flexibility on future transfers. Therefore, Robertson is in and hopefully the clean sheets keep coming in!
As for captaincy, it is naturally going to Mane, but the decision is whether to use the triple captain on him. The chip is currently activated as I like the certainty of this week as we know that Liverpool have a decent double, are in form and the title is still on the line, while I hope that the rotation will be limited to the weekend’s FA cup. All that adds up to me going for the triple captain – I currently average less than 1 attacking return per season with the chip since its introduction so let’s hope for an improvement!
Transfer Summary: Pereira to Robertson
Follow Joe on twitter here
Yaniv Salomon
Yaniv finished with an overall rank of 4k last season and 8k in 17/18
GW23 points: 47 (FPL average 44) Total points 1,353 Gameweek rank 3,041k, Overall Rank: 38k, green arrow 1k, Team Value: £106.7m
Triple Captain on Salah. I still had 2 free transfers so maybe I will do Holgate for Webster
Rick Porter
Rick’s last 3 seasons overall rank were 1k, 30k and 2k.
GW23 points: 38 (FPL average 44) Total points 1,319 Gameweek rank 5,010k, Overall Rank: 134k, red arrow 33k, Team Value: £106.2m
I’m glad to see the back of that week and very happy that I only have to dwell on it for a day or so before a new one comes along. 6 points below average and a hefty red arrow was my reward for putting out what I thought was a decent team. After I paid the price in GW22 for playing Grealish and benching Ings, I ‘corrected’ my error only for Grealish to bag 10 points and Ings to blank. I can’t catch a break with these two. Having 10 points staring at you from the first spot when you only have 38 points in total is a bit galling. Still, that was the only real decision I got wrong, even the De Bruyne captain choice ended up being a better shout than the popular alternative. Everything just fell badly for me while those who still had hold of Jimenez or had managed to recruit Aguero reaped the rewards.
As much of a slap in the face as GW23 was, I don’t want to complain too much about bad luck. Vardy missing the penalty limited my rank damage no end, that Mane assist being ruled out was also a much-needed gift, and the literal last minute goal from Salah ensured my week was just poor rather than an absolute disaster. That red arrow could have very easily been more than twice the size.
Double Gameweek
So the first double gameweek is here, and it’s a tiddler. Just two teams playing twice. That makes it more difficult in my view. Rather than having several options of players and captains, as you would in a larger double gameweek, almost every manager is going to be focussed on a couple of key players and everyone will captain/triple captain one of them. Mane and Salah will probably be the favourites. If you pick wrong and the other delivers big then there’s very little to dilute your mistake and your rank will reflect that.
Despite the impressive run of recent clean sheets, the Liverpool defenders have a lower point ceiling. That means, in my opinion, owning both Salah and Mane is the best way to limit risk. Having a second Liverpool defender and gaining an extra 12 points for two clean sheets isn’t much comfort when a TC Salah/Mane is getting 15 points per goal, 18 points just for showing up, and you’re getting nothing. Unless these two matches are low-scoring snooze-fests I can see GW24 making or breaking the season for many and it will likely change the layout of many a mini league.
Options
My original plan to bring in Anderson last week was scuppered by the injury news, so I got Noble instead. I don’t expect much from him, but it’s nice to have a solid starting West Ham player for the double as a bonus. As he’s cheaper than Anderson, it’s thrown up some new options for how I get Mane in for GW24 using my two FTs. If I went ahead with Abraham to Greenwood, as planned, then I could upgrade Grealish to Mane rather than losing Martial. Tempting, as he has a good GW24 fixture against Burnley. Alternatively I could continue with the idea that Martial will be making way for my second Liverpool mid and spend the extra money on a forward who’s more secure than Greenwood – such as Calvert-Lewin.
Transfers
I just needed to pick which of the two routes to Mane I wanted to do. There’s no real right or wrong. I get Mane either way and both could reward, punish or not matter in equal measure, so in the end I just based it on who scored the most points in GW23. Grealish scored – he stays. Martial blanked – he goes. Calvert-Lewin scored – he comes in. Greenwood blanked – he doesn’t make the cut. Done. I made the transfers on Sunday night to avoid being priced out of Calvert-Lewin.
Bench
Annoyingly, the inclusion of Noble means I have to bench someone I’d rather not and guess what… it’s between Ings and Grealish. After yelling from the rooftops about how I’ll never bench him again the noises about Ings needing a rest has seen him removed from the pitch. Lundstrum against Man City and Rico with his unpredictable minutes are the two other obvious players heading to the sidelines.
Captain
I’ll be using my Triple Captain chip this week. I can’t imagine there being a better time. The only question is whether to go Mane or Salah. I don’t think there’s a wrong choice here. Both are equally dangerous. Salah will be on pens while Milner is out and I suppose he’s the form choice due to him having 2 goals and an assist in the last three matches, whereas Mane has blanked the last couple. Still, Mane is capable of anything in any given week, so I don’t want to get too bogged down in recent form. He’s also owned by about 13% more managers than Salah at the time of writing – a higher ownership should equate to more captains and a greater risk if you go against him.
Again, I made a silent pact with myself that whoever scored the most in GW23 would get the armband in GW24. There’s little else to go on, so Salah it is.
Captain Summary
Salah TC, vice Mane
Transfer Summary
Martial OUT, Mane IN
Abraham OUT, Calvert-Lewin IN
Andrew Whitfield
Andrew finished with an overall rank of 6k last season and 19k in 17/18
GW23 points: 40 (FPL average 44) Total points 1,307 Gameweek rank 4,620k, Overall Rank: 195k, red arrow 33k, Team Value: £104.4m
Well that was a painful one in the end. 40 points was below the gameweek average of 44 and an unwelcome 33k red arrow . Only three “returners” and a captain blank is always going to be a struggle.
10 pointers from Trent and Grealish were very nice but a Maupay assist is all I had besides. My Leicester trio got me a grand total of 3 points, my captain De Bruyne blanked, Danny Ings finally stopped scoring as expected after I bought him, Mane could have bagged a couple but didn’t, my keeper Guaita held Man City at bay for 82 minutes, and I sold Jimenez who scored 13 points !!! Definitely not my week .
After three successive green arrows had moved me up 108k places from 243k to 135k, it’s now two successive reds, 33k this week, taking me back to 195k. Despite only three returning players, my rank was surprisingly only down about 10k down going into the Liverpool game where I had Trent and Mane, but another clean sheet, VVD, Allison and of course Salah made for an uncomfortable end to the gameweek.
I had two big decisions going into the last gameweek :
Firstly , having made my mind up on the Salah Mane double up from GW24, I had to decide whether to wait and bring Maupay in for Jimenez a week early, or wait until GW24. In the end, I really liked the Maupay fixture at home to a Villa side that looked so bad against Man City and so I made that fund raising move a week early. Maupay scored 4 and Jimenez scored 13. So that decision cost me 9 points.
Secondly, I had thought long and hard all week about which Liverpool triple up route to take. The two full back route would have been so much easier for me personally and my team set up and it involved just two moves and I had two frees available. So having gone Rashford to Ings, I could have gone Guilbert to Robertson. It was such an easy switch. But I took the difficult route which was four moves over two weeks for a -4 to bring in Salah for the Mane Salah double up. I couldn’t bring Salah in until GW24 so I missed his goal, I also missed the Robertson clean sheet as my team was in transition to raise the funds. If I had gone down the defensive double up, I would have got the Robertson clean sheet and I would have kept Jimenez. Having said that, I might have benched Grealish . So all in all, the decision to take the more complicated route to the attacking double up instead of the simpler defensive double up has been a costly short term call. Whether or not that ultimately pays me back we will see. To be honest, I am just glad GW24 is here now and I can sit back and watch Salah and Mane BOTH in my team. Lets face it, they could BOTH have had at least two goals on Sunday, so that bodes well for the Liverpool double gameweek. Attack, attack, attack……
There are cases to be made for any Liverpool three after Sunday, when Salah scored and could have had more, Mane could also have scored twice, Liverpool kept their seventh successive clean sheet, VVD scored, Trent assisted and even Allison assisted too !! Take your pick !! It’s quite painful to see those seven clean sheets when I was on the two full backs for 17 weeks for only 3 clean sheets !! Having come so close, so often and been so so patient and had so much bad luck, it irks me that other people are now reaping the benefits. I could go back to that defensive double up but for now, I just like the higher ceiling that the attacking double up brings. Having said that, if VVD is scoring and Allison assisting, then who knows where the ceiling is !! For me, the deciding factor was that both Mane and Salah are both going to be heavily captained and heavily triple captained too. Yes I can only captain one of them but they only need to return 3-4 goals over the two games ( 9-12 goals tripled ) and non owners could be hit very very hard. So we will see how that plays out !!
So What next:
I had sold Rashford and Jimenez as part of my attacking Liverpool double up plans, bringing in Ings and Maupay. So I am sitting on 4.3M ready for my final two moves this week. It’s a 4.7M upgrade of Maddison to Salah, so I am taking a -4 to facilitate the move with switching Guaita to McCarthy..
I am also going to play my triple captain chip on Mane. If Liverpool get another double gameweek, the title will be won by then. I suspect there will be better double gameweek opportunities including home games. Its not ideal that Liverpool play twice away. Then again they simply win every game anyway. I also think that there are a lot of triple captain chips going to be played this week and I simply want to get on the front foot and attack, rather than wait and fall behind waiting for a better opportunity that may or may not present itself. So triple captain it is !!!!
Transfer summary :
Maddison to Salah , plus Guaita to McCarthy.
Triple captain Mane.
Good luck everyone !!!!
Rob Reid
Rob’s last 5 seasons overall ranks were 148k, 94k, 22k, 4k and 7k
GW23 points: 36 -4 (FPL average 44) Total points 1,304 Gameweek rank 5,485k, Overall Rank: 213k, red arrow 76k, Team Value: £106.1m
GW23 review
It really has gone horribly wrong at Chaos Theory. The last 4 weeks have been an unmitigated disaster – GW ranks of 4.1, 3.0, 5.5 and 5.4 million have seen a slump of 170k places in the overall ranks with this week probably being the most painful of the lot. After a poor GW22, I did some surgery to my squad making 3 transfers and taking a -4 hit in the process, only my second of the season. The result? A net negative 19 point swing – ouch! Buying Danny Ings seems to have switched off his goals and selling Jimenez has activated his – a swing of 11 points on this one move alone. Add to that the now sold Zaha actually producing a return and my pre-Fabianski keeper Gazzaniga pulling out a 14 pointer, this was a gameweek that really, really hurt.
The 3 bright spots were Salah, Trent and Maupay and there was the small consolation that I decided to switch my captaincy off Vardy to De Bruyne at the last minute, but the reality is that this gameweek was an absolute disaster all round and leaves me floundering outside the top 200k for the first time since GW10. Much thought needed as to where my team is going to go from here, but an exciting double gameweek is upon as straight away – hopefully I can turn things around quickly.
GW24 Team
A big week coming up this midweek then with the Liverpool/West Ham double. Luckily I’m fairly well set for this with my triple Liverpool coverage in place from a few weeks ago. One thought I have in retrospect is that has carrying the 2 high value midfielders been integral to my demise of late, but the reality when I look at it is that I still believe this has been a good decision on paper and that it’s been my choices regarding the other players around this that has cost me. For example, carrying Zaha over Grealish, selling Jimmy this week for Ings, going Maupay over Calvert Lewin etc.
Ultimately, it is what it is and I don’t regret going with Mane and Salah, I just hope they can repay my faith over this next week and give my team a much needed shot in the arm. The other factor that comes into play is the Triple Captain Chip and I made up my mind pretty early on this one – that I was going to use it this week. The only question is on who. Mane is the most heavily owned and potentially poses the most threat to overall rank but also as such gives a slightly lower ceiling. Salah has less ownership so could provide a pathway to a significant ranking rise though has struggled for returns on the road this season while there is certainly also a case for Trent who has been in scintillating from of late. Similarly outside my squad, I think there’s a good argument for Bobby Firmino with both fixtures being away from home.
This is a decision that is going to take some soul-searching on my part. My head says Mane, my heart says Salah and my gut says Trent. This’ll be a call I’ll make tomorrow I think, but for the moment the TC is on Salah. For the rest of my team, my plan is to carry my transfer. Both Rico and Kelly are targets for a transfer out, but both have good fixtures. I could switch for someone like Williams who is also in good form, but I’m going to roll the transfer and leave myself some flexibility for next week. There is even a scenario where if this week is another disaster I could play my Wildcard next week so this could be a major turning point one way or the other in my season.
So or my team, I’ve benched Lundstram, Rico and Dendoncker in that order. It’s now about crossing those fingers. going through those lucky pre-gameweek routines and hoping that whichever Liverpool player gets the nod for TC does the business. All the best for this week folks – hope it’s a good one for you!
transfer summary: Carrying over a free transfer
Follow Rob on twitter here
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