Trends From The Top- What Are The Leaders Doing? A Look to Game-week 11
Welcome to this week’s edition of Trends From the Top. What’s great about ‘trends’ is the fact that they are trends… trends that evolve, dissipate, and adapt. It’s hard to believe that just a couple weeks ago 100% of the top managers had Aguero and now, yet understandably, 0% of the leaders have him on their team. And while it’s always possible to have a bad gameweek, 100% of all the leaders had Sanchez on their team. What other trends will we see this week? Will they help provide us with insight for GW 11? Let’s take a look.
Who was the most captained player by the top ten for Game-week 10?
This week, the top leaders were divided among 3 captains. 30% chose most unfortunately as they selected Sanchez (4 points), while another 30% decided to give Vardy the armband (10 points). The remaining 40% advantageously chose Kane which brought in 34 points. Despite 7 out of 10 of the top players having poor or average captain picks, many were able to remain near the summit.
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What are some interesting similarities among the top ten?
In researching this week’s leaders, it was interesting to see that fewer of the leaders were the folks we saw early on who were using and exhausting all their chips and wildcards. Two of the leaders have yet to utilize any of the above-mentioned game-play benefits and the average for our leaders is 1.3 when looking at wildcards, all out attack, triple captain or bench boost. Additionally, none of the current leaders have ever had a successful season if one were to define success as finishing in the top 5%.
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Who were the most popular players chosen by the top ten for Gameweek 10?
Goalkeepers
For this past gameweek 60% of the top managers selected Cech while 30% had Butland and 10% selected Hart.
Defenders
This week we saw 15 defenders make the cut for top managers. Interestingly enough, Kolarov (50%) was once again the only defender with an ownership rate of 50% or higher. Alderweireld and Bellerin came in at 40% while Azpilicueta was the next most popular pick with 30% ownership followed by Clyne, Smalling, Moreno and Cedric with 20% and Zouma, Jenkinson, Walker, Cresswell, Koscielny, Darmian, and Williams each with 10%.
Midfielders
When you look at midfielders, the top 10 managers had 12 different picks with several getting only 10% of the vote such as Cabaye, Bolasie, Ritchie, Mane and Wijnaldum. Sanchez was the most popular pick with 100% ownership followed by Mahrez at 80%, Payet at 70%, De Bruyne with 40%, Ayew with 30%, and Yaya Toure and Ozil each with 20%.
Forwards
This week, the front line consisted of 10 picks among the top managers which again seems to indicate that such spots are not yet solidified. Vardy came in with 80% while Kane and Bony were the next popular picks as they each received 40%. Ighalo was selected by 30% of the top managers with Costa and Bernahino receiving 20% and Martial, Ayoze, Pelle and Bojan each receiving 10% a piece.
In summation, the Must-Haves for top managers for Gameweek 10 were not many. They were Cech, Kolarov, Sanchez, Mahrez, Payet, and Vardy as they all had an ownership rate of 50% or higher.
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Other interesting facts…
– The average score for Gameweek 10 among the top 10 was 55.9 points which was only 13.9 points above average for the week. Only 2 weeks ago, the average for our top leaders was 68.5 points above the average!
– England once again dominated the leader board as 50% of the top 10 were from there. The remaining three countries were Australia (currently in 1st), Scotland, Ireland, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
– The average team value was £103.2m with £104m being the highest team value and £102.1m being the lowest value.
– 38 points separates 1st place from 10th.
Best of luck in Game-week 11
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How does this game plan sound? Gomis to Bony for the next 2 weeks then Bony to Lukaku. By that time I can just use my WC to change my whole team for the fixture congestion that usually happens at Xmas.
I like it
Ye I just had another look at the fixtures and thought this could work well.
Hello all. I play in a draft league, so my options for players is limited. I have Jagielka and want to keep an Everton defender for their nice run of fixtures. Funes Mori is the only one available in my league. Is he the nailed on replacement for Phil?
Hi Bob, yes he is. Unfortunately
He’s a constant accident waiting to happen as he’s always been prone to dribbling out from the back. He fits the Martinez philosophy of that very tactic but it’s a match made in blooper hell as he takes it a bit too literally! I saw a few YouTube clips when he joined of him getting caught in possession in horrendous positions and giving goals away and sure enough he did it in one of his first games away at West Brom. Anyway I digress. The answer is yes.
Who’d you captain in the end last week by the way? I remember you having a tricky one to navigate.
I went with Ozil and got 10 points. Not a great week, 42 total, but I’m still in first place and have Aguero on the bench. I could keep the defense I have and bring in Willian if Mori is too dangerous for the back.
Not saying he’s too dangerous, he just isn’t the safe pair of hands that Jags is. It does an element of unpredictability to the EFC clean sheet potential though. He’s a big loss, Jagielka.
Might try Mori anyway. Fixtures are too good until the New year.
1FT 4.9m
Westwood – Barkley and play AOA
Martial – Lukaku or Kane
Richards or Williams – ????????
Another move?
Thanks
Hi Rip, Martial to Kane or Bony would be my move if that were my team. Bony at home to Norwich feels more logical. I’ll disclaim here in that I’m leaning towards Kane but that’s only because I want someone playing come Monday night! Either make sense though. Lukaku does too but I don’t trust him! If he was playing Monday it’d be a different matter
Ripcurl
I’m on Martial to Kane for you here.
You have KDB for the Norwich match so by bringing in Kane you would be spreading your coverage of players against the poorer teams this week.
butland>degea.
Nothing else needs to change, martial is very good and has nice fixtures + pressure on vangaal over rooney will make van gaal play martial up front. Kane did get a hat but, their keep was terrible and basically gave away like 4 of the 5 goals scored.
Bad GW for me have red arrows all over !
I am thinking of Cresswell-> van Dijk and don’t have any idea on Costa + benching Ighalo is now becoming a pain in ass, should have bought a newcastle striker instead of a Mid
I have Dawson who’s playing against Vardy and Mahrez, have Cathcart and Ighalo who are playing against Cresswell and it seems I made a big mistake by buying Wijnaldum, making me bench Ighalo last week
Snookie
With an assist against Chelsea it seems harsh to be thinking of taking out Cresswell. He’s a player who can be relied upon for returns at the other end even when West Ham aren’t keeping clean sheets.
Costa for Kane/Lukaku/Bony or Pelle OR Begovic to Hart our Lloris?
That would still leave my defence very weak Mahrez and Vardy against Dawson, Cathcart and Ighalo against Cress. Cress was my 2nd sub against Chelsea (Yea I benched Ighalo and Cress :'( ) he hasn’t given any points in 3-4 gw’s and gave assist against Chelsea, though west ham didn’t give cs and I was quite right in benching him and his fixtures aren’t easy too so Cress-> Dijk is what I am thinking atm
Snookie
Why not play Cresswell, Dawson and Monreal as your three this week? That seems fair to me.
So should I replace Costa with Pelle or Begovic with other GK?
Snookie
It’s up to you depending on whether you think Costa deserves another game to score. Defensively though Chelsea are very poor so I’d ditch Begovic soon enough if it’s not this week.
Begovic to Howard or Stekelenberg?
Snookie,
Stekelenberg first I think. Not enthralled by Everton’s CS chances. Can you afford Hart?
Hey folks. Wondering whether to keep old Juan Mata as he’s being taken off mid game quite a few times recently. What’s the deal; is he not tracking back to defend (the reason Mou benched him while he was at Chelsea)? Thinking Mata–>Mane/Barkley/Ozil…
Hey lads.
What’s your thoughts on triple captaining De Bruyne at home against Norwich this weekend?
I’d be patient and wait/use it for a tasty *Double GW* later on in the season. You’d also want to use it on someone like Aguero or Sanchez (or perhaps Kane, if his from picks up) rather than KDB, imo. Those two(/three) are more explosive (and this coming from a KDB fan).
Ahh yes the double GWs. Forgot about them. Saving it for then 100%. Ahh I disagree actually. Could be because I captained him 3 GWs ago and he got me to over 100 points that round. Although, if Sanchez can hit hat tricks and Aguero can get 5 in a game, KDB will have to step it up if he wants to be on ‘the same page’. Cheers for the advice mate.
True, he did have that one GW where he got 15pt w/ 1 goal and two assists!
Yeah I got super lucky, pretty much took Aguero out the GW before that but still managed to boost up the rankings with KDB scoring 30 or so points and all of my mids and forwards performing. I think he will get a ton of over 10 point weeks as he looks to only be getting better at city. Which is crazy. Great player but I’m a bit dirty he now plays for City (Chelsea fan).