FPL Investments

If you want growth you need investment. A calculated loan on the back of future earnings, to invest in improvements that will add value over time, and grow that future income. Here at fplzebub we're all about widening our pool of talent and upgrading our infrastructure. To take the necessary steps to ensure we don't just compete, but stay ahead of our rivals. Hence today we're announcing a MINUS 4 to sign Ollie Watkins, ahead of the big Christmas period.

(We'd also like to welcome to the team Josh Brownhill.)

The Story So Far..

Before we get to that though, let's take a look at past earnings.

GW13: A slightly sullen 45 points

(avg. 46)

GW14: Exceeding analyst expectations,

80 points (avg. 54)

GW15: Once again outperforming the

market, 43 points (avg. 35)

These impressive results over the last quarter (sorry, I'll knock the market speak on the head now) have resulted in a huge uptick in rank. I'm currently sat at 126k, which I'm very pleased with.

The flags, along with the blank of GW18, have presented me with a bit of a dilemma though. I always begrudge wasting points on transfers. It usually feels so profligate. However, this time I feel it's worthwhile in order to keep on top of things.

Obviously I needed to transfer out the injured Mbeumo. I also wanted to bring in Watkins though, especially for the blank. Originally I was planning to just downgrade Mbeumo this week, then make the move for Watkins after the Arsenal game. (Or even wait until next week to make both transfers - I would've been more than happy to play Archer this week.) Then the news of Son's injury appeared.

On top of this I have just the right amount of money in the bank to do Archer & Mbeumo to Brownhill & Watkins. So I'm sailing a little close to the wind on point-ones. Emptying the bank completely would likewise make it impossible to transfer out Al-Dakhil, should I need to. Who's now dropped down to 3.9m ..annoyingly.

Blank GW18

I want to keep hold of both Alvarez and Haaland, so after using those initial two transfers for Waktins and Brownhill I would've been left with just one transfer to muddle through GW18. With the other bench spot being taken up by the now non-playing Al-Dakhil.

A minus 4 this week really helps to smooth things over though.

Ollie Watkins is in place. Brownhill is a handy playing bench option (if Son does miss out this week), with half-decent fixtures, who can play in GW18. Plus, I now have two more transfers before then to fix issues. If Son is fine it'll be a case of downgrading a keeper to Dubravka and upgrading Al-Dakhil, getting me a bit of bench coverage. If not (or if other issues appear) I've got some leeway to navigate things (hopefully).

Son to Saka would be a pretty straightforward move, so in some ways Son going would remove another potential source of damage.

I've been a little lucky these last few weeks. I am going very much with my instincts now though, so it feels like we're in the slipstream. Skating or surfing along the wave of the season. With a bit more luck things will continue like this.

How it's currently looking.

Oh, and as one final aside. I'm really enjoying owning the Burnley and Luton keepers. That single clean sheet I got from Trafford, plus the odd save points I've been picking up, mean I've actually ended up better off than I would've been with Areola. Albeit only slightly.

Obviously, on paper it looks a complete waste of money, and were it not for the bench boost earlier I certainly wouldn't have had either. In fact, the plan was always to downgrade at least one the moment a free transfer became available. It's worked out quite differently however, and it's added a little bit of variance. A fun little differential I get to watch each week. Both teams are looking a tiny bit more competitive in the league too.

FPL: Steady Sailing

My three gameweeks since the last post have been average, average, good. In GWs 10 & 11 I finished a little below the average, in GW12 a fair bit above. Consequently, I'm now about 50k higher overall than I was back then :)

GW10: 60 points (avg. 66)

GW11: 29 points (avg. 32)

GW12: 86 points (avg. 64)

I benched Tsimikas for that 15 pointer, which was slightly annoying. Putting Kabore in wasn't the brightest idea, although saying that, United haven't been too bright in front of goal, and in the end I was just a goal away from the clean sheet. So not quite as appalling as it looks on paper. It does mean I can keep hold of Tsimikas too. I was thinking he'd be a sell this week.

I'm not sure what I'll do now going forward. Sadly we have yet another international break, so the flow is broken once again. Whenever we have an international break I always pretty much just switch off. I think it's largely pointless making plans so far from the gameweek deadline. It's best just to accept that fpl is cancelled for the week and then get on with doing other things. I'll come back next week with a fresh pair of eyes. Plus, I've been working all weekend, meaning I'm still yet to see any of the weekend's highlights. So I can watch Match of the Day 2 at leisure, and savour my Ward-Prowse points.

Oh, and I took out Saka last week (along with the injured Maddison) to bring in Son and Bowen. Only time will tell how much this will dent me. It's not a move I particularly fear, but Saka picked up another return this week and the Arsenal fixtures are good, giving me a tiny worry. I also worry that Son will be a lesser option with Maddison now injured.  I'm quite happy with my team though, and it's fairly easy to switch these midfielders around.

Current Rank: 401,855

On The UP !

I've had two good gameweeks since my bench boost. The first almost entirely down to having Salah captain. The second pretty much my whole team did well.

GW8: 57 points (avg. 44)

GW9: 99 points (avg. 67)

I brought Tsimikas in this week, and Pedro Porro last, so I've strengthened that bench boost backline up. (You can see I suffered a (-1) thanks to still having Al-Dakhil in there in GW8. The keeper didn't do me too many favours either.). It meant I had to forgo bringing in Son as well, but with Mbeumo finally getting me some points it worked out okay.

I'm now probably going to bring in Saka for Mbeumo as we head into GW10. I like this period of the season: the wildcard is out of the way, and it's just a case of keeping the team in trim with a transfer here and there each week. Obviously I would like to own Son and Watkins along with Saka, but given there's little I can do about it there's little point worrying. It's just a case of keeping the good ship sailing.

I'll only really start making long term plans again once we head into double gameweek territory.

My current rank is 454,270 - so much better than where I previously was, around the 1.8m mark.

I've also built up a bit of team value thanks to that early wildcard. I'm currently at 101.6m. That might not sound spectacular to many people, but normally I always tend to have a team value that hovers around the 100m mark. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have an extra 0.5m or so. I think it's because I'm not too good at following the template early on in the season. So weirdly that decision to wildcard and bench boost has paid off more in team value than in bench boost points.

More luck than judgement, but I'm more than happy to take it.

The BENCH BOOST: results

I got 13 points from my bench boost. So what follows is sheer cope.

56 points in all ..and I took a minus 4 too. Though, to be fair, that was primarily to bring Son in, so I would've had to do it this week anyway.

I'm actually not entirely disappointed with the 13 points, it could've been much worse with that fixture against Newcastle. In fact, the two save points I got from Trafford in that game turned out to be the high point.

Had each player picked up 2 points per game that would've made 14, so 13 is about par for expectation. I was dreaming of a clean sheet, especially in the Luton vs Burnley fixture, but it was always more hope than expectation. So I've got my par for the course and I can now look forward to the rest of the season without the hassle of worrying about when to play it. (I did say this was cope.)

Past Bench Boosts

I'm actually going to have a look back at my previous seasons to see what my usual average for the bench boost is. I'll do it on the fly. As I type now I have no idea what past seasons were like. I know last season was bad, and I have a vague recollection that the season before was something of a disaster too. I think these experiences probably colour my current feelings towards it.

Anyway, I'll go and have a look at my past blog posts..

[Some time later..]

Last season: 8 points

I captained Haaland and I'm guessing he was rested. I also received 0 points for Virgil Van Dijk and vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold that week. So not good. Though last season I was playing monthly, so my options for using the bench boost were somewhat limited.

Season 21/22: 3 points

Ouch. No wonder I have PTSD when it comes to bench boosting 😄. I was slightly unlucky with that one, as Konsa missed both games of a double. Though I think the other three players just had the one fixture, so it wasn't the greatest brainwave in the world to play it.

Season 20/21: 29 points

This one's a bit more like it. I had to do a bit of maths to tally it up. Antonio getting a huge 18 points alone. Making this week's tally of 13 look somewhat puny and wasteful.

Season 19/20: 22 points

Another decent use of the bench boost. This one was during the Covid restart, back in the summer of 2020, so it all just feels very weird though. It's a miracle I managed to focus on football with the Stasi breathing down my neck.

Season 18/19: 23 points

Another good haul, this time with a very Brighton-looking bench.

Seeing these 20-plus scores, along with the much older and poorer graphics, is making it dawn on me how foolish it was to play my bench boost this week. No wonder I was one of the only people going this route. I think those last two seasons really have skewered my perception of the chip. Still though, 13 points isn't too bad, and it's certainly better than 3.

..And that's as far as the blog posts go back.

/////////////

Also, as an aside, when I was searching back I did find this old fpl meme.

It's quite fitting, as my bench boost has probably put me about that much higher than the average this gameweek.

The Bench Boost remains active..

A quick update on the wildcard. Overall it went quite well. However, there was a touch of bad luck with Rodri getting sent off. That messed up my longer term plans a little. Though, saying that, I did get a bit of good luck too, as I took the red-carded Gusto out of my side. Not to mention Chilwell and Wan-Bissaka, who are now both injured. So, all in all, more good luck than bad in truth.

(75 points - the average was 68,

Rodri the main downside)

So, the planned Bench Boost.

Common sense says that it should have been cancelled. It was somewhat unwise to begin with, given the players that have doubles. With Newcastle looking imperious (it's not hard to imagine they'll do similar to Burnley), and flags all over the place, it should now most certainly be cancelled.

That's not what I'm doing though. The fun of playing it has overruled any fears and caution 😬

I've actually taken a minus 4.

(Hopefully Trafford and Al-Dakhil don't

end up in negative territory against Newcastle)

I've removed Rodri and Saka, to bring in Ward-Prowse and Gordon.

I switched Rodri to Ward-Prowse at the end of GW6 - I had just enough to make the move. The Rodri to Saka switch was literally made about half an hour ago. My original plan was to bring in Son for Saka in GW8, but the Rodri red card really messed up those plans, eating up both my free transfer and the 0.5m I hoped to reserve to make the move.

However, the option of bringing in Gordon for Saka, to then move Mbeumo to Son next week, really appealed to me (bringing in Mbeumo is the one wildcard choice I do regret a bit - I should've done a bit more homework). Either way the two moves would've meant a minus 4, either this week or next. So going early gets me ahead of the curve and also allows me to re-activate the bench boost.

It's a very risky bench boost, especially with players in the first eleven at risk of missing out, but I want to take the gamble. I'll enjoy my weekend more with the added chips on the table. Especially if Burnley don't do too badly against Newcastle. (I would've hated going into that midweek game with the players on the bench, knowing I could've went for it.)

And if it all backfires at least I'll go into GW8 with the players I want (assuming Son remains fit and so forth).

My current rank is 1,962,710, so I got a tiny uptick. It's not a great position to be in, but I'm feeling optimistic. Foolishly.

Wildcard Time

Great week to wildcard. I think I've picked a good opportunity.

My GW5, like many people's, was pretty woeful. 36 points in the end, with the average being 44.

With that luxury transfer I brought in Jimenez for Wissa. It seemed like a fun one week punt, what with Fulham being home to Luton. It didn't come good, however, I got one more point than I would've got with Wissa, so it didn't hurt me.

Wildcard

 

My plan is to bench boost in GW7. The bench I'll have for that isn't very exciting. I currently don't even have an attacker from Burnley or Luton. I don't want to sacrifice my main team for the bench boost though, so I'm just going sheer numbers.

Three 4.0m defenders.

Both keepers.

So I'll have five players with two games, though all with low potential.

Obviously, the three cheap defenders will mean one has to be in my starting eleven. I have 0.5m in the bank though. Plus, once the double is out the way I'll be able to downgrade both keepers to free up cash. One to Areola, one to a 4.0m. So I should be able to upgrade that position in time.

My plan is to roll the transfer in GW7 and then bring in Son for Saka in GW8. I'll downgrade a keeper then with the other transfer if I need an extra 0.1m to do that. These plans rarely come to fruition how you hope though, so that's pencilled in rather than inked in.

As for the team..

I really felt like I needed Salah. The expense is annoying, but he's so consistent, and there's always that likelihood that he will go big. I'd like to have players like Chilwell and Fernandes in there for the potential, but in the end I can't sacrifice certainty for potential. So it's one less expensive midfielder and defender to get Salah.

I want to keep Estupinan. Potentially he could change before the deadline, but he's so attacking I just instinctively feel I need to have him in there.

I think Maddison and Mbeumo explain themselves. (Mbeumo could easily become Diaby if Brentford look like they're dropping off.)

The issue of Champions League worries me a little with Trippier, but other than that he seems like the obvious Newcastle pick. The wider question for me is do I double up in defence on Newcastle. It feels foolish chasing clean sheets this season, however with Newcastle I get the sense that they can keep teams out.

Then finally we get to the three Manchester City options. Or rather two, ignoring Haaland.

I think if you're wildcarding you have to go with Alvarez. Sure, there's always that rotation concern, but he's flying, as are City. (Any thoughts of getting Clinton Morris in for my bench boost have completely gone out the window. The two City, plus the cheap playing Archer as a bench option, is just too simple and sensible to ignore.)

The more interesting pick is Rodri. Originally I had Ward-Prowse in there as my cheaper fifth mid - who I think is a great price and pick. When I watched City in the Champions League last night though it just reanimated my interest in Rodri. He seems to have picked up the Gundogan role. The way City play, with so much of the ball, knocking it around on the edge of the box, means it's going to fall to him at times. As it did last night.

It would be stupid to expect big, or even consistent returns from him, but with City being the best team by a good yard it's hard not to like the idea of having a full compliment. Especially at these prices.

I'm happy to accept the rotation risk in general. It could ruin my bench boost though, which is the big fear. However, I'm really just seeing that bench boost as a bonus opportunity. Having five double gameweek players, when most people have one or none, *could* give me a nice advantage - if I'm lucky.

Either way, with the wildcard, I'm finally getting a team I feel instinctively good about.

Double Gameweek: Bench Boost Time

So, surprisingly, that Luton vs Burnley game has now been penned in for GW7 - meaning a double gameweek.

Burnley play Newcastle (A) and Luton (A)

Luton play Everton (A) and Burnley (H)

I haven't thought about things a great deal since the announcement, but still, I'm almost certain to now wildcard GW6 and bench boost in GW7. This doesn't seem especially popular, no doubt for very sensible reasons, however, the idea has appealed to me since the fixture was originally cancelled at the start of the season.

There are a few reasons why I like the idea..

Firstly, it gets it out of the way.

That doesn't sound like a compelling reason, but I always find the bench boost annoying as we move into the second half of the season. It completely ruins the natural flow for me. Uprooting your team just to bench boost in that one week - usually for sub par results. On top of that the need to have fifteen nailed on players that week to make sure it doesn't go to waste. It turns the sprint to the finish into the hundred meter hurdles.

In fact, this is one of my theories about fpl (I may have mentioned this on here before). I think the first half of the season favours people with more of a herd mentality, whereas the second half favours those that go it alone. I'm definitely the latter, so I tend to start badly (getting hammered by the template), then recover ground in the second half as the template dissolves.

It's a bit silly (from a logic point of view) to go against the template early on. After all, it's the sum total knowledge of the whole fpl community, including the very, very good managers with great track records (who naturally have a disproportionate, but deserved influence). Plus, these days: AI.

So, if you're someone that tends to follow the crowd, you can follow that template - effectively copy the general team the big fpl faces are going with - and get a fairly decent start relative to casual players that have no idea what the template is, and idiots like me, that see it, know it well, but still choose to avoid it.

Over time however the template breaks down. There'll still be a weekly template in essence, but it becomes impossible for everyone to follow it, as all those little differences over the course of the season accumulate. The different bench picks, the different team values, etc. So you can see the template (or other people's teams), but it's a struggle to get there. Plus, by this point all the really, really good managers - the big faces and talking heads - will also have teams that have diverged from each other, so if you are just copying other people you're faced with the dilemma of who to copy.

So at this point some people get lost in the sea of opinion. Perhaps taking hits, etc, just to get the player everyone's going for this particular week, instead of doing what's best for their own particular team, which by this point is naturally unique.

Contrariwise, if you're happy doing your own thing, it now gets easier, as you're just solely focused on piloting your own course. The template becomes irrelevant, as you can't reach it anyway.

I should really do a season where I follow the template for the first half, then use my own judgement from Christmas onwards, to see if I improve. Perhaps that can be my experiment for next year.

Secondly, and back to the point at hand..

..I can bench boost with a normal bench if I take this opportunity. It's not often we have so many cheap playing defenders. The fact that these defenders also have a double making it even more of a novelty. So potentially I can just have a bench of two 4.0m defenders, a cheapish attacker (probably Morris) and a cheap goalkeeper.

Meaning when I wildcard I can still have my choice first eleven, with Morris being a handy first-off-my-bench player going forward.

That I can have a cheap playing bench that's boostable is essentially something of a bonus. Born of circumstance.

The downsides..

The major obvious downside is that it's not a great week to wildcard. Son and Maddison in particular are players I want to bring in, however, they face Arsenal and Liverpool in GW6 & 7. I could bring them in and ride those weeks out, or I could just hope that I don't need the free transfer to fix anything in GW7, and then use the two frees to bring them in for GW8. It's always a bit risky planning transfers though.

One of the benefits of the wildcard is that you get a chance to fix minor problems, so I don't like the idea of wildcarding to then just allow new issues to go unsolved because of planned moves. So I imagine I'll bring at least one of those two players in for GW6. Again though, as at the start, I really haven't thought about the actual team all that much yet.

Wildcarding in GW6 will also mean I have a luxury transfer in GW5, and I don't even know what I'm doing with that yet either. It's fun though. At the moment I really don't feel like too many players are essential, so the entire wildcard feels like a luxury.

I'll end it there.

My current rank after GW4 is 1,364,935. Not brilliant, but I don't feel it's too bad as a starting point. It feels like the season's starting now.