FF247 Fantasy Football Site Team GW1
Whether you’ve been waiting with baited breath for our return, or you’ve simply stumbled across this by accident, let us give you a brief history of what we’ve done before, who we actually are, what we do and what to expect from this series of articles.
‘If you know your history…’
For anyone who missed our final wrap up article which we published after the 2018/19 season concluded we ended up with a record points score for us of 2,406 and also a highest ever rank of 5,757. Our history of ranks after 5 seasons now looks like this;
2014/15: 5,921
2015/16: 84,609
2016/17: 12,152
2017/18: 123,007
2018/19: 5,757
Nothing magnificent but also nothing too shoddy. 2017/18 aside perhaps, not quite sure what went so drastically wrong that time!
‘Who the f*&^$£ng hell are you…’
We’ve broke out into a series of well known football chants, just in case you hadn’t already noticed, or if not simply wondered what on earth was going on!
To answer the question itself the FF247 team is managed by a committee of Cookie, Floydeth, Init, Kop and Mito. Between them they have exactly 49 years experience of playing FPL. They have 36 x top 100k ranks, 9 x top 10k ranks and 3 top 1k ranks. With a couple of 500 ranks in that mix. Again then, nothing overly magnificent but also nothing too shoddy. Bloody well consistent then actually, if nothing else.
To add to that mix of experience though they also play other fantasy games and in there we have a fantasy player who is generally considered (and revered) as one of the best MLS fantasy players ever (highest finish is 2nd… don’t ask), someone who finished 5th in a World Cup comp and won Harry Kane’s wife (or something similar, we recall), a couple of cricket experts who don’t count cricket as their first language and a few Tour de France aficionados. They play and understand fantasy games is what we are trying to say….
We do what we want, we are FF247, we do what we want…
We play our own game but we play to win. We won’t go taking unnecessary risks or punts just to please the gallery. You’ll find that each and every transfer or decision is well thought out, researched and reasoned. It can make it seem predictable and sometimes boring but we try to liven that up with tales of how we got there.
Great expectations?
We have no illusions of grandeur, we know what we do will most likely result in a reasonably good score / rank come the end. To go the extra mile would take some quirk of fortune to smile on us, massively.
GW1 Thinking…
We joked in the previous article’s comments that we were simply sat waiting / watching / taking screenshots of the best teams and that we would pick one of those. The reality is that we have started from scratch and created our own. What follows is the rough rationale from that convo as to how we landed on each position;
Goalkeepers
We’ve taken the cheap & nasty route on our keepers to start the season. Nasty might be doing them an injustice, but we know absolutely nothing about Will Norris so he could in fact be nasty. To prove what a big club (site team) we are, we sent our second choice keeper out on loan to League One already, do us proud Will, do us proud. Why Pope? That’s a fair question. And we’ll give you an honest answer. When we started filling out our team somebody put Pope in and nobody questioned it! Our research knows no bounds. In fairness to Pope he had a standout season in 2017/18 and if both he and Burnley can replicate that form he’ll be great value at £4.5m.
Defenders
Double Liverpool picks itself. The only question was whether to go for Robbo or TAA and this was something we agonised over (seriously!). Graphs were prepared, YouTube footage was used, we even rang Klopp but unfortunately his number was engaged. In the end we flipped a coin and went with Robbo.
There was no argument surrounding the inclusion of Lucas Digne. We’re well aware that Everton have lost both Zouma & Gueye, but they appear to have recruited wisely so their defence may not be as badly affected as some are predicting. His attacking threat is nearly on a par with Liverpool’s full-backs.
Kyle Walker-Peters is someone we’re unsure about. It remains to be seen whether he or Serge Aurier is deemed to be 1st choice right-back. We are however confident that he will start GW1 and we can reassess the situation in a couple of weeks. A number of the management team were not initially happy with the inclusion of KWP. Eventually one relented and claimed he “could live with KWP”, to which another replied, “I prefer my wife”. Professional to the end.
Lundstram is a £4.0m filler who may or may not play. The same can be said for a number of £4.0m defenders.
Midfielders
Salah & Sterling require no explanation!
Leicester don’t have the easiest of fixtures to start the season but at £6.5m Perez potentially represents great value for money. He picked up 12 goals and two assists last season in an average Newcastle side and we’re confident he can improve on that now that he’s surrounded by better players.
Ceballos? You’re now thinking that we’ve taken leave of our senses. There’s no denying he’s a punt but with a forward line of PEA, Lacazette & Pepe we’re hopeful that it’s the young Spaniard who will be creating the chances for that trio. Given regular game time in an advanced position he’ll be an absolute bargain. To be honest, we originally had Ross Barkley in this position but when we had one last tinker we needed to raise £0.5m and Ross was the one to lose out. Somebody was clearly drunk when Ceballos made it into our squad. However, we’ve come to our senses. Sort of! Any midfielder at £5.5m is going to be something of a punt. So we’ve taken a punt on Aston Villa’s John McGinn. He scored seven and picked up nine assists in the Championship last season and hopefully he can bring some of those attacking returns to the PL.
Dendoncker is in because we needed a £4.5m midfielder and he currently appears to be the best option.
Forwards
We thought our team was finalised until someone piped up with “we’re going to want Kane in GW3”. Great. The way our squad had been structured getting Kane in GW3 may have been tricky and so it was decided we’d have Kane from the beginning. We know it’s August but that hoodoo was banished last season and with new boys Villa at home this weekend we’re banking on Harry having his best ever start to the season. After all, he’s world class!! (Ed (Cookie) NO HE IS
NOT!!)
We wanted Callum Wilson but couldn’t afford him so we went with the next best thing, Josh King. King is so good, one of the committee wanted to pick him twice. The conversation went something like this,
Init – So basically we need a £7.0m fwd and we are done?
Kop – King
Kop – No. We already have King
Kop – And he’s not that good!
After all of that we’ve given King the boot for Diogo Jota. We’re well aware that Bournemouth have a couple of great fixtures to start with but Wolves are already up and running, and Jota has been in decent form. This is certainly form over fixtures.
With Romelu Lukaku set to join Inter Milan, United are not left with many options to play up front. Therefore we’ve went with Mason Greenwood as our ultra-cheap 3rd forward. He has impressed during preseason and with those lack of options he’s bound to get some minutes, hopefully.
Our GW1 team is…
Captain – Mo Salah
Salah picked up three votes to Sterling’s one. Only four votes were cast. just after the vote was made, the following comment was made “I hate an early captain, site team’s season could be ruined by the end of Friday”. It should be pointed out that this comment was made by the committee member who gave Salah the 3rd vote and handed him the armband for the weekend!!
Thanks for reading FF247 Fantasy Football Site Team GW1
FPL FIXTURE TRACKER
FIXTURE TRACKER LINK
Finally finished with my team. Opinion much appreciated.
RYAN(BUTTON)
VAN DIYK, WANBISSKA, DIGNE, ZINCHEKO (LUNDSTROM)
SALAH, STERLING, MOURA, MARTIAL (DENDONKER)
JIMENEZ, WILSON (GREENWOOD)
Looks solid mate!
Like that
Perhaps we should al be giving the Wolves trio more consideration than we are
How did Jota do? I’ve just took him out my team
3 assists
*Back in
haha zed. . and SAFs I have taken a punt on Jiminez. I was even toying with swapping out zinch for Docherty but my brain couldn’t compute not having a city defence.
haha zed. . and SAFs I have taken a punt on Jiminez. I was even toying with swapping out zinch for Doherty but my brain couldn’t compute not having a city defence.
Never left!
Oh no! Last minute worries ha. U settled Rosco?
Haven’t changed my team in 2 weeks which worries me!!
Evening all
Is your Teams locked in ready to go?
This is mine; am I good to go?
Lol wrong screenshot!
P.S what a great transfer window for The Arsenal
Yeah some great signings and exits!!
Where did that Luis trf come from?
Luiz
Looks good other than that! Until Mount gets the nod ahead of Barkley! 😉
it’s a risk but let see what happens! I have a great bench to cover me
Haha true true
First one
Jokes it looks fine though Barkley is stinking it up
You set for tomorrow smash? Salah capo?
Yeah think so I was expecting to have changed my team today but I’ve not. Yeah Salah captain I actually think he might be a good bet for TC but I’m not going there so early
Should we just use it and get it over and done with now? I’m in if you are? 😉
GW1 is usually rather high-scoring 😉
No coz if I get it wrong I’ve got to live with that decision all season
It’s the sterling omission that jumps out Mitro. Team is very good.
How many teams you got mate!! We know now 😉
3 – one is mine, one is mine and panchos double team and the other is my wife’s!
Yeah ‘my wife’ likes to play too … did I ever tell you about her 429th OR in 2017/18…. true story 😉
I do recall 😉
This is where everyone is, I’m in the team advice area on my own
Haha haha
Think I’m settled for tomorrow… I feel Jota is a great pick, he had it slow in the prem at first but really got it going in the second half of the season last season, and I’m expecting him to continue from there. 3 assists tonight too, great to see he’s as sharp as Init’s sense of humor already!!
Looks good Matt. Ur thoughts on Greenwood. Risk of potential fall in price or do you think he will get enough mins?
Zed – comment is for you….
Hey Dreamers. You mean Zed right as he has Greenwood and I dont. As for your question though I’d say Greenwood will get the odd minute but not enough for the casuals who are all bringing him in and when they realise he wont play every week will sell like mad.
I went for Wickham as it stands for that reason.
Yeah I don’t really know, I’ve just tinkered with the first-11 really, think I might actually change to Wickham as well
Good lord didn’t realize Greenwood has 15,5% ownership… Defo shipping him out now!
Greenwood for who?
Jiménez scored two tonight, hmm Wilson > Jiménez?
Wickham so just another 4.5m forward, with less ownership and less “casual” owners most essentially
Shame Nketiah has gone out on loan, what is the chances Greenwood plays though now Man Utd are light up front though?
God we have identical teams apart from my owning Coleman, Rico and fiddling around with my 4m goalie (want someone with low ownership). And the V on Wilson.
Norris will tie you down if Wolves start hot and you fancy three of their outfield players. Remote though I know.
I’ll probably bottle it tomorrow and switch to Digne.
Evening everyone. Can I get some advice as I wont get to change my team before the deadline tomorrow? How does this look? I’ve got 0.5 mil itb and thinking of changing Zinchencko what do people think?
Very similar to mine, looks saucy!! 😉
Cheers mate. Yours does look good mate. You reckon Burnley will be solid at the back this season?
Depends on what you mean by solid, but yeah I think they will be more solid than Villa or Sheffield plus at least they aren’t new to the league, and I think Pope is a fine shot stopper plus Burnley seem to allow many long shots that yield many saves…
Like they were two seasons ago! Yeah I’m thinking Pope or Ryan im just not sure.
Exactly, they’ve done it in the past at least, I fancy Pope more than Ryan but who knows any of Pope/Heaton/Ryan/Henderson could outscore the others
Yeah its really annoying as I cant decide haha
Just gotta take the leap of faith
Hi Matt. Is Pereira 5.5? I think I’d grab a united defender instead if yes. Zinc is fine I’d say for now at least. I don’t expect huge points from Brighton and would think Heaton or Pope offer more.
Pereira is 6 mil mate and hes basically a mid plus Leicester have bought an RB I believe so Pereira should be pushed up higher. I am thinking of changing my GK just not sure.
Let’s say at least 1 Leicester mid is defensive. You have 5, Vardy, tielemans, Perez, Madison plus one more. I’d be surprised if Pereira isn’t right back.
That’s true, the Leicester attack is rather crowded, Albrighton is there as well…
Yeah Pereira will be RB
Yeah that’s true. I’m going to leave him in for now and not mess around anymore and see what happens. He’s an easy swap out anyway.
Looks good. I’m not sold on Pereira but know you like him . It’s strong all over