Guerrilla FPL

“If you can find ways without any obstacles, it probably leads nowhere.”

Guerrilla Warfare, Guerrilla Theatre, Guerrilla Marketing all terms pervasive in various walks of life and corners of our globe today. So, can we add a new definition of Guerrilla FPL to that list. The very definition of Fantasy Football (or FPL if you are playing the game based on the English Premier League) is a game in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real life footballers and score points based on those players' actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play.

The FPL landscape is traditional, well known, ordered in a normal season.

Many FPL players will have duly planned ahead of the recent BGW18 and DGW19, carefully moving pieces of their jigsaw into position, fine tuning their decisions and squads in anticipation of leapfrogging those players who utilize the chips early in the season. The combination of a BGW and DGW running back to back is rare and many will have taken the opportunity to climb the ranks.

Covid-19 has changed the topography of this fantasy game and our imaginary teams by bringing real-life circumstances into the mix in a way we have not seen before. Covid-19 clusters, training grounds shutdown, games postponed and/or rearranged at short notice.

The fixture list which is so important to certain tactics deployed by players is based on a known and fixed format. The GWs are known well in advance and the only variance is the progress of the PL teams in the Cup competitions. To guide us through that anomaly we are privileged to have Ben Crelin invest so much time and energy into providing valuable fixture updates.

Adaption of our strategies to irregular fixture schedules, a need for increased mobility in squad formation and/or decision making is the key to this non-traditional season. Hence the need to embrace this year’s Guerrilla FPL and navigate a route through the unchartered FPL territory.

To get through this quagmire I have reverted to FPL  1^st principles and hopefully a remainder of the following will help to inspire some rank climbs in the community in the 2^nd half of the season.  

⚽ FPL 1st Principles ⚽

My style of playing FPL is never fixed, I like to reinvent, experiment which can have its upsides and downsides. Some of my judgements went spectacularly wrong early on in the season so I had to revert to 1^st Principles.

After focusing my decision making on getting the Captain Pick correct, I also went back to some ABCs in my overall game strategy from GW13 onwards. By that I implemented the following basics,

Robust Defence, no hits, roll a transfer, late transfers, solid picks, late transfers.

Robust Defence: I offloaded Lamptey, Zouma & Vestergaard from my Defence, the latter two served me well in returns but due to form/rotation and injury respectively it was time for some new recruits. I also had Mitchell, Taylor and Dunne at various stages with all 3 not playing, again for various reasons, rotation, injury or simply not in the reckoning but Dunne was purely a price enabler. Cleansheets were a luxury in the opening stage of the season however defences were starting to shore up and I decided to invest in City and United (Dias, Stones and Shaw complemented by Holding and Dallas).

No Hits: Justified in taking hits for multiple reasons, 28 points between GW5 to GW12 I cut this out of my game. Rolling a transfer to allow me to react to any sudden changes, covid-19 driven cancellations, injuries to Premium assets etc.  

Solid Picks: Preferred over the flair pick, when making my first move for a City defender, Cancelo was attractive for his higher ceiling potential, attacking style as opposed to the solid defending but no rotation risk of Dias. I eventually choose Dias purely based on the rotation risk which resulted in 60 points for Dias versus 44 points for Cancelo.

Late transfers: With all the fixture rescheduling and potential positive Covid-19 cases holding that transfer until the last possible moment is really essential these days.

Differentials, having a fixed midfield of KDB (although now injured), Bruno, Salah, Son and Grealish coupled with Martinez and Bamford (although on the potential chopping block now) allowed me to implement 3 or 4 differentials to my principle playing 11. The additions of Dias, Stones, Shaw and Antonio added a much-needed non-template element to my FPL strategy.

From the depths of despair at 4.36M in GW4 I have now climbed progressively to 563k at the close of GW19. [GW20 resulted in a further climb to 523k]

The goal of 50k is still on. Watch out Drew that mug has my name on it.

⚽ Conditional Probability ⚽

GW17 taught me a Lesson in that my Conditional Probability method of picking Captains needed some refinement. As outline in Dice Man I was taking my top player listed in the Anytime goalscorer odds combined with the matches over 50% probability of winning from  https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com when in fact I should have been using the “product rule”.

My captain returns for the first 19 weeks has been 12.31 pts per week on average but since GW8 that metric has moved to 16.54 or in other terms my weekly average has moved from 60.78 to 73.63 pts per week.

This latter pts per week average is the same pts velocity as the Top100 players in the world.

⚽ Check It Out ⚽

Regular readers of this blog will recognize that I advocate the use of tools like LiveRank & Premier Fantasy Tools. A site recently recommended that is a revelation for “In Play” analytics and ML comparison is https://www.fplgameweek.com/ a really excellent site and definitely worth checking out if you have not already.

⚽ The Magic Number ⚽

This season I will be highlighting my preferred 3 Differential Players (<10% ownership) for a period of 3 GWs and pitting my wits against a challenger to see who scores the most points.

After avoiding the Xmas rotation, we are back with a challenger in the FPL talented @FplUncorked  “Ben from Mallow” as I refer to this months challenger will prove a tough adversary if I am to pull the scores back level.

Period	FplRogue	Challenger
GW 1 - 3	35 pts	34 pts (@or_fail)
GW 5 - 7	8 pts	29 pts (@FPLDifferential)
GW 10  - 12	15 pts	52 pts (@FPLDifferentia2)
GW 21 - 23	?	? (@FplUncorked )

Here is an overview of both picks, not too dissimilar in teams, best of luck Cian.

⚽ An interesting read ⚽

My Dad often mentioned the Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt European Cup Final of 1960 as one of the best games he ever saw live on TV.

Here is an account of that Eintracht team and how they rose to the upper echelons of European Football in 1960.

It’s a long but worthwhile read.

EINTRACHT FRANKFURT: The Story of the “Other Team” in the greatest game ever played.  

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2016/03/28/frankfurt-the-story-of-the-other-team-in-the-greatest-game-ever-played/

⚽ Rogue-grams ⚽

Teenage Kicks: Part 1. Complete can be found in “Dice Man”

…….The adrenalin was pumping through our bodies as both lay on a roof top looking up at the stars and we both burst out laughing, why we were laughing we had no idea as we were still potentially in danger.

Teenage Kicks: Part 2.

Dancing in the disco, bumper to bumper, the crescendo to Fools Gold arrives, hang on a minute who is elbowing me aggressively in the back? I turn to see Harry, oh no not Harry!

Harry’s dad was killed in a horrific workplace accident 3 years prior to our family setting up home in this West of Ireland seaside town. My Dad was now the site Manager where Harry’s Dad tragically died and as result, I was the conduit for Harry’s rage.

I leaned into Harry to ask him to refrain from the over aggressive dancing when the roundhouse punch came hurtling in on my left side. The next minute or two was a blur but suffice it to say Harry would not be poking the bear for a while.

The evening draws to a close and after saying our goodbyes to the last stragglers John and I started to make our way out through the winding corridors of the local hotel. Close to the exit, Mike and older neighbor of ours was making his way back into the nightclub. He stopped us and delivered a sobering message “Lads, there are 6 or 7 blokes outside waiting for you and one is carrying a knife. You need to find another route out of here.”

John turns to me “I don’t fancy dealing with no Pyscho’s, lets bail out the back!”

We hit the emergency exit doors at speed and in sync.

⚽ Next Post ⚽

How eating maltesers with pitchforks helps to improve the mood in FPL circles. As you know a happy FPL Player is a productive FPL Player.

So until then enjoy the FPL madness, interact with the Community and remember rule no.1 “Play your own game”.