‘Fomo’ – it is how the youth of today abbreviate the concept of ‘fear of missing out’, your honour – is as big a behavioural trap in fantasy football as it is in investing. Possibly more so, if you consider the recent surge in the stock of Rayan Cherki, the Manchester City midfielder who was bought by more than half a million managers ahead of Gameweek 07 and went on to play as many minutes as he scored points. Zero, to be precise.
In fairness, he had hauled 18 points over the previous two gameweeks but was then one of three players hooked at half-time in the Champions League when City were trailing Paris Saint Germain 3-0 at home. Confusing things still further, a week later he was excellent against the admittedly lesser opposition of AEK Athens – a game in which one midfield rival (Foden) scored a hat-trick while two others (Doku and Ndiaye) did not feature.
Given that information, one might reasonably conclude Cherki enjoys something like a 20-minute cameo against Aston Villa this Saturday – and yet he is comfortably the second most-bought player ahead of Gameweek 08, with more than 400,000 new owners. Indeed, so popular has the Cherki trade become that his ownership has increased some 50% over the last fortnight and he now features in two-fifths of all FPL squads.
Pretty vacant
So what exactly is it I am not seeing here? In a week when injuries to a trio of highly-owned midfielders – Saka of Arsenal, Semenyo of City and Szoboszlai of Liverpool – not to mention the dreadful form of Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes must be creating one or more vacancies in most active FPL squads, Cherki has barely featured in online conversations about possible replacements, either above or below the line.
On the hunt for a Saka replacement in my own squad, I have settled ‘once and for all’ – sometimes more than once – on Gibbs-White of Forest, Manzambi of Villa, Mbeumo of United, Rogers of Chelsea, Tavernier of Bournemouth and even, in my more risk-off moments, Foden. Yet not once have I considered Cherki. As I say, presumably Fomo is to blame – though, for my part, it is what I may have missed that is giving me the fear.
Back in the comparatively tranquil surroundings of the Mean Reversion Machine portfolio, no mental gymnastics, second-guessing or fear of any kind is required. As flagged last week, the injury to Szoboszlai has seen him heavily sold over the last fortnight and so in comes Palmer to join his teammates Rogers and Joao Pedro and thus complete the entire Chelsea front three ahead of their home tie against Spurs.
Three players from a single team – let alone from the same half of the pitch – always feels bullish but, looking at the FPL market trends (and the portfolio’s own budget), it may well be something we soon see mirrored in defence with three representatives from Arsenal. Is a ‘focused index’ strategy a contradiction in terms? We will cross that bridge as and when we come to it but, for now, the portfolio looks like this:
“Rayan Cherki, the Manchester City midfielder, was bought by more than half a million FPL managers ahead of Gameweek 07 and went on to play as many minutes as he scored points. Zero, to be precise.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
Turning to our latest performance, even with the derisory contributions of Cherki and Szoboszlai, the portfolio rose to an overall rank in the 700,000s on the back of another first-quartile week. As you can see, two goals from captain Haaland, one from Calvert-Lewin (who has a great set of fixtures on the horizon should he manage to stay fit) and clean sheets from Raya, Calafiori and De Cuyper brought home the majority of our bacon:
Finishing as always with our ‘Herdwatch’ round-up of the most bought and sold assets in the game, the top-left table highlights FPL managers’ current preoccupations with their midfield. Bournemouth’s Tavernier has emerged as the most popular choice – admittedly with an unusually low number of buyers – while Brighton defender De Cuyper, currently the game’s highest-scoring asset, is the only representative from other positions.
Just how well he and teammate Gross have been doing is clearly shown in the bottom right-hand table meanwhile – and it will be interesting to see how they and the rest of the Sussex Barcelona now fare in consecutive away ties against Liverpool this weekend and City on Halloween. A scary prospect you would imagine – although those Gameweek 05 scores were notched up in the 3-0 win against Arsenal so perhaps nothing holds any fear for Brighton these days. We should be so lucky.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
