Our writers will be providing regular articles and team reveals throughout the new season, with only Premium members having access to each. Here’s two-time Indian FPL champion Lateriser, who shares his thoughts ahead of Gameweek 2. It’s been a quiet week in the world of FPL, almost like the calm before the storm. Most managers have either saved a transfer or made the switch from Harry Kane (£11.4m) to Erling Haaland (£11.6m) before this price change. First, if you haven’t already made this shift, I recommend that you do, even for one hit. Haaland seems inevitable to me and, until we know otherwise, don’t overthink it – put him in and enjoy the points. This particular puzzle honestly doesn’t deserve any more keyboard characters in my opinion, so let’s move on.
DARWIN NUNEZ
One player that has messed with my head is Darwin Nunez (£9.1m). You know that feeling when you’re so close to picking an FPL player but you just don’t end up doing it? He’s that guy for me, thinking he had a 40% chance to start Gameweek 1 and a 60% chance to start Gameweek 2. I overreacted both after the Community Shield and after his performance at Fulham. He impressed me so much in the first that I had him on my team for most of the last week before Gameweek 1. Then, in that last hour, you’re fighting yourself as an FPL manager. “Be more disciplined with expected minutes (xMins), Pranil, now is not the time to act on instinct. You are better in the second half of the season. No need for unnecessary risks. “We have no problem with using the early Wildcard anyway, go ahead. “You have to risk balancing your team, Pranil. Going without Gabriel Jesus, starting Ivan Perisic. Are you sure you want to roll the dice on Darwin too? “He has a 30-minute floor anyway. That should be enough. Why take the risk now? Get 70 minutes of Luis Diaz and then you have transfers to get him later!’ Apparently, the Darwin display last Saturday sent me a little sideways after that. I was even considering a Wildcard on Sunday. There were many reasons for this, but the main one, I confess, was the overturning of Darwin’s decision. I wanted three strikers, namely Haaland, Gabriel Jesus (£8.0m) and Darwin. No one was on my team. I also thought that while we would always pick eight to nine players from the top teams because of the price of the game, I wasn’t afraid to make a lot of mistakes, even in such an early Wildcard. I won’t take you through my full internal discussion (some of which you can see here ), but my conclusion was that, in addition to these promotion decisions, there were a few other big calls to be made. I’ve decided to stay for now but, as FPL managers, we have to ask ourselves ‘do I need a wild card?’ question almost every week to stay active. In the meantime, I want to see some more Chelsea and Spurs from their great run of upcoming games, and I also need to see how Darwin starting a game for Liverpool affects those playing alongside him.
THE “MODELS” DISCUSSION.
There’s been a lot of discussion about predictive models and the creativity stifling FPL content creators and managers on Twitter this week. I thought giving my two cents might be worth it. It was an interesting first 20 minutes from Mark on this week’s Black Box. If you are reading this Mark, most of us old school managers enjoyed taking risks back in the day. It’s your instinctive way of being an FPL manager. There were so many weeks that we were amazed to see Mark’s creative drive, only to see it come to fruition often. Mark has been playing creatively for years and doesn’t need to justify his moves in the world of content creation. If there’s a certain way you want to play these early stages, go for it. It just requires that we check ourselves to make sure we are not stubborn. I went through a similar journey during my bad season, but it almost helped the cast come off. What I found was that, despite my poor grades, the FPL managers really care a lot about creative thought processes. As long as it is well researched, I believe there will always be an open minded audience and discussion of the idea because it provides great food for thought. When evaluating Darwin ahead of Gameweek 1, the debate over whether to do “the right thing or the right thing” is so subjective based on the narrative you’re following. I could say to myself: “It didn’t start, so you got it right. Diaz could easily score a goal. You made the right choice because it didn’t start.” Or I could say: “You knew he wasn’t likely to start, but he’s capable of doing damage off the bench and establishing himself as first choice. You lose your identity as an FPL manager. Five years ago, you would have started with Darwin.” Based on what you are asking, both of the above statements are correct. For me, the subjectivity of FPL is what makes it a beautiful game. Many managers like myself seem to be going through an FPL identity change and these discussions will be weekly. Frankly, many of these decisions aren’t even about identity – many FPL moves are self-paced and shouldn’t be overly complicated. At the end of the day, as long as you interact with like-minded people, learn interesting things and make new friendships, that’s all you really need. It doesn’t matter what your process is. Even if you only sign up to transfer on Saturdays, that’s great, isn’t it? This game gives us a lot, in many ways. More than you imagine. Live and let live while enjoying this beautiful game that gives us so much.
