Baganboy’s 38-week FPL journal

[SirMattBugsby]

Agree to you all. Mathematically, you'd rather play week 1 than not. But at least it will be fun! Maybe?

As a newly-recruited addict, that seems impossible . Not play the first GW after a 3-month break? How am I supposed to do that?

But yes, it is an interesting experiment. Maybe one for the managers who are experienced/saturated

(On second thoughts, I have done this before, making a team late that is. Such a team does make up for the points gap initially before succumbing to the usual wear and tear. Not sure if it applies to a relatively early GW 2 though..)

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[baganboy]

I am on the other end of the scale. A jaded almost-quitter back from retirement.

While this might sound like a humblebrag (thus please assume this didn't happen ) - I fell from 50-something at the FFS HOF at the end of '12-'13 (that's when the HOF started I think) to outside of the top-100 at the end of the '13-'14 season. So I played the '14-'15 season with the most seriousness - and burnt myself out completely by mid-season that year, and have only retrieved some interest in the game 3 years later, this year.
These artificial roadblocks (and this IMHO is not as big as it can seem to be) are, I think, nice to sustain interest in FPL, and prevent FPL fatigue.

The HOF is poison, of course.

[baganboy]

seems impossible . Not play the first GW after a 3-month break? How am I supposed to do that?

That's the toughest part, I agree.
That's and not doing the RMT / best cheap so-and-so discussions ad nauseum

[Ruth_NZ]

The HOF is poison, of course.

100% agree. I have consciously never entered a FFS main league because I don't want to be put in their so-called HOF. If there is anything designed to compromise the way you play it is that damned thing.

[Ruth_NZ]

Agree to you all. Mathematically, you'd rather play week 1 than not. But at least it will be fun! Maybe?

Yeah, the mathematics are against but the psychology isn't.

The problem is that although you can say 11 transfers in GW2 = 40 points spent, meaning if you score more than 40 in GW1 you can do that and still be ahead, the psychological factor is that no-one wants to take a -40 in GW2. It would be very hard to actually do it. So a cherry-picked GW2 team - which would also make you some TV because you could jump all the good bandwagons if desired - would be far easier to actually do with a GW2 start. Every season there are GW2 teams that do well, top 1k finishes and stuff. I think there is some merit to it actually. But could you really sit on your hands and give up GW1's points? That would be the hard part.

[baganboy]

Missed the transfer deadline. Something I have not done since 2010 I think.

I am not very bothered about the game right now. Sometimes I have some sporadic spurt of interest, but most of the time I just could not care less.

[No Way Jose]

sorry to hear that mate. Life can make you realize FPL Really isn’t that important! Hoping things turn for the better!

[SirMattBugsby]

It's mentally draining, and this is my first serious season! Wish I hadn't come to know about price sites and FFS, although I am glad to have found this forum

Take it easy BB. I was thinking of starting a thread to discuss whether the game can be played decently well by checking just once a month, maybe even less! Your input will be valuable; nobody knows burnout and interference with life better than good, experienced managers.

It seems like an addiction though, so not sure if it'll work

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[Smurphy Paw]

BB, the reality is that FPL isn’t that important in the grander scheme of things but if we, here, can be part of helping with the grander scheme of things then we will. I’ll pm you a couple of times in the week as I look at FH to see if it helps.

SMB, as a thread it’d be interesting and one to move over now rather than create noise in BB’s corner of FISO. Don’t set it up with the arbitrary ‘once a month’ parameter. I know from (anecdotal) experience that there’s a correlation so think about how the question is framed

[SirMattBugsby]

Sure, my apologies. As a fellow Indian, hope we meet someday BB.

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[baganboy]

Hello everyone. I will be playing again this season. Have registered a dummy team as of now - 89493 is the ID. It was great to interact with all of you last season. Do come by again - maybe some interesting stuff will develop again.

[TheBigLewandowski]

It is great to see you back mate.
Lots planning in the weeks ahead.

[baganboy]

Thanks TBL. Glad to be back. Hope to see you around here!

[Mav3rick]

Good to see you back BB!

I'm looking forward to your first foray into a squad selection to see where you end up and why.

[baganboy]

Hey Mav. Glad to see you around. Are you playing the larger game (please do...), or only draft?

[baganboy]

A quick rundown of last season - I ended up with a decent rank - just outside 6k. Let's not go into the details of last season.

The structure that I was running with worked perfectly - and I find no reason to not continue with it. So I will be back with the pretty tables again.
No significant lessons learnt from last season. My plan works. The baseline PPG for each bracket could require some tweaking, but I am not really dissatisfied with them yet - so no major tweaks.
The next few posts would be a rundown of the structure that I will follow for the season.

[baganboy]

The Plan

1: Sub-Seasons (SS)
I have broken up the season into eight (8) chunks of 5 GWs each, with the first chunk worth 3 GWs. each is a Sub-season. Each sub-season will have an expected number of points that I need to get. The actual score will be compared with the target, and the surplus / deficit of actual vs target will be carried forward to the next sub-season.
(A lesson from last season is that I get a bit rigid in changing structures within a sub-season. i.e. if I am committed to playing 3-4-3 for a sub-season, I do not try to change that to a 4-3-3 within the sub-season (though of course if one of the lesser i.e. normally non-playing defenders would have a great GW, I play him above an MF/FW). I eventually reasoned that even if I am not playing sub-seasons, my normal planning involves 5GWs in the future, which is the length of a sub-season. )

[baganboy]

2. Scoring

The target score to win FPL is 2500. (Last season someone won with 2502. That has by and large been the trend. There has been no major rule-change this season. Safe to assume 2500 will win it this year to).

Thus that would be my target.

I am weak at choosing captains - a 7 PPG would make me happy enough. So total target points coming out of my captain would be 273 = 39 X 7.
Bench boost should give 22 points.
Take (273+22=)295 away from 2500, and that gives you 2205.

Scoring 1.JPG

[baganboy]

Scoring (Continued)

Double GW point targets.
I assume there would be three DGWs, and I would target to get 112 points above the expected points per gameweek out of them.
There will be one Free Hit DGW, and like last season I plan to use the DGW with the free hit. The two other DGWs should have be at an average 6 players playing DGW. That is the target anyway.

if on an average, you would expect any player to get 4.92 points per GW, you would expect 11+6X2 =23 players X 4.92 points = 112 points.

Take this away from the 2205 I had previously, and my target from my 11 players (no captaincy, no chips, no DGW points) is 2093. That is my baseline.

The DGW calculations are below.

Scoring 2.JPG

[baganboy]

Scoring (continued)

I based these numbers up from RuthNZ's tabulations of top 10 players last season (highlighted in red in the below table)- and then made reasonable approximations for the bands. I might tinker with them a bit this season. we shall see. As of now, the numbers hold.

Scoring 3.JPG

You see, this is where the 4.92 comes up.

the 95% PPG is relevant. I cannot double-calculate the DGW points, thus had to take them off from expected PPG.
Since 112 (DGW points) are 5% of 2205 (pre-subtraction points), the PPG is reduced by 5% to get the PPG that I should target every week for each position.

[baganboy]

3. Team Structure

Thanks to this post by Mav3rick, it seems to me that the 4-3-3 is something that could be targeted for this year.

My starting structure would be a 4-3-3 with

1. Two 6M defenders masquerading as 5.5 defenders - namely Jones and Coleman + 2X 6.5M defenders masquerading as 6M defenders - namely Mendy and Robertson
2. A 10+ Mid (Salah). A Steady-eddie 9+Mid Eriksen. An 8M mid masquerading as a 7.5M in Sigurdsson.
3. A 10+ FW (Aubameyang). Two 7M forwards masquerading as 6 and 6.5M, in Austin and Wood.

The below structure will be calculated and populated as the season goes on. The numbers are only for 3GWs as Sub-season 1 is of 3 GWs.

Scoring 4.JPG

[baganboy]

Team Structure (contd.)

This 4-3-3, if it reaches its potential, should give me near enough to the 2500 points target score. As you can see in the below table, it gives me 2498.
That is my target.

I will plan for little adventure. Stability will be the key. I intend to have very few wacky moves, and if any, they will be in the cheap forward positions (one or both of which can and will become similarly priced midfielders or defenders over the course of the season). My plan is for careful accumulation of points, leveled off against a target. Controllable, repeatable. Predictable.
The plan is to aim for the stars - even if I do not get there, I would not be left with a horrible end-of-season either.

Points 1.JPG

[baganboy]

4. Draft 1

This, therefore, is draft 1. One full million in the bank.

Draft 1.JPG

[blahblah]

I liked the idea of your projection thang and will try something similar using fixture blocks - having read the above a bit more closely in the next week or so.

My current squad is here viewtopic.php?f=99&t=127941

[Aldershot Rejects]

Good to see you back Bb and glad to see you sticking to your approach. You are far more disciplined than me, although our approach is not dissimilar. Congratulations on your final rank for last season, very well deserved.

Will be interested to see how this plays out, I suspect our team structure won't be that different although I am still toying with 5 at the back.

[baganboy]

Thanks a lot blahblah, AR.
Will look at your team now, bb. Will comment in detail there.
Congratulations for the fantastic last season, AR. I do nit have your bravery and courage to stick with the uncommon.

[baganboy]

5-defender draft

So I had a nominal 4-3-3 draft earlier, now I have got a 5-4-1 which I like more. And the target seems to be higher at 2516 as well. Austin looks like a bit of a waste as the 12th player in the team, but really, that's a good thing, no? There is also the option of downgrading Austin to a 5.5, and upgrading the goalkeeper.

Draft 2 - 5-4-1 or 4-4-2.JPG

The target expectation points...

Draft 2 points.JPG

Comments welcome. For this, and for the 4-3-3.

[blahblah]

Mendy will be back at Citeh no sooner than the Monday before gw1and Erikssen not much sooner, not to mention Spurs had a lot of players still in Russia at the weekend.

I'd watch out for Everton's formation and where Ziggy may play, if at all.

[Beerfuelledman]

Happy New season Baganboy. Some nice thinking there, thanks for sharing. I think your "sub-seasons" idea is spot on, particularly the first sub season what with our wanting to see who the starters are, who the bargains are and trying to prep in advance for those possibly rested after the World Cup. Im currently on a 442 at the min, trying to get some balance, though I dont think there'll be a widespread shift away from 343 until FPL start to give us some starting base price strikers - Quaner on the bench isnt ideal for me.

[Billy Bongo]

Eriksen is already back, hes travelled with Spurs on tour

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