Should we just call it quits after two bites of the new season? As flagged last time in Maxime … um … conviction, 50% of Mean Reversion Machine’s mandate is to dwell upon instances of kneejerk, impulsive and herdlike behaviour of fantasy football players – and its immediate rewards. And already we have the most transferred-in player of the first week of open trading, Brighton’s Maxime de Cuyper, returning zero. Zip. Zilch.
After racking up 17 points in Gameweek 1, with a goal, an assist, clean sheet and two bonus points, the always attack-minded and currently out-of-position fullback saw four goals fly into his own net while contributing nothing to the three his team scored down the other end. Clearly, after such a perfect embodiment of the madness of crowds, you would imagine the only way for Mean Reversion Machine is down.
And you may well imagine correctly. Yet that would be to misunderstand the portfolio mindset – admittedly a work in progress – which is to remain sanguine that heading down and up, rinse and repeat, is all part of the joy of mean reversion. Adding fuel to the tank, meanwhile, we have the interesting little irony that de Cuyper remains so popular he is one of our first two portfolio changes of the new FPL season.
The aforementioned sanguinity – which appears to be an actual word – allows us to draw comfort from his next two games being at home to Leeds and away to newly-promoted Coventry. That presents a more solid case for investment – at least in the short term – than past performance and Arsenal new boy Konsa duly makes way. It will be a surprise, however, if that trade is not reversed before very much time has passed.
The portfolio adviser has even less faith in the sustainability of our other ‘buy’ – Cherki of Manchester City – but rules is rules. A good two gameweeks for the mercurial midfielder has seen him attract more than one and a half million new owners ahead of the home game with Coventry this weekend. Cherki is now the game’s third most-owned midfielder so in he comes and out goes United’s Mbeumo, leaving the portfolio looking like this:
“The portfolio mindset – admittedly a work in progress – is to remain sanguine that heading down and up, rinse and repeat, is all part of the joy of mean reversion.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
My suspicion is that many FPL players would have originally intended to transfer out Mbeumo’s teammate, the £12m Bruno Fernandes, as a way of freeing up cash ahead of, among other things, a nice little run of games for Chelsea – but that plan became a whole lot tougher to execute after the United captain scored 23 points against Ipswich last weekend.
Roughly seven in every 10 players will be hoping for a similar sort of performance from Haaland in that game against Coventry – and indeed there has been much discussion on FPL message boards about whether there will be a better time to play the Triple Captain chip in the first half of the season. Time will tell but, with a Fantasy Football Scout survey suggesting some 40% of players would do so this weekend, our own ‘TC’ chip is active.
A more portfolio-specific reason for doing this is another of the Mean Reversion Machine rules – that we must always captain the market’s most-owned player, which meant we had to give the armband to Joao Pedro last time out. The Chelsea striker managed a creditable nine points but that was some way behind the Norwegian marksman – let alone Bruno – and so we are striking while the Haaland iron is hot. And available to us.
Despite that self-imposed and inflicted captaincy ‘miss’, it was another strangely good week for the portfolio. As you can see below, in addition to those aforementioned scores from our own captain and everybody else’s, there were strong contributions from Arsenal pair Calafiori and Raya, Leeds striker Calvert-Lewin and poor old Mbeumo, whose reward for a goal, an assist and two bonus points is to be the most-sold player of the week.
Which brings us neatly to this week’s Herdwatch tables of the heaviest trading of recent weeks. Early days it may be but there are still some interesting talking points as the most-bought players – Cherki perhaps accepted – look rather more considered than the previous week. Newcastle duo Wissa and Elanga ahead of a great run of fixtures, new cut-price darling Ajayii of Hull and Brentford’s powerhouse-in-the-making Sangare all stand out.
As for the biggest offloads, a round of early wildcards may be focussing the market’s attention more on Chelsea and Newcastle assets – and reasonably so, given their immediate schedules. To a greater or less extent, Semenyo, Szoboszlai and Mbeumo may still come back to haunt their sellers – even Ndiaye? – though probably not so dramatically as with the 200,00-plus who bade farewell to Bruno ahead of last weekend’s mega-haul.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
