FPL teams GW11 – 4 FFGeek Contributors teams part 1

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s an early article where 4  FFGeek Contributors show their FPL teams GW11.  There’s Rick Porter, Kev in Canada, Andrew Whitfield and Kris O

FPL teams GW11 – 4 FFGeek Contributors teams part 1

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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.  The teams are shown as their “final-ish” teams so they could change.  Where they have twitter accounts I have shown this and they may update them there or on our Slack Channel which is part of our subscription Patreon site but this is not guaranteed

Rick Porter

Rick’s last 4 seasons overall ranks were 29k, 1k, 30k and 2k. 

GW10 points: 67 (FPL average 44) Total points: 627, Overall Rank: 122k, green arrow:  138k Team Value: £103.1m

Rick has used his wildcard

After a week of struggling to pick between bringing in Salah or De Bruyne for the ruled out Zaha, my decision to bring in the Man City mid and hand him the armband was ultimately the correct one – short-term, at least. De Bruyne looked very dangerous and could have easily scored more. Though, at the time, his success only really took the edge off my nerves. The Monday night matches were still looming and the most popular captain pick of the week was still to play… and I didn’t own him.

No amount of ‘you can’t have everyone’ provided comfort. The long wait to find out exactly how much damage Vardy was going to cause my rank was akin to torture. His 29% ownership was seemingly made up of 100% of Twitter, all my main mini-league competitors and everyone else I’ve ever known or spoken to. In the end he got an assist. By the time my Grealish points had rolled in the Vardy damage was pretty minimal and I kept hold of the healthy green arrow I was so worried about losing.

Transfer

I want to do nothing this week. Despite having a non-playing Mitchell cluttering up my bench and more than a little regret about owning an apparently very overpriced Van Aanholt, it’s sensible to sit tight and use two FTs next week to get Salah back into the team in GW12.

However, with Friday’s match now confirmed as postponed, my initial thought is to bench Grealish for Dallas and use my FT to swap Steer to McCarthy.

This gives me a keeper with a good fixture for this week, means I have two playing keepers for the future (which helps protect me from this situation happening again), and it also lowers my Villa count to 2 so I can easily bring in someone more useful when they play twice.

It makes getting Salah for GW12 without a hit impossible though, so I’ll wait as long as I can to see if we get news on whether the rescheduled match could still be played later in GW11 or not.

Captain will be De Bruyne, Bruno vice.

transfer summary:  Possibly Steer out McCarthy in

Here’s the team prior to any transfer taking place




fpl teams GW11

Kev in Canada

Kev finished 48k last season 6k in 18/19 and 195k in 17/18

GW10 points: 69 (FPL average 44) Total points: 581, Overall Rank: 764k, green arrow:  580k Team Value: £101.5m

Kev hasn’t used any of his chips

Follow Kev on twitter here

GW11  

My plan was to downgrade a forward to be able to upgrade Soucek to Jota. I wrote my article and sent it to Geek Monday night.

Now that the Villa/Newcastle game has been moved indefinitely I have changed my plan….

New plan:

Grealish to Jota: DONE

Calvert Lewin to Jesus: 70%. I am not sure it’s worth it for the -4, or while Calvert Lewin also has a good enough fixture but it is a great entry point for Jesus.

I will now explain why I went Grealish out for those that think it is blasphemous:

1. I didn’t buy him at 7.0M or near there. My sell price is 7.5m. I would expect him to sell off to 7.6M this week. I am OK losing 0.1 or 0.2 if need be (It is worth noting that I would not sell him if I had him at 7.0M).
2. The next fixture is Wolves away. Wolves have been a bit out of form lately but they are a pretty sound defensive team so I don’t see me getting him back next week unless they end up having a DGW.
3. I still have my wild card and could get him back in easier than others. I wanted to exploit that to have one extra good attacker in right now, as opposed to Grealish sitting on the bench this week. I think most managers will bench him.
4. My other path to Jota was upgrading Soucek and downgrading a forward for a hit. I think this gives me more flexibility and leaves me 4 points better off for now.

Captain is on Kevin De Bruyne and Vice is on Bruno Miguel Borges Fernandes.

Transfer summary:  Grealish out Jota in

Here’s the team with that transfer done:




fpl teams GW11

Andrew Whitfield

Andrew finished with an overall rank of 132k last season and 6k in 18/19 and 19k in 17/18

GW10 points: 62 (FPL average 44) Total points: 580, Overall Rank: 783k, green arrow:  580k Team Value: £101.8m

Andrew has used his wildcard

Follow Andrew on twitter here

– Well another drama filled week with VAR again taking centre stage, with late penalties awarded and disallowed goals. Man City kick started their favourable fixtures with an ominous 5-0 win and super sub Cavani is the new Man Utd hero. Kane and Son blanked at last, with Fernandes and De Bruyne winning the captain points battle against Vardy and Salah.

– Our thoughts also go out to Raul Jimenez after his horrific injury. I am sure you will all join me in wishing him well in his recovery.

My GW10 review:

– 62 points, with six “returners”, four of them in double figures, and a “captain return” so a pleasing week. De Bruyne, Fernandes, Vardy and Grealish all got me 10 points, Chilwell kept Spurs at bay, and my one transfer of the week, Kilman to Dias brought a clean sheet too. My big decision all week was Cancelo or Dias and I opted for greater gametime security over attacking threat, which proved the right call this week at least, although I still expect some rotation for both.

– KDB drifted deep at times but still managed two assists and almost added a goal too. Bruno is just so reliable now and an FPL points machine. The fact I captained Vardy over KDB and Bruno wasn’t damaging as Vardy at least got a late assist and the fact I owned all three meant I at least covered their returns and brought in 30 points across the three players.

– Patrick Bamford continues to pepper the opponents goal and can consider himself unlucky again. He has an incredible 29 goal attempts in the last six games. His nearest striking rival has 15 !! I definitely won’t be selling with some great fixtures soon. Blanks for Martinez, Justin, Calvert Lewin and Ziyech, but DCL can be excused a rare blank and Ziyech was playing the “Mourinho bus”.

– I do feel like I got lucky with a few big bullets dodged from players I don’t own. It always helps when the players you DONT own miss out. Salah and Mane were both denied by VAR, Van Aanholt and Robertson both had big points ripped away right at the end, Watkins missed a penalty and was denied a goal with an “armpit offside and ended up scoring zero“. So fortune in my favour this week definitely. And of course Kane and Son blanking helped too !!

My overall rank:

– A 4th successive green arrow is good progress, up from 1.8M four weeks ago. A 364k green this week, up from 1.1M to 783k. So everything moving in the right direction. I am feeling positive, I am happy with my team, following my recent GW9 wildcard, I have momentum, and I have a clear plan developing over the next couple of weeks. So all good.

What next:

– I have 0.5M in the bank and one free transfer.

– Going into GW11, it was my plan to now roll the transfer, as I really want two transfers the week after as part of my plans to bring in Salah in GW12 when he plays Fulham. I can’t get to him in one move. So if I make a transfer this week, that means I am looking at a -4 hit already next week, and it doesn’t take much to happen ( look at this weeks events !! ) for that to become -8 or miss out on Salah altogether. So I really want to roll this week !!

A giant Covid curveball:

– But we have now suddenly been thrown an unexpected curveball with the postponement of Fridays Aston Villa v Newcastle game, which has sent ripples of shock and panic through FPL managers.

– If ever lessons are being learned about NOT making early transfers, then this season is it. Forget beating price changes. If you miss out on a player, then it wasn’t meant to be. There will be other players instead. Leave transfers until Fridays. It’s just not worth it this season when Covid cases emerge every day. How many people are now in trouble having already brought in Callum Wilson !! It’s really not worth the risk this season.

So what does the Villa v Newcastle postponement mean for my team ?

– I have no Newcastle players. But I own Villa keeper, Martinez and fellow Villain, Jack Grealish !! It’s far from ideal as it was a great fixture for Villa. Martinez is the most owned keeper in FPL. I also have a non playing bench keeper too like many others do !!

– It’s important not to panic. My advice is to do absolutely nothing until Friday at least. The GW11 deadline has now been pushed back to 11am Saturday. There is always a chance the game gets moved to next midweek and still gets played within GW11 !!

– Aston Villa are already one game behind. This now means they will get TWO double ganeweeks !! Do you really want to sell Villa players when they have two extra games now. What if the Newcastle game is played next midweek, but announced after the Saturday deadline, and so forms part of a double gameweek for Villa next week ?? I am not selling my Aston Villa players.

– Grealish is a key player in my plans. So I will simply bench him for one week. I have no desire to use two precious transfers to move him out and then back in. Not when he has two double gameweeks now.

– I could look to replace Martinez with another keeper. But he has good fixtures and having a keeper in two double gameweeks is gold. I have a convenient 0.5M ( maybe it’s fate ) that could be used to upgrade my bench keeper to a playing 4.5M keeper. That would get me a keeper this week and provide cover for a repeat occurrence as well as rotating keeper flexibility to cover fixtures so I haven’t ruled upgrading my second keeper. Two keepers drain your budget and I don’t like rotating keepers. It might help though with a bench boost in a likely January double gameweek we are expecting for multiple teams.

– That 0.5M in my bank was also there as part of my plans to get Salah in GW12. So I am currently thinking that I might go into GW11 with ten outfield players and no keeper. It preserves my 0.5M, it gives me two precious transfers next week and it avoids points hits and keeps my plans on track. Remember that many teams will be struggling to put 11 players out this week, so missing a keeper is no different to others failing to get 10 outfield players on the pitch. And look at all those points hits this week. Not taking a -4 is a big advantage on many of your rivals too !!!!

So back to my plans before the postponement:

– Before the postponement blew up, my plans were all geared around getting my three premiums right and that’s what i still want to do.

– You can’t fit a quart into a pint pot is the saying. There are so many premium options right now and realistically it means you can probably have only three of them. So which three and do you include a premium striker or go for three big hitters in midfield. That’s the burning question right now.

– I brought in Bruno Fernandes in GW9 on my wildcard as a likely one week or two week cover until Salah came back from his Covid situation. The plan was to probably move him out in GW12 when United play City. Bruno is now looking undroppable. He seems to be playing a more attacking role, creating chances and shooting more and has busted his “penalty only” stigma. His underlying stats are impressive and I definitely want to keep him.

– Kevin De Bruyne (“KDB”) served notice with his two assists of what damage he could do in this favourable Man City fixture run. He also hit the post late on too. I can’t contemplate going without at least one City attacker in this run, with Fulham, westbrom and Newcastle all due at the Etihad after City’s 5-0 hammering of Burnley.

Hiding from Harry and Mo:

– I think Saturday was the first time I can remember watching a Liverpool game and not owning a Liverpool player – and I hated it !!!! Salah was a “season keeper “ before his Covid break. He is just so dangerous and I love to watch him play. With Fulham at home in GW12, I definitely want him back then, if not before.

– Which means I will be hiding from Son and Kane. The worrying aspect of the Spurs pair of course is their high ownership and the rank damage that can result. But the flip side of course is the rank gains by having three other premiums against them. I made the decision to avoid spurs during their tricky fixtures and their is no denying a big drop off in their shots and attacking stats as Mourinho has tightened up and changed tactics. Am I worried about Kane v Arsenal this week ? Yes you bet !!!!

So here is the plan:

– I am currently looking to roll the transfer this week. I can’t get to Salah without a hit. Wolves won’t be easy opponents at Anfield.

– I am going to give Vardy one more game away at Sheff Utd. He is a Sheff Wednesday fan and loves scoring against the Blades !! He has most of his points away from home. He has failed to score at home all season, so I am then going to flip him out ahead of his home game v Brighton, and look to do a “premium swap” from Vardy to Salah.

– So that involves an upgrade of Ziyech to Salah, to play in a power midfield three of KDB, Bruno and Salah, alongside Grealish, who looked very impressive on Monday.

– That also means going with three cheaper strikers. I am very happy with Calvert Lewin. People are getting their knickers in a twist after one blank, following eight returns in the previous nine games. In form strikers are fixture proof. I am extremely happy with Bamford who is a goals machine waiting to happen on mind blowing stats and great upcoming fixtures. So the Vardy down grade will either be to Watkins or Wilson or Adams.

– My preferred choice before this weeks events was Wilson. It might be even more so now if Newcastle get a double gameweek soon !! I hate the fact Newcastle struggle to cross the half way line at times, but no denying Callum Wilson is clinical. From GW12, he has West Brom at home too which is a good entry point. If uncertainty surrounds Newcastle, Adams is my likely choice. He has Sheff Utd at home in GW12 and might have strike partner Ings back too !!

– By rolling this week and waiting to GW12, I save a points hit, I get good entry points for Salah v Fulham and Wilson v West Brom ( or Adams v Sheff Utd ) and I get my exit points right too and let Vardy play Sheff Utd, and Ziyech play Leeds, before I let them go. I am really keen to get my “entry points” and “exit points” right this season, and avoid un necessary points hits too by rolling the transfer when I can.

Future moves:

– I am happy with Chilwell and Dias. Chilwell has points potential at both ends. Man City have great clean sheet potential. Pep could rotate but he should get most games. And I am happy with the Walker Peters and Coufal rotation for third defensive spot. Justin could be on borrowed time once Castagne and Ricardo are back in tandem, and that could even be this week. Justin can become either Ayling or Lamptey. If Dias could miss the odd game, having good rotatable defenders and two decent bench players will be useful, especially with Covid around.

GW11 set up and captain:

– I am currently planning on going into GW11 with no keeper, and I should just about be able to get ten outfield players out. If Dias and Justin miss out, it could be close. I have two covering subs so far. Grealish is my only outfield player caught up in the Villa blank. So Walker Peters steps in to make a 433 and I still have Coufal and Riedewald in case. It’s not pretty but I have seen a lot worse in a lot of teams, so getting ten players on the pitch without a points hit might be a minor triumph. No hits mean I already have a 4 point advantage on a lot of my rivals !!

– KDB looks the stand out captain and he was rested again in Europe midweek. It’s great that he is still only 20% owned and this weeks events will further prevent people getting him in, which is to my advantage.

– Of course, I still need plenty of sofa hiding from no Liverpool or Spurs this week !! I just hope KDB and Vardy can explode and outscore Salah and Kane !!

So… Keep calm, don’t panic, do nothing until close to the deadline. And I will see you on the other side !!!!!

Transfer summary :

– I am currently rolling the transfer. Captain De Bruyne

 

Here’s the team before any transfers are made.

fpl teams GW11

Kris O

Kris’s last 4 seasons overall rank were 39k, 44k, 46k and 23k

GW10 points: 46 -4 (FPL average 44) Total points: 574, Overall Rank: 933k, red arrow:  173k Team Value: £102.6m

Kris has used his wildcard

Disastrous GW10 undid a lot of my good work over past few weeks, with my past decisions of not getting Fernandes and my Sterling over De Bruyne choice hitting me hard. My original plan had been to let the transfer roll in gw11, but with Villa now appearing without a fixture something needs to be done. I also have the issue of two dropped defenders (Kilman and Mitchell; though Kilman was driven by a formation change for Wolves), plus Foden and Sterling are likely to be benched. I will almost certainly switch Watkins to Che Adams. I then have a dilemma whether I stick with Sterling or play safe with a four point hit to De Bruyne. Either way it will be Sterling or De Bruyne as captain with Salah vice.

Transfer summary:  Likely Watkins out Adams in.

Here’s the team prior to any transfers being made:



fpl teams GW11

FFGeek Contributors League

The highlighted FFGeek contributors combined team finished with an overall rank of 52k last season is going ok in 5th place with total points of 609 and an overall rank of 277k. You can follow that team, including live transfers, on our subscription Patreon site.

You can also follow Joe’s  transfer planner team which finished with an overall rank of 32k last season currently in 21st place with total points of 550 and an overall rank of, 1,638k.

There’s loads of other features on the Patreon site that you can read about at the top of this page



Other posts

Analysing 10 top FPL managers

Fixture Ease Schedule

Early thoughts on the FFGeek team

The FFGeek Captain and Transfer polls

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