Last seasons 15k OR finisher Jordan Sadler returns to fantasy football geek

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Last seasons 15k overall rank finisher and 4th in the 18/19 FFGeek contributors league Jordan Sadler returns to fantasy football geek.  Here he tells us how he’s been getting on this season without us.

Last seasons 15k OR finisher Jordan Sadler returns to fantasy football geek

Hello, hello, hello. I’m back and ready to take FPL back again by storm.

As a bit of background on my hiatus from FFGeek, I started to feel like life was more important than fantasy football, but I’ve now come to my senses… I kid, I moved to London, got a new job and so have been extremely busy meaning I couldn’t commit much time to FPL unfortunately. However, things have now calmed and I’m back ready to preach my FPL “knowledge” to anyone who will listen.

This article is a way for me to give you a somewhat brief overview of my season so far and my approach to FPL.




My Background:

My FPL Background: I have played FPL seriously for the last 2 years finishing 76k in 2017/18 and 15k in 2018/19. I was around 1k in March last year but when I moved to London I stopped spending as much time on my team so dropped to 15k by the end of the year. I’m quite a balanced FPL player, I’m happy to take calculated hits, but I try to avoid taking too many.

My personal background: I’m a finance analyst and a recent mathematics graduate from the University of Warwick so my approach to FPL is typically very analytical and calculated. I like to use underlying stats, bookies odds and fixture quality to make my decisions; alongside watching as much football as I can, as stats don’t always tell the full picture.

Rolling through the Gameweeks

Gameweek 1:

This is how I started the season. My logic was to try and stick to the “template” players and throw a couple of differentials in there like Smith, Soyuncu, Perez and Deulofeu.

My GW1 team didn’t perform badly, bringing me in 80 points with my captain Salah, De Bruyne, Sterling, Alexander-Arnold, Van Dijk and Zinchenko all performing. This put me around the 1 million mark which I was content with for gameweek 1.

jordan sadler

Gameweek 2 to 8:

jordan sadler

These were quite an underwhelming set of gameweeks for me. I only broke the top 1 million gameweek ranks once over the first 8 gameweeks. I haven’t spent too much time on my team in truth but I do feel like this season has been quite difficult to predict and the “template” players have been pretty hit and miss.

In terms of transfers over these 8 gameweeks:

GW2: Lloris & Perez out, Ryan & Martial in (-4).

I stupidly didn’t check Lloris’ fixtures beyond Villa and Perez was very underwhelming for Leicester so Ryan with his good fixtures and Martial coming off the back of a goal in a 4-0 win against Chelsea seemed well worth the -4.

GW4: Smith & Deulofeu out, Sir John Lundstrum & Pukki in

Lundstrum was too good value to miss out on and Pukki became essential alongside neither Smith nor Deulofeu had returned so these were easy transfers.

GW5: Martial out, Mount in

Martial has picked up an injury and Mount was looking very impressive for Chelsea.

GW6: King out, Abraham in

Reactionary transfer to Abraham’s 40 points in 3 weeks and King had been underwhelming up to that point.

GW7: Ryan out, Pope in

Ryan’s fixtures turned a little and Pope’s looked better.

GW8: De Bruyne out, Son in

De Bruyne picked up a knock and Son vs Brighton seemed like a good pick, how wrong I was.

Wildcard GW9:

In gameweek 9 I used my wildcard as I wasn’t greatly happy with my team.

Goalkeeper: Ryan

Decided to go with a cheaper GK as no defences seem to be performing at the moment so premium keepers seem pointless.

Defence: Alexander-Arnold, Otamendi, Soyuncu, Lundstrum, Rico

Tried to stick somewhat template with Arnold and Otamendi (who I currently despise for costing me 13 points off the bench). Then thought I’d go with 3 cheap defenders in Soyuncu, Lundstrum and Rico as the first two are great value for money and Rico is the cheapest playing defender currently. Ideally I’d a preferred Tomori over Rico but unfortunately couldn’t afford him.

Midfield: De Bruyne, Mane, Maddison, Mount, Saka

Decided to go with a differential of Mane over Sterling as I just think going without a Liverpool forward is super risky with the way they can play. Then stuck with the template players of De Bruyne and Mount. Leicester had great fixtures coming up so decided to go with Maddison over Tielemans, this was a 50/50 for me however decided to go with Maddison due to his higher ownership. Saka is just bench fodder.

Forwards: Aubameyang, Wilson, Abraham

Went with Aubameyang and Wilson as both Arsenal and Bournemouth had great fixtures coming up. Then I finished off my team with the template pick of Abraham whose great value for money with the way Chelsea are playing offensively.

As good as the wildcard looked on paper, it certainly did not perform that way in gameweek 9, with me scoring possibly the lowest I ever have on FPL of 33. Though clearly it was a terrible week for all as I only dropped around 100k ranks.

Gameweek 10:

I felt gameweek 10 was quite a positive gameweek even though I did have a 30k red arrow taking me to 490k overall. I scored 54 points with 7 returns, including my captain. Unfortunately, none of the returns were double figures but I was still happy overall with the gameweek. However, after another blank from Aubameyang and a couple of outstanding performances from Tielemans I decided to do a double transfer of Aubameyang and Maddison out for Vardy and Tielemans. Maddison to Tielemans was a bit of a sideways transfer but it saved me money and now I have 2.8m in the bank to use to bring in another Liverpool player after gameweek 12 if I want to.

Gameweek 11:




It was a fantastic week for me which resulted in a very big green arrow, my best gameweek of the season so far.

I scored 84 points to make my total points 625 giving me a gameweek rank of 271k, taking me to 194k overall. I decided to do a differential captain pick of Mane and it paid dividends with both De Bruyne and Sterling blanking. I had 6 returns, 4 of which were double figures, including my captain. The only 2 annoyances of the gameweek were Pep/Otamendi costing me 13 points by coming on in the 90th minute and Maddison returning rather than Tielemans.

However, it was still a fantastic week and one I’m hoping to now push on from.

Questions:

Hope you enjoyed the update on my team. If you want to ask me anything about my season so far then please do so in the comments below and if you ever have any FPL related questions for me then tweet the questions at me here. I’m very happy to answer any questions you may have or help with any decisions where I can. Good luck with your gameweek 12 and thank you for spending the time to read about my season so far!

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