An FPL Eclipse Now

 “You know my Suffragette City, Is outta sight she's all right”

The Horror, The Horror………the final words of Colonel Kurtz reverberate around my head as GW4 comes to a close and I am staring into the abyss with an OR of 4,363,336.

After yo-yoing around the 4m OR mark for the first 7 weeks, it was time to make some decisions and adjustments to my game. How am I going to get my self out of this dark cavern of FPL madness? As a veteran FPL player with 12 seasons under my belt this was a scenario, I was not used to dealing with in the past.

Regular readers will recognize the play on the glam rock Bowie song from his The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album in the quote above. If I didn’t act with some conviction then my goal of 50k would be well and truly out of sight.


As it turns my change in game plan resulted in a final OR of 13,620 and although this season has ended I thought it might benefit new and more experienced players for the coming season to see what helped to change my fortunes.



This article is intended as a food for thought while addressing my own trials and tribulations in the 20/21 season.

⚽ Metamorphosis ⚽

My early Captain Picks mirrored the early Captain Willard, largely passive and shell shocked at the outset before transforming into an instrument with a mission. The table below shows the comparison in total Captain Points, Pts per GW and percentage of successful picks (based on the Premier Fantasy Tools criteria) for the first 7 GWs and the 31 GWs after my change in methodology with the Captain Pick.

I also outline a “What If” scenario, if I had applied the same methodology from the start it would have resulted in an additional 58 pts and a final OR of 1940.

What methodology? I removed the emotion in relation to my decision making on the Captain Picks and relied on statistical information (Betting Odds and % Wins) which I referred to as Conditional Probability Method” in Dice Man.

⚽ Charlie Don’t Surf ⚽

Not sure if Charlie Taylor surfs but he sure was making waves in the period from GW5 to GW15 before he picked up an injury. He scored 44 points over that period which is nothing earth shattering in terms of points returns until you bear in mind his price of £4.5m. At that price and with his low ownership he became both a differential and an enabler.

Two other unlikely heroes that helped turn my ship around were Zouma and Vestergaard with the former making it into the list of Top 10 players who helped me the most.

The full list of Top 10 players that helped me the most, curtsey of www.livefpl.net are:

Salah, Dias, Martínez, De Bruyne, Son, Shaw, Fernandes, Stones, Zouma, Dallas


 

⚽ Value is Key ⚽

Some FPL Players pay attention to Team Value and some don’t, personally I am firmly in the former camp as a high Team Value towards the close of the season when Chip strategies are deployed helps in your flexibility of choice.

Reaching a peak of £108.8m definitely made for more choices and easier than normal decision making on the 2nd WC and FH chips.

One important aspect to note is that this year I did not allow Price Rises and Falls influence my transfer decision making and timing. I changed my approach on that front and waited until all the press conferences were completed before making any transfers.

Yes, I missed out on one or two targets. So, either I waited another week or simply chose another option as there were many this year.

Another method to improve your Team Value is trying to spot the differentials before the bandwagon starts and cashing in when they start to wan. Easier said than done as the Differential Pick Challenge outlined below demonstrates.

⚽ The Magic Number ⚽

Throughout the season I picked my preferred 3 Differential Players (<10% ownership) for a period of 3 GWs and pitted my wits against a challenger to see who scores the most points.

Below is an overview of the points scoring and a big thank you to those who contributed. It is not an easy exercise and some of the players picked did not provide returns in the period in question but did so shortly after which highlight the difficulty at hand.

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

25 pts

20 pts (@FplUncorked )

It resulted in a 2-2 between myself and the Challengers.

⚽ Room to Improve ⚽

I’m definitely taking what I learned and how I played this season into next and there are 3 areas I would like to improve on in my overall game strategy.

I am exploring the idea of adding “form” to my “Conditional Probability” for the Captain Picks. Secondly I do need to crack getting off to  a good start. I have some ideas on this which I will muse over and hopefully deploy in August.

Applying more thought to the order of my bench is the last area I want to concentrate on. Dallas in GW31 anyone?

⚽ Next Post ⚽

Captain Willard and his journey upriver in Vietnam came to an end with finding the location of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, a highly decorated U.S. Army Special Forces officer with the 5th Special Forces Group who went rogue.

I too take a bow, hope you enjoyed the journey. Rogue.





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