The Killing Moon

‘Fate, up against your will’ 

Ian McCulloch’s cryptic lyrics evokes events that will transpire for millions of FPL players in the coming weeks. The time invested in pre-season could determine your short-term tribulations but don’t despair if everything goes pear-shaped in GW1 as this can be attributed to events outside the control of your all-conquering FPL 2019/20 squad.

McCulloch spoke about free will and in the same way the ability to act at one's own discretion is what makes FPL a fantastic game to play.

⚽ Data Mining ⚽

The key to a good season is getting that initial 15-man squad right, easier said than done I hear you bellow, but there are means to help select the corner stones of your squad. I will take a look at a few (Podcasts, Stats, External Sources)  that I choose along the winding path of 12 years of FPL.

⚽ Podcasts ⚽

A recent edition to my repertoire of FPL tools that I consult when trying to make rational and balanced decisions when the emotional side of the brain starts to muscle its way into my team selections. There are of course the “A list” podcasts which tailor for the global audience, no names mentioned as I have provided shout-outs in their direction over the last 12 months.

I would advise any FPL players looking to improve their game to seek out the local podcasts in their area. I recommend this for 2 main reasons; these operations are true football fans who put club colours aside and talk purely about the value of certain, very often, players flying under the radar. They are also more open to interaction than the Big Podcasts and if you can get into some of their chat groups you will find very valuable and unbiased information.

In my region the 3 podcasts who fit this bill are The FPL Hangover Podcast, FPL Chieftain, FPL Renegades

⚽ Five Thirty Eight ⚽

I hold my hand up and say I was skeptical of the excessive drill down on stats for FPL as I was a firm believer in the fact that it’s a game of football and anything can happen (Beach ball anyone!).


Losing out to an accountant in a ML who based his decisions on stats alone and the introduction of xG etc in Sky Sports and other sites have thought me to take stock of this underlying metric in FPL.

Thanks to @FplGaz I stumbled across https://fivethirtyeight.com/ , at the time of writing they have yet to publish their predictions for the opening weekend of the EPL 2019/20 but here is a flavor of their results, see below. Of 30 games that took place in August last season they got 19 of those correct, now some might say well that’s only 63% but who predicted Wolves 1 v Man City 1 and Brighton 3 v Man Utd 2 for example. Most of the other games that they incorrectly predicted were no-score or score draws.

A sample screenshot from their site to get an idea of the data they provide.


⚽ Four Four Two ⚽

A change is as good as a rest. The FPL noise can sometimes reach crescendo levels and cloud your mind. This weekend I took the ferry from Cork (Ireland) to Roskoff (France) and onboard I spotted FourFourTwo, a publication I hadn’t read in print in years (I regularly check the digital website for news) and their season preview offered plenty of tips which are independent of FPL strategy. A breath of fresh air in these turbulent FPL times.

⚽ August Plan ⚽

Deadline Day is fast approaching and people are busy making final modifications to their teams, myself included.

In post 3 “ITB Strategy – Draft 1 & 2” and again in the intro to this post I speak about external forces, my final changes were heavily influenced my factors current and/or future which I believe I need to counter in order to get a decent start and help my 2019/20 strategy.

Once GW1 begins the coming game weeks will come fast and furious and with it brings upheaval, transfer madness, price changes, and the secret is to remain calm.

Here are my final modifications and the justification (to myself at least).

My gut feeling is causing me concern with the Liverpool defence, they have not had a good pre-season, although I firmly believe TAA & Robbo will prove to return high FPL over the season I do not think it will happen in the opening month. Coupled with some competition from Matip & Gomez I have decided to go for the one Liverpool player that is guaranteed to play and possibly return so I have made the following move: TAA (Out) VVD (In).

I could have easily made a sideward move from TAA to Robbo but I also think that Mangers will try to curtail the Liverpool wingback attacks this season.

In a similar vein, the City defence is looking very much unsettled, Laporte injury for the Shield, Mendy making noises that he will be back soon therefore Zinchenko (Out) Walker (In).

Lots of noise about a destabilized Everton due to Gueye’s move to PSG. More than one player protects the defence and goal so I decided to stick with Coleman (thanks to the constant updates from one of the crew in the chat group I mentioned above, @FPL_Zebra). However in order to mitigate the risk I decided to change Pickford (Out) for a constant element in the City defence Ederson(In). This allows me to move Walker back to Robbo in a few weeks and keep VVD.

I was looking for that OOP player and it was staring me in the face, again emotional reasoning was including Tielemans in my squad having watched him in action in France last season whereas Perez is a FPL classified MID playing as a FWD, hence Tielemans (Out) & Perez (In).

Reports of Deulofeu injured and reading that Bournemouth are a typical good starter plus the constant debate of Wilson v King pushed me towards why not Wilson & King. Therefore Deulofeu (Out) & King (In).

I spoke about % Ownership and its adverse effects on Team Value in my previous post (Tinker, Tailor, Solskjær & I) and for that very reason I expunged the high ownership bench fodder with the exception of Dendoncker. Hence Kelly & Stephens (Out) and Lundstram & Schneiderlin (In).
If Schneiderlin moves abroad then I could make a change and if a better 4.0 GK crops up then I wil also make that change.

For now this is my squad set for GW1, I will TRY to remain calm when all hell breaks loose, review my assets, seek out this year’s Doherty’s, Jimenez’s and offload any of my underperforming premium’s to take in that premium FW that emerges in August with my 1.5M ITB.

This is the last pre-season post and the next post will be towards the end of August with my September plan in mind. Until then enjoy the FPL madness, interact with the Community and remember rule no.1..........

  “Play your own game”.

#RogueAgainstTheMachine @FplRogue

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