“But yet the pity of it, Thiago! O Thiago, the pity of it, Thiago!” OK, so that is really the naughty Iago being addressed by Othello – but am I really the only fantasy football player to be feeling similarly about the Brentford striker? As I write, he has scored 16 goals in just 23 Premiership starts this season – but he has done so in the most frustrating manner for his FPL owners, past and present.
Thiago first popped up on fantasy football radars when he scored two goals (and 13 points) against Manchester United in Gameweek 6 but it was a five-goal run, including two further 13-point hauls, from Gameweek 11 to 13 that cemented him as a serious FPL asset – and all for around £6.5m too. Predictably enough, he topped the buy charts for the next two gameweeks – before accumulating a whole 14 points across his next six matches.
Now, the end of that dry spell happened to coincide with a very decent run of fixtures for Liverpool and, over the hectic Christmas schedule, Hugo Ekitiké duly supplanted Thiago in many active players’ teams. The result? Over Gameweeks 18 to 21, Ekitiké’s FPL scores were 5, 2 and then two non-playing zeros. Thiago’s meanwhile were 5, 2, 17 and 12!
Cue another market swing, with Thiago the most-bought players ahead of Gameweek 22. Since when, as you can see in the bottom-right of our Herdwatch tables at the end, he has managed six points – which, just to rub a little extra salt into the wound, is less than half the points Ekitiké racked up against Newcastle (the team Liverpool beat to his signature last summer).
To bring this sorry tale of points-chasing bang up to date, recent history has been repeating itself insofar as Thiago’s latest dry spell has happened to coincide with a very decent run of fixtures – this time for Chelsea. And so the wider market has again swung firmly away from Thiago and towards Blue’s striker and season-long yoyo (and thus poster boy for this column), Joao Pedro.
As the top two of our Herdwatch tables show, 600,000-odd people bought him in the week ahead of his 10-point haul off the bench against West Ham last weekend (though after his 12-pointer against Crystal Palace) and a similar number have bought him in the week since. As a result, he storms into the MeanReversionMachine portfolio in place of Thiago, while team-mate Chalobah replaces Liverpool’s Virgil in defence:
“As Iago himself observes in Othello: ‘How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?’
Source: Fantasy Premier League
And this is where I have really begun to appreciate the appeal of tracker funds – not as a cheap way to gain market exposure but as an easy ‘out’ from tough decisions. Pedro for Thiago in MeanReversionMachine? Boom – follow the market and no comebacks. Pedro for Thiago in the portfolio adviser’s own team? Days and days of mental wrangling, constant ‘final decisions’ reneged upon and likely a tortured call made just before deadline.
Making things worse is the fact I had always intended to bring in Pedro for Thiago when I wildcarded a few weeks back but, amid a crowded schedule for Chelsea, I grew concerned for his minutes. That decision was somewhat validated when he was benched against West Ham last Saturday – and then totally blown up when, after Chelsea played so atrociously in the first half, he was brought on for the second and scored those 10 points.
Instead, then, I stuck with Thiago on the basis I would likely buy him a few weeks down the line for his own run of attractive fixtures and thus, in a rare attempt to play FPL like a grown-up, I elected to save myself two transfers. As I say, I have been wrestling with reversing that decision for the best part of two weeks – and may well continue to do so through next week should I hold firm ahead of today’s 6.30pm deadline.
With a few hours to go, only two things are keeping me resolute: first, the knowledge that Newcastle, the next team Thiago faces, have shipped nine goals in the last four games, including five at home; and another Othello quote I gleaned from Professor Google as I, ahem, ‘researched’ this piece. This time it is Iago himself, observing: “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
Right, English Literature lesson over, let’s briefly check out the MeanReversionMachine portfolio’s performance last weekend. As you can see below, another bang-average week was raised high by the ongoing good form of Gabriel and Raya of Arsenal, Semenyo of Manchester City and Manchester United talisman Bruno Fernandes – and brought low by, among others, our perma-captain Erling Haaland.
As for our Herdwatch tables of the most bought and sold players in recent weeks, I have already drawn your attention to Thiago’s three-week sequence in the bottom right-hand corner below. The line that really catches my eye, however, is the 22 points racked up by Matheus Cunha – all in less than two hours of playing time. Widely viewed as the third-best choice United midfielder after Bruno and Bryan Mbeumo, it will be interesting to see if his more, let us say, self-interested style of play will make him a better FPL asset in the new Carrick regime as opposed to the more team-oriented Mbeumo.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
