Finding some final week FPL gambles
Stay for an announcement about FPL Is Life
***GAMEWEEK 38 DEADLINE: SUNDAY - 14:30 GMT***
The winners this week (so far) were Gvardiol owners. It’s always hard to find a Man City defender, but he was the best guy to go for - but I didn’t envisage him turning into Prime Gundogan. A brace, and pretty annoying for owners that he turned down the chance to take a penalty for the hat-trick vs Fulham… but I guess you’ll all take it. It’s the LAST GAMEWEEK this week so maybe it’s time to have some fun with your final transfer, so we’ll look at that. Also hang around to the end for an FPL Is Life announcement. PS - remember the Sunday deadline!
Got one last transfer dilemma? Begging for the end? Email me: fplislife@substack.com
One last job…
Here they are, the last fixtures of this FPL and Prem season. And what a season it’s been - it seems a long time ago that a lot of us set our teams up with the likes of Shaw, Rashford and Estupiñan. The good news - the title is still alive, so the Arsenal and Man City teams should be strong. The bad news: Ederson and De Bruyne both came off early last night vs Spurs, so check on their fitness. Other injury news - Bruno didn’t appear at the weekend, so another guy to check on. Same goes for Isak and Wilson. Wait for the press conferences before making your final moves.
Let’s have some fun this week
It’s the last week and we have a free transfer burning a hole in our pockets. So what should we do with it? Well, there’s some good data out there suggesting that final Gameweeks are a bit loosey goosey - more goals are scored than on average. According to an excellent Twitter thread (click the pic below), Gameweek 38 has outscored the season average goals per game for 9 consecutive seasons. Home teams score most - more than 60% of the goals in 7 out of 9 seasons. So it suggests getting in a home attacker. Liverpool, Palace, Chelsea all feel like they could have goals in them. City and Arsenal both finish at home, but it could be nervy.
Who to punt on for one week
It’s a subjective one this, but when you’re looking for a good punt, you want a low-owned player that could bang. There’s a good few that come to mind. To state the obvious, there’s the King of FPL, Salah. No, he hasn’t been great this second half of the season, but only 23% of teams have him. His ceiling is enormous, so if you have the cash, it could be fun vs Wolves. And maybe it’s our last chance to own him (sob).
I like Havertz as the Arsenal punt (Saka will still be the main guy for most) - he’s 8th in the league over the last six Gameweeks for Expected Goal Involvement (excl. penalties). Btw - the top five on that metric are Palmer, Eze, Haaland, KDB, Nuñez. Spurs have a great game away vs Sheff Utd - I’d say Johnson is the punt guy there, with Richarlison seemingly out.
Four punts I like: 1. Salah, 2. Havertz/Trossard, 3. Eze, 4. Johnson. Some more ideas below from FPL Raptor on YouTube. He fancies Odegaard:
FPL experts have (eventually) done well
Regular readers may remember a graph I posted earlier in the season showing that an elite sample of managers (who regularly do well) showed that the FPL experts were having a shocker early on. Well, they ain’t anymore - in fact, they’re now doing better than in the two previous seasons, on average. Yes, football is random, but this is some kind of proof that following the data and a bit of strategy does actually deliver (eventually).
A Free Hit for this week
This from the ever-useful Let’s Talk FPL channel essentially shows the top picks for this week. Gvardiol has been an awesome pick in recent weeks - in the last six games, he’s scored 4 and assisted twice… and played every minute. So much for Pep Roulette. He has turned out to be the big end of season game changer. Also worth saying that Nico Jackson is catching up with his underlying data now, with 14 goals. Pretty sure that if I wanted a new attacker, though, I’d get Mateta - and it could raise funds for a midfield upgrade. Worth saying that the ultimate punt is… Reece James. If he’s fit, maybe Chelsea’ll through him on for the last game in the hope of an England call up. Not one for me, though.
FPL is a game of combinations
I kept meaning to point this out earlier in the season, but one of the key things to remember in FPL is that it’s a game of combinations, not individual players. We often think that our teams are all the same, but that’s because the human brain is so bad at visualising the huge decision trees that are created by a game like this, with small weekly decisions. See the example below - even now, take five hugely popular players - Gabriel, Isak, Son, Palmer and Foden. Less than 60% of the top 100k managers own all these guys. The moral? Continuing to make sensible decisions and not madly gambling is The Way in FPL, even if you feel you’re behind. Gameweek 38 is perhaps the week for a one-off punt… but it’s the exception.
My FPL player of the season is…
I don’t think it’s been close this season, even though my winner didn’t even play the first few games. An honourable mention for Ben White, who was dismissed as being overpriced at the start of the season and will almost certainly end the season as the top scoring defender. In a sign of Arsenal’s defensive dominance, they have the entire podium for top FPL defenders. But the FPL Player of the Season has to be Cole Palmer. Many picked him up for £4.9m - he has now scored 230 points. In short, he sort of broke the game this season. How much will he be next year?
Pep is human after all… sort of
I mean, he’s also the insane genius free jazz football guy we all know and love, but I loved this moment from last night when Son went through one on one, only for Ortega to make the save. What a compliment to Arsenal that even the greatest manager of this great City team was aware of how fine the margins were. Arsenal were a better Son finish away from winning the Prem.
This is the end for FPL Is Life!
Yes, FPL Is Life is ending! This isn’t quite the last edition - I’ll do one more next week on five lessons from the season, and five thoughts for next… but then FPL Is Life will close its doors. It’s been fun to recount my FPL research in a weekly hit for others. I turned to FPL as a lockdown crutch - FPL and FPL Is Life were a great distraction during a tough period. There’s so much I’d like to do to enhance FPL Is Life in terms of original content and wider football nerdery, but the truth is I’ve struggled to find enough time even for the current format.
Rather than phoning it in, I’m hanging up my spreadsheets. But don’t worry - FPL is big business now (even private equity is getting involved), so there’s plenty of alternatives. Though I claim this as the original weekly FPL newsletter, the idea has been brilliantly developed by Lazy FPL, who deliver something very similar - and have far more time and resources - so I’d recommend signing up (I have no connection to them).
Tune in for the edition of last FPL Is Life next week!
Just to add that I've also appreciated this Substack. Only discovered it this season though, so I'm expecting to be in the relegation places this time next year! Cheers.
Thank you very much!! You help me to approach this “simple” fantasy game in a better and deeper way. An amazing GRAZIE from Italy