MINUS 4 PAY$ OFF

Going into GW11 I took a minus 4. I actually did it very early - literally as GW10 ended.

Haaland and Dibling OUT. Salah and Jackson IN.

In some ways I'd already pushed myself towards it writing that last post. (It's incredible how the process of writing can help you work through your own thinking.)  It just seemed to make sense. The fixture wasn't good for Jackson, but it just made the team feel so much better. Luckily having Salah captain made all the difference.

62 (-4) points. Avg. 49

Not a blistering week, but pretty decent. A bit of a green arrow up to 1,849,110. 

Now, with my team structure fairly set, it should just be a case of tinkering from here on in. Foden to Saka perhaps. Calvert-Lewin to Cunha or Wissa. Bruno Fernandes in??

There are so many options at the moment.

I still like Madueke for the Chelsea fixtures. Isak is doing well. Evanilson at Bournemouth. Semenyo too. I have just enough money in the bank to do Calvert-Lewin to Havertz as well, which I'm not really feeling, but looks nice on paper as it covers Arsenal's attack and allows me to leave the Saka spot for Foden/Fernandes/some other expensive mid.

Again, so many options.

Also, it's worth noting how lucky I've been with the keeper situation. Pickford has been great since I brought him in, and now Fabianski seems to be first choice for West Ham too. If that continues it'll be ideal, as Everton's fixtures are dreadful GW15-18. So Fabianski gives perfect cover.

Anyway, I'll leave it there for now.

Between Halloween and Bonfire Night: GW10 - Gwan-Bissaka

Last gameweek it was gwan Bissaka, as in 'Go On!' Bissaka.

This gameweek it's gwan Bissaka, as in 'Go Away.'

I played him ahead of Gabriel last week, and that gained me an extra point - which I'm very grateful for. However, on the eve of GW10 I've taken him out, bringing in Aït-Nouri, another hyphenated Premier League superstar. It feels a little unfair, but it's all part of a plan..

GW9 Points

58 points (avg. 54)

I dropped by about 100k to around 1.6m. It felt mediocre, but given some people were using their triple captain, I don't feel it was too bad a week all in all. It was a week that highlighted problems with my team though.

Problems..

The first obvious negative is that I don't have Salah or Saka. You could probably add Alexander-Arnold to that list too. I wouldn't really describe this as a 'mistake' type problem though, as you just can't have all these high end players. So I don't have any feelings of self-criticism.

What I do need to criticise myself for, however, is the amount of weak spots in my team. Normally I like to have players with genuine potential in every position. That is definitely not the case here, alas. When I wildcarded a few weeks back I was so focused on getting Palmer, Haaland and (at the time) Salah I neglected this normal mode of playing. (Again, this season - with me trying to 'copy the template' and not having a real interest at the start - has threw me off a bit. Now I finally feel like I'm starting to sharpen up.)

My original plan this week was to continue focusing on the big hitters. I was going to downgrade either Gvardiol or Gabriel (both are currently yellow-flagged) to Aït-Nouri. That would've freed up the extra cash needed to upgrade the Foden spot to Salah at some point in the future. However, refocusing my attention on the overall team has changed that plan. Hence the switch of Wan-Bissaka out. A clear upgrade, instead of a sideways move. It does mean I'm hoping (or rather, wishful thinking) that both Gabriel and Gvardiol will either start tomorrow or not come off the bench.

How I'm looking.

I would've been playing Faes anyway had I have went with the other plan, so this at least offers the potential for more upside. I'm also hedging my bets with Gvardiol and Gabriel.

GOING FORWARD.

Going forward my plan is to change Foden to Saka, (in GW12 hopefully), and to perhaps upgrade the benched Stewart to Wissa next week. Although I'm also considering switching Dibling to Madueke (I like the idea of having an extra Chelsea player, but not next week when they face Arsenal).

So basically, I've decided I'm going to stick with Haaland and not have Salah for the foreseeable future. Go Haaland, Saka and Palmer. Then just focus on upgrading the weak spots.

 - Having to play one of Faes/Van den Berg/Wan-Bissaka was an obvious weak spot.

 - Dibling is a fairly weak first eleven player.

 - Finally, Calvert-Lewin hasn't been great, but at least there is some realistic potential of returns there.

So that's the general outline of a plan.

Ideally I think I'd like to roll the transfer next week, but Rogers facing Liverpool away and Dibling not getting full minutes could force my hand. Dibling is such a great enabler at that price. If I kept playing him ( - even if he plays the fixtures are awful it must be said), I could do Foden to Saka and still have the cash left to do Calvert-Lewin to Nicolas Jackson (I really would love that extra Chelsea attacker. So far this season they've only lost against City and Liverpool - so against lesser teams they've been very effective. After Arsenal that fixture run is great 😍).

Maybe I could just play one of the weak cheap defenders after all ??

Incidentally, if I was wildcarding now I'd most certainly be going Salah over Haaland. That extra cash would solve so many of these problems. So I should really start considering that possibility myself. GW13 - where City play Liverpool - could be a good week to pivot off Haaland to bring in Salah the week after.

Upgrading Dibling to Salah and downgrading Haaland to Jackson does look very appealing!

Definitely lots of thinking to do as we enjoy the weekend's fixtures :)

GW9: Slowly, Slowly..

I'm slowly worming my way into the season. My last post was just a picture of my wildcard team. Since then we've had two gameweeks.

GW7 brought me 47 points (1 above the average), which gained me a tiny, tiny green arrow.

GW8 brought me 49 points (the average was a lowly 36), so I did quite nicely.

I'm now up to 1,512,457, so I'm heading in the right direction.

Last week's transfer was Palmer to Foden. That netted me 2 points, thanks to Foden's off-the-bench assist. This week I'm planning to bring Palmer back in, this time for Salah, who faces Arsenal.

This is how I'm looking:

I'm not sure about the benching of Gabriel for Wan-Bissaka. It doesn't feel too wise, but I'm going with my instinct. In fact, the whole backline doesn't look wholly inspiring, though they do all have home games and decent fixtures.

After this week I'm not really sure what my plans are. I'm kinda just playing by ear at this point. I'm definitely getting the enjoyment back, after my attempts to 'follow the template,' that's for sure.

GW7: Wildcard Active

Classic 4-4-2 Formation.

Abandon All Plans !

Very quick update. The plan to "follow the template" until Christmas has completely gone out of the window. I just haven't been following fpl well enough to even know what the template is. It's been very hard to get invested in fpl when I haven't been picking my own players and doing things my own way.

In hindsight it might have been a good time to trial another "Gamemonth Management" season, but I've missed that boat too.

So now, I'm just going to play it my way :)

I'm going to wildcard tonight, pick my own team, and hopefully start enjoying things and paying attention.

My current rank is 2,187,602. Nothing I haven't seen before at this stage of the season. Meaning I can just crack on and aim for a decent rank.

Hopefully my posts will be a bit more frequent from here on in.

GW2/3 - It's So Hard To Follow The Template

This following the template lark is hard. Firstly, I'm a little disappointed, as I think I've ruined the whole experiment by not nailing the template properly, and also by not keeping on top of things these first few weeks. The Template is one of those things you kind of just know - you know it when you see it. However, to know it you need to be plugged in to what's going on in FPL. As I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in the weeks preceding GW1 I just didn't have a clue. It was lazy of me.

I think Saka is definitely template. Now I've started paying attention I see him in pretty much every team. It's not surprising given his nice price relative to other options. Again, something I would've known instinctively had I been paying attention.

Since the start I've tried to follow the template with my transfers too. I've been too lacklustre and slow off the mark though, meaning I've missed quite a few price changes. (One of the benefits of 'following the template' is you get those bandwagon/herd mentality point ones. So this is another example of my laziness spoiling my little experiment.)

MOVES

Last week, when Solanke got injured, I had a decision to make in regard cheap forward options. The template move was to go with Muniz. My instinctive desire was to go with Southampton's Adam Armstrong - mainly to save £0.5m. I went with the template choice, of course - true to my plan. It was quite a good illustration of the type of difference in decision making I was expecting. It felt so wrong going against my instincts. I didn't like doing it, but even though I haven't quite nailed the template start I'm determined to stick with it.

This week I've made two transfers. I've actually took a (-4). Another thing I would normally never be doing this early in the season. I downgraded Nkunku to Rogers, and I upgraded Gordon to Saka.

So now I am looking very template. The only other clear template player I don't own is Fulham's Robinson.

GW2 Score

72 points (avg. 69)

As you can see, I benched Gordon's 10 pointer. This was another 'chasing the template' mistake. Had I been playing my normal game I'd have never benched Gordon in a million years. However, I was watching fpl content and so many people were sticking with Nkunku for another game. Likewise, there was the usual talk of Gordon being poor away from home. So I was thinking, "What would a template manager do?", and stuck Nkunku in. This was a mistake, and not because it cost me points, but because the logic was faulty. Just because I'm following the template doesn't mean I should make daft decisions in regard my own specific team. Gordon was always more likely to play than Nkunku. So that was an error in judgement in more than one way.

My current rank is now 3,773,406. So not a great start. Now I've taken a (-4) that'll be a further dent. It's still early days though, 

GW1: Template Let's Go

So, I had my first template week. This is the team I ended up going with. I saw it on a Let's Talk FPL video; where someone had put together the average affordable Twitter team.

59 points (avg. 57 - very template)

I think this is probably a good approximate of the template, as it was going into that first week. I've seen a few teams with Saka. So that's the one player I feel could be missing. Though that might be more my feeling that he should be in there, as I'd have no doubt had him in there if I was playing normally.

It was a weird first week. As I'd just copied (or tried to copy) the template I didn't feel any emotional investment in the team whatsoever. So it kind of passed me by. Now it's a question of how I continue to follow 'the template' over the next few months. Clearly, different people will now be making different moves, so unless there's an obvious bandwagon, it isn't entirely apparent what I should do.

At the moment my plan is just to roll the transfer. It might be easier to keep to the template with two frees next week.

I've also been thinking that I don't need to be entirely strict now that first week is out of the way. I just need to be mindful of broadly where the template is and not stray too far. So that means sticking with the template formation. Making sure I have the players that almost everyone in the "fpl community" has. Going with the template captain. If I have minor problems that need fixing, or there are marginal decisions about bench players, etc, I can still use that leeway to make my own choices.

The most transferred player in so far this week is Mazraoui. I don't know if that's an fpl thing or more a Man Utd thing at the moment, but with Porro flagged I'll keep an eye on that going into tomorrow.

I am starting to feel it a bit more now as well - that enjoyment is coming back. So hopefully I continue to grow into the season.