Calm

GW28: 89 Rank: 16 Fernandes was a clear captain for me this week as I also own Mbeumo (so I'm already betting on MUN to do well). If I had Semenyo instead I would have gone for Haaland. Timber over Andersen was for the same reason (a bet on ARS DEF). I had 2 FTs and £2.8m ITB. That money was originally intended as an Enzo to Wirtz upgrade, but with his injury, I needed a new plan. There were a lot of other MIDs available but after looking at my team for a while I decided I was more worried about bench depth with the quick fixtures. Guiu *doesnt* blank in GW31, but he might as well considering he doesnt get onto the pitch. As such, I decided to use the money ITB to upgrade Guiu to Ekiteke, which allowed to me to get a piece of the LIV attack like before, but also getting that deeper bench. Enabling this was Enzo to Stach (exact money). I had no intention of playing Stach this week v MCI, but thought that he was a decent cheap playing option after this week until WC time. My first bench then became Andersen and I was happy with this as he had higher xpts than Timber anyway. For this coming gameweek I have 3 flagged players so only having 1 FT is not great, but this depth of bench is at least saving me a bit. If Rice is ruled out I will be looking to move him on for someone who plays in GW31. If hes ok, I'll try to roll the transfer and sell him GW31 to have a full playing 11. I'm not considering a Haaland to Salah switch as I don't have the free transfers for it.

@bharat_batra86 @FPL___Insider Not for me, its rare that you will benefit more than the 4 points needed for breakeven unless you would be fielding less than 11 players otherwise.

@calm_strategy @FPL___Insider Not worth a hit esp for captaincy?

GW28: 89 Rank: 16 Fernandes was a clear captain for me this week as I also own Mbeumo (so I'm already betting on MUN to do well). If I had Semenyo instead I would have gone for Haaland. Timber over Andersen was for the same reason (a bet on ARS DEF). I had 2 FTs and £2.8m ITB. That money was originally intended as an Enzo to Wirtz upgrade, but with his injury, I needed a new plan. There were a lot of other MIDs available but after looking at my team for a while I decided I was more worried about bench depth with the quick fixtures. Guiu *doesnt* blank in GW31, but he might as well considering he doesnt get onto the pitch. As such, I decided to use the money ITB to upgrade Guiu to Ekiteke, which allowed to me to get a piece of the LIV attack like before, but also getting that deeper bench. Enabling this was Enzo to Stach (exact money). I had no intention of playing Stach this week v MCI, but thought that he was a decent cheap playing option after this week until WC time. My first bench then became Andersen and I was happy with this as he had higher xpts than Timber anyway. For this coming gameweek I have 3 flagged players so only having 1 FT is not great, but this depth of bench is at least saving me a bit. If Rice is ruled out I will be looking to move him on for someone who plays in GW31. If hes ok, I'll try to roll the transfer and sell him GW31 to have a full playing 11. I'm not considering a Haaland to Salah switch as I don't have the free transfers for it.

@CrayfishFpl @LetsTalk_FPL You can definitely do things that way - I consider it more if I have one player from each. Really what I try to do is just 'play my team' in the way that looks more consistent with the players it has. Usually ppl dont have both players for EO.

@calm_strategy @LetsTalk_FPL How do you factor in EO here? Obviously after VCs this week it didn't really matter but would you have captain Haaland if you owned Semenyo despite saying 160% EO vs. Bruno's 110? Seems like the EO (and EV) are an order of magnitude more impactful on relative variance.

@fplcrybaby @LetsTalk_FPL I would only play WC if I was unable to put out a full team unless I took multiple hits. We're only a few weeks from GW32 so if you can make it there without using it I would try to.

@calm_strategy @LetsTalk_FPL @calm_strategy any upside u see for a GW 29 Wildcard with other chips entact too

@SJ07_MUFC With just 1 FT and both Haaland and Guiu I would firstly wait to see the Haaland news. If hes ruled out I would probably move him to Ekiteke.

@calm_strategy Congratulations on your rank and we appreciate your briefings on the team. Would you please suggest any transfers?

@saadmo94 Wait for all the news first, I think Kroupi and Rogers will both play so I wouldn't rush to a change. Haaland to Ekiteke might be an option if hes fully ruled out.

@calm_strategy I have used my WC. I have only Erling from Man City. Currently on 2 FTs. I can get to Kroupi+Rogers to Ekitike+KDH/Tavernier/Anderson who all play in Blank GW31. Should I do it? Or save my FTs?

@FPL___Insider Wait for Haaland news, if definitely out then I would consider it if I had 3+ transfers.

@calm_strategy What are your thoughts on the Salah switch if you had 3-4 transfers itb

@StatsmanFPL Haaland unless ruled out. Probably my next best is Fernandes. For those that are doing a Haaland to Salah switch, Salah is probably the one. I would only look into that if Haaland is definitely out and you have lots of free transfers.

@calm_strategy What’s your captaincy thoughts for GW29 mate? Struggling to decide

@LetsTalk_FPL When its close. Close decisions dont really matter as its consumed by noise. It just skews your risk - so your xpts is ~the same, but the real pts outcomes are spread to the highs and lows. Its the same thing as e.g. tripling on a defence v 3 x equal expectation players.

@calm_strategy Just insane consistency, go and win it! Do you always think like that with captain or is it just because it was a close call? I know people like to go all in on defences, I’m not sure I’ve seen people talk about it with attack/captaincy.

What does not kill me makes me stronger

Just say no outfield players allowed in 6 yard box before taking for set pieces. Keepers should be able to jump.

@FPL_Jozef He is £4.4 and Vicario is £5, so if I think they are about equal in how many points they will get its just the cost saving.

@calm_strategy Why Verbruggen? Brighton scam us every year with the "good fixtures and decent enough team" but it always ends the same - no CS and no points.

GW11: 52 Rank: 68 I had a few close decisions this week. Dubravka v Vicario in goal. Saka v Haaland for captaincy. I solved the goalkeeping one by choosing the one who wasn't facing one of my attacking players (mentioned in a previous GW review) The captaincy one can bring me to a deeper discussion. I said in one of my responses to questions last week that I was likely to captain Saka, but that I thought Haaland was the slightly better choice. So there are 2 questions: 1) Why did I change? (addressed here) 2) Why would I ever captain someone who I don't believe to be the best choice? (I'll cover this next GW) The main takeaway / tldr is that close decisions don't matter (they are controlled by luck), but by the time the deadline came along, it was no longer as close. We speak of FPL being a game that is a mixture of skill and luck. The skill portion is what do we do before the GW starts. How do we set our team up? And 90% of this skill benefit is going to be in the obvious things. Spending your money, playing your chips at the right time, picking players from good teams that start, replacing injured players, not taking lots of -4 hits, captaining your best player each week*. You can critique yourself based on these choices. The luck aspect is then, what actual outcomes occur. This is never something to be upset / angry at yourself about. You're a team manager, not a player controller. So we can't control what happens here, but we *can* control how much we are subjected to it, based on how different our team is from the next person. To win FPL / any game with a large player pool we want to be heavily subjected to luck to avoid being stuck in the crowd. So to really simplify, Saka and Haaland had equal expected points earlier in the week, and this was giving an opportunity to have more risk / more 'luck' v the field when they would mostly be Haaland (c). However, by the time the deadline came around the EV difference was about 0.5 (which doubles to 1 when captained), and I deemed this to be too much of an EV / 'skill' sacrifice just for the sake of being different. (I will cover this in much more detail next GW). Looking forwards with 2FT, Vicario remains an issue and I can now add Reijnders to that given his consecutive benchings. There are always possibilities of injuries during the international breaks so I won't make any early moves. Assuming injuries don't happen, I'm likely to try to maximise the value in my starting 11, and that would mean a goalkeeping transfer. I'm most likely to go to Petrovic, but Verbruggen or even Alisson if confirmed fit are options.

@FPL_Jozef If nothing changes during the IB, I think I would roll in your position.

@calm_strategy x.com/FPL_Jozef/stat… Roll here is fine, right? I'm kinda tempted to get Mbeumo but then I have benching headache every week. Also considering O'Reilly for Burn, especially with Ait-Nouri being gone soon for AFCON. Thoughts?

@Azura_FPL To be honest, you're right they're not that bad. When I was originally looking at selling him a couple weeks ago he also had the last 2 fixtures (CHE, MUN) which made it look worse overall.

@calm_strategy am i delusional in thinking this vicario run isn’t that bad?

@FPL_Walrus You definitely don't need to play to do well at FPL. It's just about the way you think. When I'm trying to learn something myself I always try to relate it back to my own existing knowledge base and for me in many of these cases its poker.

@calm_strategy Thank you for taking the time to write your thought process - I'm learning a lot from them. Looks like poker is mentioned quite a bit. Do you find that playing poker helps your FPL game?

@bharat_batra86 I don't need to play him this week, but I'd like to move on now that he's been benched twice in a row. Part of my GK transfer decision is am I upgrading (e.g. Alisson), or downgrading (e.g. Petrovic) to take / add money to future Reijnders plans.

@calm_strategy What’s the plan with TJ? Assume you bench him this gw and play 442? In the hope he becomes an option 13 onwards again

@user226363 Triple ups are fine, its basically just a question of your risk tolerance. You are committing to always being happy or sad with it and no inbetween. I would play them. Gakpo being benched twice in a row would worry me (like it worries me with Reijnders).

@calm_strategy Unsure on whether to fully commit to arsenal CS this week or play gakpo. Think gakpo will go back to starting on the left considering that wirtz performance. Thoughts on triple ups and whether gakpo is a good asset?

@Var_008 I use fplreview. Solio is new this season (leans more heavily on bookmaker odds). Use them as a sense-checking guide rather than make decisions for you. They are not at all required to make good decisions. fplreview.com/free-planner/ fpl.solioanalytics.com/?tab=projectio…

@calm_strategy Gotcha. Where can I find predicted points for players? Raya having highest points is kinda surprising, with Martinez and Allison (if he’s fit) with tempting fixtures

@Var_008 Your team is already really good. Wait on Enzo injury news, if he's out bringing in Mbuemo for him is fine. If Enzo is fit I wouldn't move him out before BUR.

@calm_strategy Really? I’m really tempted to get Mbuemo in place of Enzo and have 2 FTs, would you recommend any changes?

@abRay1_ Team looks fine for now. Just enjoy the international break and see if any injuries come up and force your hand anywhere. Its usually not helpful to think too much on something when the situation can change prior to deadline.

@calm_strategy I’ve got 2 ft and £0.9m in the bank , any tips? my rank 72k