FPL Failures Unleashed: Some of the worst player scores
Birds eye view of a green football pitch with lights by night
Fantasy Premier League – played by a staggering 11.4 million people last season – is a wildly popular game where you are the fantasy manager of a team of Premier League players. Basically, you choose your virtual team of Premier League football players, and if they do well in real life games, you get points. Let’s explore the worst individual player scores in FPL history
Jonathan Walters
The star of one of the worst game weeks of all time was Jonathan Walters! Playing for Stoke, he managed to score two own goals in a game against Chelsea. Jon Walters scored 43 goals across 224 Premier League appearances for Stoke but is infamous for this fateful game in Gameweek 22 of the 2012/2013 season. With the first own goal at 45+ 1, and the devastating second own goal at 63, he was offered a chance to salvage some dignity and pride and take a penalty shot at the 90th minute. Sadly, the ball went flying over the crossbar! With a final score of Stone 0-4 Chelsea and one of the worst game weeks of all time, Jon Walters landed firmly into the FPL worst player record book with a score of -4.
Jan Bednarek
With one of the worst individual FPL player scores of all time, next up is Jan Bednarek. Gameweek 22 of the 2020/21 season: Manchester United demolished Southampton 9-0, and Jan Bednarek managed to score an own goal in the 34th minute, conceded 9 goals and got a red card following a foul in the 86th minute. This all left him with a tragic -7 score. One very unfortunate FPL manager had him as a triple captain (where the captain’s game points are tripled) and received an all-time-record FPL minus score of -21! Bednarek was also on the pitch for the 9-0 Southampton defeat to Leicester the previous season – another very sad defeat.
Ryan Bertrand
Speaking of Southampton 0-9 Leicester (Gameweek 10 of the 2019/20 season), Ryan Bertrand ended up with a score of -6. He got red-carded 12 minutes into the game, two minutes after the first goal. Leicester went on to score another 8 goals, and sadly for Bertrand, FPL rules say that a defender still loses points for the goals that his team concedes even when they have been sent off. He got -3 for a straight red card, -4 for conceding 9 goals and +1 for starting the match. Bertrand challenged Ayoze Perez, winning him the dubious honour of being the first Premier League player to be sent off by the Video Assistant Referee.
Richard Dunne
With 11 regular career goals and 10 career OWN goals, Richard Dunne was the first football player to reach double figures for own goals. In Gameweek 38 on the last day of the 2007/08 season, Manchester City faced Middlesbrough (1-8), and Dunne got sent off 15 minutes into the game. With +1 for starting, -3 for his red card and -4 for goals conceded, Dunne finished the season with a FPL score of -6. He made 431 Premier League appearances and was a great defender, but despite his positive career achievements, he remains infamous for his 10 own goals and for picking up 8 red cards throughout his career.
Jamie Carragher
An honourable mention goes to Jamie Carragher, who played in the 1999-2000 season Liverpool 2-3 Manchester United game. This was before the days of FPL (which launched in the 2002/03 season), but the fresh-faced Carragher managed to score two own goals (the first being an unstoppable header!), which would have left him with an FPL score of -3. It just goes to show that strategy plays a pivotal role in various activities, whether it’s physical sports, games on the range of platinplay live casinos, or even card games. The same principle holds true for Fantasy Premier League (FPL), where a well-thought-out strategy is absolutely crucial.
Conclusion
Playing Fantasy Premier League can result in feeling completely devastated or completely elated, depending on how well you choose your team! Generally, you need to be very strategic about choosing your star players and formation (even if this means choosing players that are mortal enemies of the team you support in real life), and then fill out the rest of your team. If you’re tempted to play, good luck choosing a team and avoiding a negative FPL score!
