Trends From the Top- What Are the League Leaders Doing? A look to Gameweek 33.

After a small bit of a hiatus, I welcome you to this week’s edition of Trends From the Top.  For Gameweek 32, the trends demonstrated that the popular picks were not necessarily the fortuitous ones. While 100% of the top managers had Chelsea’s Hazard on the field, only 30% gave him the armband.  Let’s take a deeper look at what our leaders did for Gameweek 32.

Who was the most captained player by the top ten for Gameweek 32?

This week, 70% of top managers selected Kane as their captain pick.  With a hat trick in GW 30 (17 points) and 2 goals in GW 28 (13 points), Kane did indeed seem to be the logical choice but unfortunately, as we know, Kane only yielded 4 points altogether as captain.

Who were the most popular players chosen by the top ten for Gameweek 32?

Goalkeepers:  40% of the top selected Pantillimon (0 points) while 30% played Myhill (1 point) followed by Hart (1 point), Guzan (9 points) and Mignolet (7 points), each with an ownership of 10%.

Defenders:  As usual, we saw a plethora of defenders played by the top ten; a total of 12 different players.  Terry was the most popular as 8 of the 10 managers selected him.  Terry was followed by Dawson (50% ownership), Ivanovic (40%), Bellerin, Fonte and Alderweield (20%).  The remaining defenders were the following all with 10% ownership: Wollscheid, van Aanholt, Moreno, Rose, Scott and Clyne.

It is interesting to note that while Dawson was selected by 50%, he only has an ownership rate 1.4% and for £4.6 he may be a good differential should he manage to keep clean sheets.  It is important to note however that his remaining fixtures are not easy ones as he’s up against Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Manchester United, (Newcastle), Chelsea and Arsenal.  He would therefore not be on my list of folks to transfer in.

Midfielders:  When you look at midfielders, the top 10 managers had 9 different picks with several getting only 10% of the vote such as Cazorla, Mane and Waters.  100% of managers selected Hazard followed by Silva at 90%, Eriksen at 80%, Sanchez at 70% and Boyd at 20%.

Forwards:  This week, the front line consisted of only 6 picks among the top managers.  90% had Kane followed by Aguero at 90%, Murray at 30%, and Giroud Benteke at 20% and Ideye at 10%.

Here again we see something interesting;  Murray from Crystal Palace was selected by 30% of top managers and one can only suspect that this is in anticipation for GW 34 which has only 14 teams playing.  With an impressive record, 38 points in the past three gameweek’s, he is clearly in form and a super differential.  He is currently priced at £5.2m and has an ownership of only 2.4%!

In summation, the Must-Haves for top managers for Gameweek 32 were Terry, Dawson, Sanchez, Eriksen , Silva, Hazard, Kane and Aguero as they all had an ownership rate of 50% or higher.

How many players do the top 10 have for GW 33?

Knowing that we have an interesting gameweek in which only 14 teams play, I wondered the following:  “How many players will the top managers play for GW 33?”  Clearly one would want a full 11 but knowing that GW 34 could potentially yield great results for Cheslea, Liverpool, Hull and Leicester, I decided to take a look.  All top managers will have a full team of 11.  While 80% of them already have a team of 10 or higher, the remaining two players currently have 9 (along with free transfers).  As a manager with a team of only 7, I am somewhat concerned.  The challenge for many managers will be sorting through these next two gameweeks…good luck!

What do we know about our #1 fantasy football leader?

Our current leader, Atletico Marchid**(Simon March) of Singapore has NOT deployed his wildcard.  This is huge and with a current lead of 25 points, I definitely see this as a secret weapon (although this is no secret).  He has the upper-hand and I do predict that he will come out victorious.  Simon also has a rather impressive fantasy football track record.  In 2011/2012 he finished 6436 and in 2012/2013 he finished 3,833.  Simon has maintained the #1 position for 9 weeks and has been in the top 10 for 15 weeks.

Other interesting facts:

• The average score for Gameweek 32 among the top 10 was 56.1 points which is only 10.1 points above average for the week.
• Red Star Donetsk of the USA and currently in the 9^th position also has his wildcard available.
• England has made a comeback as they currently represent 40% of the leader board.
• The remaining countries represented in the top 10 are Singapore, Algeria, Australia, Pakistan, USA and Germany

Hope this was useful!

Best of luck in Gameweek 33!

@bekachan