#RogueAgainstTheMachine - A journey through FPL

“It happens sometimes, people just explode. Natural causes.” Best laid plans sometimes go awry and having the worst start to FPL in my 12 year history it was time for some drastic action. In the same vein as Repo Man which came out of leftfield, no big stars, its creators took chances, adopted an unconventional approach which earned it its cult status. I too made a decision to mix it up for various reasons compounded by a gamble that went south in GW1 . I strongly advocated holding your WC until the IB which takes place between GW4 and GW5 with the opening piece in this seasons adventure. I still do if your team and position are in decent shape but my situation now calls for some bold moves. Despite having Salah in all of my pre-season drafts I mistakenly allowed his performance in the shield to sway my decision to swap him for Mané and you know the rest. Dismayed by the performance of some sides MUN, SOU etc coupled with Werner, Doherty burning a whole in my budget the in...

“With so many great players in one team, you make art. You don’t mean to but you do.” Having decided to start with the 3-5-2 formation driven by the BGW1 and the good opening fixtures for TOT & ARS it was time to decide on my “ backbone or Silo ” for the season. My backbone for the season is defined as those 5-6 players that I will place my FPL trust in their long-term season output. Reminiscent of the Dutch totaalvoetbal tactical theory in which any  outfield  player can take over the role of any other player in a team.  I have decided to concentrate on a pool of players for my transfers to maximise form in a small group of players and use the advantage of fixtures to reap the rewards. Already walking the planet during the 1970 and 1974 World Cups although too young to understand the footballing spectacle. My days of reading “Shoot” introduced me to the initial proponent of totaalvoetbal in Johan Cruyff . The Ajax team of the early 1970’s under Rinus Mich...

“If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake.” Out of the traps as quickly as possible is the objective for 20/21 season with the ultimate goal of beating that Personal Best OR of 3198. As the opening passage of The Libero : Football’s Forgotton Man states “It was a majestic sight. Go back 30 or 40 years and watch teams defend. The majority of them will feature a type of player that seems to have been lost from the modern game. You’ll see an elegant defender sitting behind the defensive line, picking up a stray through balls from an attacker. As he effortlessly brings it under his control, he marches forward with it, stepping past the other defenders and moving into the midfield zone. From there he acts as a modern-day deep-lying playmaker, initiating the play and spreading it out to the flanks, or playing it forward into midfield or attack. This is the Libero.” This versatility of the Libero position allowed the defender to step into midfield which in tur...