Dod's Blog

[dod]

A respectable NoMo score my fellow Spy, and sound like team drinks are on you!

Any planned changes for this week?
I have shelved my planed Salah>Bruno>Salah shuffle, and instead done the humdrum Vinagre > Justin move to protect team value.
Leaves me with zero ManU cover, but hope Mo/Auba/Werner keep up with their guys.

Hopefully I can perform a bit better for the Spies this season. I think I'm already approaching the amount of football I actually watched last season and we've only had one GW .

I don't mind taking hits at the beginning of the season to get in players I want long term and avoid price drops. I'm not worried about getting in Bruno yet because I consider him to be at a premium price point and I only want 1 premium spot that I will swap around for captaincy. I want the best player with the best fixture for that role as often as possible. If I am constantly swapping that spot in and out then I will need a lot of set-and-forget solid value players in the rest of my squad as the captaincy is going to be eating up a lot of FTs.

The general plan is to spread my budget around on a mixture of talismans, penalty takers, cheap defenders from teams that defend, and one or two value punts like Greenwood or Foden to save budget. Covid-19 and fixture congestion concerns mean I'll probably have a stronger than normal bench, and I'll be avoiding putting a lot of eggs into a single basket. It hurts a lot less to find your £7.5m player not in the starting line up than it does when it's a £12m big hitter.

I've already made my transfers this GW. I brought in Martial and Greenwood for my 2 failed 1 GW punts - Ings and Bowen - for a -4. I had the exact money so went early. I think Martial is value at £9m and is a player I am planning to keep long term. Being a MNU player his price is sure to rise. Greenwood is a player who I think has a big future. At £7.5m he's great value if he plays.

At this stage of the season I just want to remain flexible. It seems foolish to wildcard before the transfer window closes. I'll probably take another hit next GW to bring in a Wolves and a City player.

[dod]

Abject Failure - Part 1 ... of what I anticipate will be a long running series

So ... after many hours of diligent pre-season research and careful strategic planning, two GWs have passed and I find my team sitting in the lofty position of just over 4 millionth in the world . It is at such times that a gentleman's thoughts turn toward the alluring charms of the 1st wildcard. The question is of course 'Should I allow myself to be seduced by her siren call, or remain chaste and resist the temptress, in the hope of finding my true love at some future juncture?'

In order to find out whether employing the wildcard is a sage decision or merely following in the footsteps of the myriad managers whose maiden name was 'Jerk' it is necessary to consider the pros and cons.

Reasons not to wildcard:

i. The season has barely started. The transfer window is not yet shut. You cannot possibly have enough information to make sensible decisions based on only two GWs.

ii. There is a nasty bug going around. Football may stop next week and everybody gets a free wildcard on the restart and you will have wasted yours. Worse yet, football may stop next week and when it restarts there is no free wildcard and you will have a team with hideous fixtures.

iii. There is a big fixture shift around GW8/9. A wildcard played around this time could be really useful.

iv. There is a BGW followed by a DGW in GW18. Delaying the wildcard until the last possible moment may make this far easier to navigate.

v. A lot of other managers will be wildcarding this GW which will limit the opportunity to increase your TV.

Reasons to wildcard:

i. Your team sucks. The very best use of the wildcard is as a 'Get Out of Jail Free Card.' You are currently not only in jail but your cellmate is a 400lb convicted horse rapist who thinks you're "Purty."

ii. There's a nasty bug going around. Football may stop around a big fixture shift or GW16 and everybody gets a free wildcard. Those who saved their wildcard will find it isn't much help and wasted the opportunity to use it when it was.

iii. There's a pretty decent fixture shift this GW. Man City, Wolves, and Spurs all start a decent run of fixtures.

iv. You do have quite a lot of information. The promoted teams look worth targeting as good attacking fixtures for the opposition. You know Messi isn't coming to the premier league. You know a lot more penalties are being awarded and who are taking them for most teams. You know Bale and Reguilon have signed for Spurs and it looks like they at least have the potential to be far more of an attacking threat. You know a lot more than you did last GW (but a lot less than you will know next ).

v. Even with all the active wildcards there are still a lot of price changes going on. If you wait you may well be priced out of moves you would have liked to make.

So bearing all this in mind do I press the button. My standard procedure for deciding if I should wildcard is to make a draft wildcard team and see how different it is to the team I currently possess. As a rough rule of thumb if I want to change over half my team I should definitely go for it. If it's only 4 or 5 players then I probably shouldn't. Obviously some positions have added weight. Next GWs captain is more important than the sub GK position . Another consideration is how much TV you stand to lose or gain.

Well I did it. My draft wildcard kept just one player of my 15 man squad and the TV difference is approx £1.5m. I'm definitely not knee-jerking.

[FranckKessie]

Your post reminded me of this fantastic song

[Ironfist]

Love your writing style & posts.
However, this particular post above reminded me of this:

[dod]

Your post reminded me of this fantastic song

This is the version I love ...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFWKJ2FUiAQ[/youtube]

[dod]

Love your writing style & posts.
However, this particular post above reminded me of this:

[FranckKessie]

Your post reminded me of this fantastic song
...

This is the version I love ...

Yeah, many good covers have been made of this song. Amazing lyrics!

[Joccki_10]

Love your writing style & posts.

Seconded. A very enjoyable read.

[From4corners]

Thirded. Very enjoyable reading again, Dod.

Instead of a song, it reminded me of those articles that have a question as title (like where to watch the FA Cup final?) and the answer is given all the way at the end of the article while having to read through stuff you already know (like previous results, injuries, key players etc.). The difference being that those are very annoying, this was the opposite.

[blahblah]

Your post reminded me of this fantastic song
...

This is the version I love ...

Yeah, many good covers have been made of this song. Amazing lyrics!

Do you know Liz was seeing the singer when (I think) he drowned?

George Michael covered it too

[FranckKessie]

Your post reminded me of this fantastic song
...

This is the version I love ...

Yeah, many good covers have been made of this song. Amazing lyrics!

Do you know Liz was seeing the singer when (I think) he drowned?

George Michael covered it too

I didn't

[dod]

My Wildcard Squad

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

— William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Martinez (4.5) Speer (4.0)

Lamptey (4.5) Taylor (4.5) James (5.0) Saiss (5.0) Castagne (5.5)

KDB (11.5) Foden (6.5) Son (8.9) Podence (5.5) Burke (4.5)

Kane (10.5) Jesus (9.5) Jimenez (8.5)

1.7m ITB

“We must respect the other fellow's wildcard squad, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”

― H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

Goalkeepers - I have gone for a minimum spend set-and-forget combination. Granted Villa do not have the best upcoming fixtures but as I don't plan on spending transfers b*ggering about with my GK that doesn't matter in the long term. What I do have is a fairly defence oriented team with a GK who has passed the eye test. This season has started with a glut of penalties, and if that continues, having a GK who has shown that he can save them is as important as having an outfield player who takes them.

Defenders - Clean sheets have been rarer than a Frenchman's steak so far this season. Is it even worth spending money on the defence at all? By not having a premium Liverpool def I can squirrel away a bit more budget. Saiss and Lamptey are obviously good picks. James is a bit of a risk but has a big upside if he can establish himself in the team.

I really like having a cheap Burnley defender as Sean Dyche's wards are the only side guaranteed to park the bus against everybody irrespective of such irrelevant considerations like home ground advantage or strength of the opposition. You simply don't play them against good attacking sides and you have an excellent chance of a CS.

Castagne is a player I really like and know a little about as he was linked with a move to my team Spurs earlier in the window. He is at a convenient price point as I can move him up to a LIV def or down to a CPL cheapie with relative ease. After benching him for the City game he has a nice couple of fixtures so it gives me 3 GWs to decide which direction I am going in.

Midfield - KDB is a must. On penalties and seemingly being utilised further forward this season. He could even be thought of as a perma-captain, and while I wouldn't go that far myself, it does limit the appeal of other midfield super-premiums as without the armband they are unlikely to represent value.

Son is the midfield flavour of the week. I am under no illusions that he is unlikely to face a team that gets their tactics quite so badly wrong as Southampton did again this season but Spurs have a nice run of fixtures and he's clearly in good form.

Podence is something of a game time risk but is a player I had in my pre-fixtures bus team having been very impressed with him post lockdown. While I am aware that having used the wildcard I need to limit my punts, at 5.5m with his current form and Wolves' upcoming fixtures, I simply couldn't resist.

Burke wasn't in my original line up. Instead I had Jorginho who I think is undervalued considering he is Chelsea's penalty taker. The recent links with Arsenal however have put me off. Not only that but I don't like having a 5.0m mid in my squad. It just looks ugly. There's 0.5m just sitting there but it's almost never worth a transfer to go and get it. A 4.5m OOP just looks so much better on my bench.

Foden was my most difficult pick. The reason is I absolutely love James Rodriguez. Partly because he is a great player to watch and partly because he won me a sizeable amount of money during the World Cup . I like him so much that I had him in my GW1 team and when I mentioned in my last post that I had only kept a single player on my wildcard James was that player. The trouble is James faces cry/BHA/liv in his next 3 fixtures while Foden has LEI/lee/ARS. It's not close . I have the money ITB to bring him back when the fixtures turn.

Strikers - For Kane see Son. Jimenez is a set-and-forget potential season keeper. The choice was between Werner and Jesus. It is damn hard to kick Werner out of the team when he faces the Baggies this GW but I doubt I would captain him over KDB. You rarely go wrong bringing in a Man City striker when the other one is injured therefore Jesus .

So there it is; my magnificent wildcard XV. A thing of beauty is a joy forever, or more likely given the capriciousness and tribulations of FPL, what currently shimmers and glistens like a bejeweled diadem, or like the diaphanous wings of mayflies dancing in sunbeams above a Shropshire trout river, will by 7pm on Sunday evening have proven to be made of mere paste and fool's gold, or metamorphosed into a festering, foetid pile of ordure.

Should this happen - and it's odds on it will - I will hopefully refrain from kicking a sleeping feline, breaking crockery, or releasing rabid hounds upon proselytising Jehovah's Witnesses, and instead content myself with a single utterance of the FPL manager's lament ... "Oh bollocks."

[jacksosi]

Sounds like Jesus may be injured...

[dod]

Sounds like Jesus may be injured...

Thanks for the info . If so I'll go with Werner.

[jacksosi]

Sounds like Jesus may be injured...

Thanks for the info . If so I'll go with Werner.

...or DCL to allow TAA in that backline

[dod]

Sounds like Jesus may be injured...

Thanks for the info . If so I'll go with Werner.

...or DCL to allow TAA in that backline

DCL has the same issue with fixtures that James does. Definitely an option after the LIV game but I don't want him before that. I'm not in a rush to get Pool players in either until after the derby match.

[jacksosi]

I'm trying to go for form over fixtures this year (as it keeps costing me), so I have both DCL and TAA (and they are easy to write )

Werner or Son for (c) this week is hard (I don't have KDB ...although I should have based on that also being easy to write )

[From4corners]

I'm trying to go for form over fixtures this year (as it keeps costing me), so I have both DCL and TAA (and they are easy to write )

Good picks, but I thought TAA was out of form..

[FranckKessie]

Dod what are we to make of Spurs? Kane or Son?

[jacksosi]

Hi dod...how's things?

I can see you are still active as you took a -12 this week

Any reason you did that over using the FH...some fiendish masterplan?

[dod]

So it's been a while . I won't bore you with the details but, y'know, stuff needed sorting out and FPL had to go on the back burner for a while.

Anyhoo let's get last season out of the way first. I pretty much stopped playing after the opening month. I did autopilot it, and did 5-10 minutes each GW setting up my team, but this was only because I was in a couple of H2H leagues and the 5AS and thought it would be rude to just disappear. I didn't watch any football or check out any FPL related websites so my finishing rank of 770k is probably a pretty good baseline if you just play at a casual level and continue to the end of the season.

In all honesty I don't think I would have done well last season even if I had put the hours in. With COVID around it made no sense to even try to play the market with early transfers and a lot of sense to scour Twitter for snippets of team news. That's not really my thing at all .

So on to this season ...

Although there are no new FPL rules there are several new interpretations of the actual laws of football that will likely have a profound effect on our FPL seasons. The VAR system seems to be working much better. The attackers are given the benefit if the lines overlap. Football seems to be a contact sport again and refs are playing advantage much more rather than constantly blowing their whistles. As a football fan this is great. I want to watch the game being played rather than everyone waiting around for the technology to decide whether someone's armpit was 2mm offside .

Of course some teams will be winners and some losers from all this. Arsenal in particular don't seem to enjoy the more physical aspects of the game and their mummies not being allowed onto the pitch to kiss their boo-boos better. Playing a high line is also more precarious and the less stringent offside rules will certainly favour pacy attackers who like to live on the shoulder of the last defender. There are also likely to be fewer penalties this season although Newcastle don't seem to have got the memo .

One thing I am determined to do in FPL this season is to have fun. That means not sticking to the template or worrying about EO or similar nonsense. To this end I only started with 1 premium and last GW I didn't have any at all . I intend to stick to this policy at least until I have built up my team value enough to easily afford 2 premiums without compromising the rest of my team. There is still a pandemic going on and we can never be sure that any player will start. Having a 7.5m player miss a GW is a lot less annoying than a 12m player going AWOL. The more premiums you own the greater the chance of a really nasty surprise when the team sheets are announced. To this end I am spreading my funds and maintaining maximum flexibility. If that means having money ITB rather than all on the pitch then so be it .

I've seen a lot of wildcard RMTs with 3 premium players crowbarred in. Not only do I believe this is not the optimum way to play the game but also a great way to suck all the fun out of playing FPL. The game is effectively reduced to choosing the correct premium of the 3 to captain and if you get it wrong your GW is ruined. Meanwhile most of the rest of your team is churning out regular 2 pointers. Yuck. Why would anyone want to play the game this way?

It looks like at this point of the season the value formation is 3-4-3. Having started with a hybrid 4-4-2/3-5-2 which is my usual set-up I am in the process of transitioning. After 3 GWs I have had 3 GWORs between 1-2m which sees my current OR at 923k. Obviously not great but not a disaster either. I like my team and should be able to hang onto my wildcard through the big GW7 fixture shift.

In the past I have worried too much about missing out on the opportunity to boost my team value with an early wildcard and fearful that it won't be as useful later. The truth is though if I wildcard in GW7/8 I will have a very similar team to everyone else, many of whom I currently have less points than. Experience has shown that wildcarding with the herd means that there is actually less opportunity to boost TV. There will be other fixture swings later and they are likely to be bumper GWs for price changes as managers who have already played their wildcard will be taking hits to take advantage of the swing. Then of course there is a chance we have inclement weather and match postponements or have to go into lockdown again . Even if none of this applies fixture congestion over the festive period can be a problem as it isn't a trivial task to strengthen your bench without a wildcard.

There will be opportunities if you keep your powder dry .

[Oxford NZ]

Welcome back Dod and I trust the body and mind are healing well
Nice write up as usual.
Re the WC, I have blown mine this week as I am looking for a set and forget team. The NZ lockdown ends soon so back to work will mean less time, and I have realised that I enjoy watching football more than FPL. The entertainment is greatly enhanced if I do not have to worry if player x is going score.
Good luck and have fun. See you in the 5AS no doubt

[TheRumourMill]

Great to see you back. Looking forward to reading more of your musings on FPL strategy

[Malrom]

Welcome back, dod! Have a great start into the new season!!!!

[Malrom]

Welcome back Dod and I trust the body and mind are healing well
Nice write up as usual.
Re the WC, I have blown mine this week as I am looking for a set and forget team. The NZ lockdown ends soon so back to work will mean less time, and I have realised that I enjoy watching football more than FPL. The entertainment is greatly enhanced if I do not have to worry if player x is going score.
Good luck and have fun. See you in the 5AS no doubt

I know what you are talking about, Oxford NZ!
It is very different game with your FPL team in your mind!

[FranckKessie]

Great to see you back Dod. Hope life is treating you better and you are back at (almost) full speed!

[Stemania]

Yay! Welcome back!

Similar experience for me last year too.

[dod]

Thanks to everyone for their kind regards. Much appreciated .

Six Eggs or Ein Halbes Dutzend Eier?

Here's an interesting little conundrum I am facing with my current squad:

I started the season with a BHA double up - Sanchez GK & Dunk in defence - but I rather like the look of the Wolves fixtures and am considering transferring out one of them for either Sa or Semedo. There is no urgency to make the transfer this GW as BHA are away at BRE whereas WOL visit WAT which I consider pretty much a wash. Besides it would require a hit this GW and there is no way I can justify that. In GW5 however BHA host LEI while WOL have the better fixture at home to BRE so if I have no other pressing issues I will likely make the transfer. Let's consider the pros and cons:

1/ Bringing in Sa will cost me an extra 0.5m whereas replacing Dunk with Semedo may actually save me 0.1m - advantage Semedo

2/ The only player likely to move in price is Dunk. This issue might be moot as he could go down in price this GW anyway - advantage Semedo

3/ I am planning on saving my wildcard until much later in the season. Of course this might change, but all things being equal, I am much less likely to want to move on a GK than a defender. This might save me a transfer down the line - advantage Sa

4/ I have to play my GK every GW but there will certainly be GWs where I might bench a Wolves defender. Not for quite a while though - advantage Sa

5/ Which is the bigger upgrade? We can ignore CS pts as either way I will have one BHA and one WOL defensive asset, so it comes down to bonus, save points, and attacking threat. None of the players have had any bonus pts this season although Dunk did a little better than Semedo last year. A lot of that was down to his 5 goals however and this season Duffy seems Brighton's main man at set pieces. Semedo is probably a bigger attacking threat, at least for Wolves good fixture run. Sa has had a couple of save points whereas Sanchez has none. Sa has faced better opposition though. I'm not sure I've seen enough of them this season to really judge. I should probably watch the 3 episodes of MOTD and MOTD2 sitting in my TIVO and then I might have a better idea what I'm writing about - advantage Semedo

6/ My reserve GK is Steele (BHA) so if I lose Sanchez, and Sa is out injured or dropped, I won't have a GK that GW. If I lose Dunk then I have cover both at GK and in defence - advantage Semedo

So it looks like it's 4-2 in favour of Semedo but remember "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." In this case I think 1/ and 4/ are the most important considerations but your opinion may differ.

So what is the correct transfer? The choices are:

a) Sanchez Sa
b) Dunk Semedo
c)

Make your decision now and remember to show your workings .

All done?

Ready?

... drum roll ...

The correct answer is c)

Why?

Honestly this isn't meant as some sort of pointless trick question. Whichever transfer I decide on I'm still going to end up with one BHA and one WOL defensive asset. The points difference is likely to be minimal. Just look at how much thought and effort I put into this decision And it might not even happen. A lot can occur between now and GW5. Injuries during the international break or GW4, red cards, shinier options emerging, etc.

If you are anything like me you don't have unlimited time to spend on FPL. And if you are anything like me you probably don't make optimum use of that time. At the start of a season I can usually have a team I am pretty happy with within about half an hour. I then spend the next month agonising over my reserve GK and which non-playing 4.5m striker is least likely to fall in value or block future transfers

Sa or Sanchez isn't going to make or break my season. Just flip a coin and move on. I could have been watching the 3 episodes of MOTD rotting on my TIVO. I'm actually pretty good at judging players if I watch them. I used to make a fair bit of money from it . Nowadays my football knowledge is clearly the weakest part of my FPL game. I know this and yet I would still rather spend time on nonsense like the decision above .

When I was a professional backgammon player the most common mistake I would see among the top level players was spending too much time and effort on decisions that were very difficult to calculate because there was only a tiny difference between the options. Then within a move or two they would make a massive blunder because they had frazzled their brain. In FPL, as in life, one of the worst mistakes you can make is worrying too much about things that don't really matter.

A clever man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from other people's.

[Pirlo's Beard]

In FPL, as in life, one of the worst mistakes you can make is worrying too much about things that don't really matter.

Superb advice.

[Joccki_10]

A clever man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from other people's.

Nice!

As for the transfer, I’ve been thinking ofnSánchez to Guaita in GW9. I can probably categorize myself as a clever man.