The FPL market can be as confounding as its financial counterparts – and so it is that this week the most-bought player ahead of Gameweek 33 is the one with the most points this season. More than 400,000 fantasy football managers sold Erling Haaland before his blank in Gameweek 31; almost 300,000 brought him in for his whole two points in Gameweek 32; and now over a quarter of a million more have followed suit.
The catalyst, of course, is the prospect of a ‘double gameweek’ for the Manchester City frontman – one match against Arsenal, who appear to have gone off the boil in recent weeks, and another against the league’s season-long whipping-boys Burnley. He has not actually offered his owners any FPL joy since an assist in Gameweek 27 – way back on 21 February – but his recent FA Cup hat-trick against Liverpool is held up as cause for hope.
As you can see from the table below, the other two times Haaland has been the most transferred-in player of the week this term, he has immediately rewarded his new backers. Mind you, that was back in the autumn, ahead of Gameweeks 6 and 7, when he was in the middle of a red-hot streak of form. He actually racked up 98 FPL points in the first 10 matches of the season – versus 101 in the ensuing 22.
“Kudos to the wider market for targeting the more imaginative differentials of Cherki and Scott. Or is that just down to last week’s double-digit hauls?
Source: Fantasy Premier League
If he does manage an attacking return or two, he will break what has been a poor run for the market’s weekly favourite, as it is now four blanks since a Virgil goal in Gameweek 28 – with the actual zero from Thiaw in Gameweek 31 a particular low. The ratio of immediate joy to frustration for the biggest bandwagons now stands at 11 to 20, while the average points bagged by them is back down at 5 for the first time since Gameweek 15.
[Blast – that will teach me. Just ahead of posting this piece, I have made the rookie error of checking the latest figures and Dominic Calvert-Lewin has edged ahead of Haaland. Given the Leeds striker tops the ‘Goals imminent’ tables due to missing so many big chances in recent weeks, that does not necessarily negate many of my above points on the wider market’s psychology. Equally, this column is all about the mean reversion …]
Turning to our MeanReversionMachine portfolio, last week’s performance was only elevated above the average by two defenders – Liverpool’s Virgil banking a clean sheet and Manchester City’s Marc Guehi going one better by also channelling his inner-Lineker in the Chelsea six-yard box. Oh – and the bonus of a goal from Bournemouth’s Kroupi Junior, who we had only just brought into the team on our wild card.
As discussed last week, that was ahead of what looks set to be a pretty uninspiring Bench boost of our longstanding Burnley duo of Dubravka and E-Steve and our bargain-basement Leeds pairing of Ampadu and Gudmundsson. They all ‘double’ over the coming gameweek, alongside Guehi, Semenyo, Haaland, Pedro and the aforementioned Kroupi. Not ideal (thanks Arsenal) but, given the portfolio’s constraints, not awful either.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
Finishing up, as ever, with a regular look at our Herdwatch tables of the most bought and sold FPL assets of recent gameweeks, we have already covered the appearance of Haaland and DCL in the top-left chart – but kudos to the wider market for also targeting some more imaginative differentials: Cherki in the City midfield and Scott, ahead of Tavernier, for Bournemouth. Or is that just down to last week’s double-digit hauls?
Looking slightly longer-term, the bottom-right table shows the stand-out successes from the big ‘buys’ ahead of Gameweek 30 are Bruno and Thiago – perhaps, not uncoincidentally, the two single-gameweekers most feared by those who have packed their wildcard/free-hit Gameweek 33 teams with doublers. Who scores more? Scott or Bruno? DCL or Thiago? Let the madness commence …
Source: Fantasy Premier League
