Armageddon Days

“The calendar on your wall was ticking the days off”


Those eagle-eyed music buffs will have noticed the quoted lyrics do not match the song title above and probably wonder at the connection. “This is the Day” is one of my all-time favourite songs which brings back memories of a transition from late teenage years in the hedonistic student life on campus at ULA.

Johnson’s hypnotic voice and thought-provoking lyrics has been etched in the hard-drive in my brain and occasionally surface to remind me and remind me of certain passages in my life.

The backdrop to current Geo-political affairs are the catalyst for the Mind Bomb album surfacing to the forefront of my thoughts and yet the pre-planning for FPL is more what drives the notion of this Armageddon Days post.

⚽ New FPL Challenges ⚽

The FPL game now in its 20th season has evolved in terms of style of play and number of players. When it began in the 2002-03 season it had less than 76,000 teams and yet last year 9,167,407 teams took part.

With the large participation, the plethora of information via websites, podcasts, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter Spaces, blogs, and the Twitter #FPLCommunity makes the terrain more difficult to navigate.

Two distinct elements (5 sub rule change and the World Cup) for the coming 2022-23 season will add to that difficulty and if not taken into account could cause some FPL pain.

The 5-substitution rule change broadly accepted by all Premier League Shareholders and used as a stop-gap solution in May 2020 during the height of the Covid pandemic will come into force this season.

This will have a major impact on both peripheral squad players and the premium player’s alike. Our Twitter timelines will be awash with 1-point cameo appearances tweets for the length of the coming season. It will no doubt impact all of us so limitation of those impacts in your squad selection will be key to progression this season. 

⚽ Klopp & the 5 subs ⚽

One of the strongest advocates of the 5-substitution rule has been Klopp and Juergen is sure to make full use of the new change, with the German having used five subs the most of the Top 6 during the Project Restart period. In the nine games that Liverpool played to finish the 2019/2020 campaign, they used five subs seven times.

1) Brighton and Hove Albion - 8

2) Liverpool - 7

3) Bournemouth, Norwich City - 6

4) Manchester United, Arsenal - 5

5) Manchester City, Newcastle United, Everton - 4

6) Leicester City – 3

Of 42 substitutes Klopp made in the final 9 games of Season 20/21 only 4 were made prior to 60 mins which is some good news for FPL Managers.

The 3 players most impacted by his substitutions were Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (9 times subbed on or off in that period), Naby Keïta (9) and Roberto Firmino (8)

So how did the popular picks fair out in the same period? Mane (5) TAA (4) Robbo (4) and Salah (3), realistically small percentages in the grander scheme of Juergen’s 42 substitutions (84 players) although of those 16 substitutions 5 resulted in 1 pointers!!!!

Extrapolating those percentages over an entire season and including all the Top 6 teams could result in the 1 pointer damage impacting your OR more heavily than in prior seasons.

⚽ Qatar World Cup Impact ⚽

As a small recap, the 2022 World Cup will start on Monday 21st November 2022 and it will end on Sunday 18th December 2022. The knock-on effect for the Premier League is that it will begin on Saturday 6th August and it ends on Sunday 28th May 2023, and Premier League resumes on Boxing Day, Monday 26th December 2022.

Some notable PL players not playing in this World Cup are: Dubravka, Soyuncu, Lindelof, Masuaka, Jorginho, Bissouma, Odegaard. Mahrez, Diaz, Salah and Haaland.

Will the teams from 7th to 14th take advantage of this period to attack the so-called Top 6? Will the likes of Salah and Haaland be surrounded by fatigued players? Will the first 3 to 4 games post the World Cup mirror the first 3 to 4 games of the season?

Is this the first year in FPL where it might be beneficial trying to get your team to Boxing Day WITHOUT using the 1st Wildcard chip? Or will HQ give us an extra WC chip?

⚽ Next Update ⚽

Sometime in the future…………

 

#RogueAgainstTheMachine @FplRogue


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