Fantasy Football

What is going on everyone, my name is Andy. Welcome to another FPL video. Today I’m taking a look back at the FPL 2018-19 season. I know at this point, FPL is finished for that season. No one really cares. I also did a live stream that went a little bit wrong and I’m not quite happy how it came out. I know some people prefer the shorter video and obviously, it can be concise about what I’m talking about.

I’m going to go through my final week, where I ended up, FPL player of the season, lessons learned, and then take a quick look back at the predictions I made at the start of the season. Let’s just straight into it. We’re taking a look back at the final game. Game week 38 I scored 76 points but took a four point hit. It’s 72 all together. My moves were Wilson in, Sterling in, and Redmond in. I took out Eriksen, Son, and Jimenez. Obviously, Son was suspended. Jimenez was playing against Liverpool. I basically was trying to get into the top 10k from about 15,200 was where I started before game week 38 came along. My way to do that was to basically bench all my Wolves players or sell them and just hope that Liverpool could keep a clean sheet. Although a lot of people own Liverpool defenders, not necessarily a lot of people own two of them. I was thinking that Wolves would maybe struggle to score. They did pretty well.

Obviously didn’t score in the end and that obviously Sterling would come in as a blocker and then Redmond and Wilson will be differentials. Wilson’s away from pretty good. In the end, he did nothing. The big mistake I made which I’ll try not to bang on about too much. I’m sure I’ll be mentioning it next season when we come towards the end of the season, but that’s a long way away. We won’t think about it too much right now. I basically said pre-game week 38, that I was going to captain Mané because a lot of the captain polls had Sterling and Agüero as favorites. I fought against the top 10k captain Salah or Mané. I didn’t have Salah so it dropped to Mané because I knew that they were good options well owned but not going to be as highly owned, at least captain-wise, in the top 10k as Mancity.

In the end, I opted to block and immediately you can go for Sterling and that cost me ten points. It was exactly ten points, which would have gotten me into the top 10k. I’m a little bit disappointed, but I did finish 12,731 which is not bad. It goes towards my overall rank history for the last ten years, nine or ten years, whatever it is now. It’s a pretty good rank. I should be pleased with it but I came so close to the top 10k and it was just that one mistake going against my gut which just didn’t pay off. Otherwise, Deulofeu goal was nice but then he came off.

Aguero scored who was so high on demand. Lacazette’s done nothing for me since I got him on wildcard and then he missed the whole game. Trent Alexander-Arnold was absolutely smashed in. It’ll be interesting to see Robertson and Trent’s price next year because Robertson’s most stable you’d think for starts, but unless they buy a left back, of course. Actually points per game, Trent Alexander-Arnold beat him, it’s just that he didn’t necessarily play as many games. That’ll be interesting.

Overall points with 2375 so you can see how close you got to that or if you beat me, which I’m sure a lot of people did. I took 12 hits, which was 48 points. Now I’ve spoken about this a lot, but interestingly in my best ever rank top 5k, I took 96 points worth of hits so double what I took this season. I don’t think that necessarily means anything, you can take hits and they can work out and you can take hits and they don’t. It goes to show that I just used them when I think I need them. In the past, I would have taken hits whenever but now I just take them when I think I need them. I took a hit this week.

If I was safely in the top 10k, I wouldn’t have taken a hit this week. I would have just played it safe but I was trying to go for it. I thought it was the best way to end the season so I ended on a green arrow. Overall, pretty happy but let me know in the comments section how you finished in the end. My FPL player of the season is 100% Raul Jimenez which it probably comes as no surprise to people who have watched the stream. I got him in game week five. A lot of people were going for Ings at the time and I think I remember he had a couple of tough fixtures. Plus he was going to have to miss one because he was on loan from Liverpool. I think he played Chelsea as well in the next four when I was going to buy him. Something like that. Raul Jimenez had pretty good stats although I haven’t really seen him play that much. I bought him instead, a little bit of a pantsy I walked and just didn’t look back from there.

I think from game week five to when I saw him in game week 38, he averaged over five points per game. For someone that I bought for 5.5 million, that is incredible. I think he finished on 181 points which was only about 20 off of top spot. He got really close to the likes of Aubameyang and Agüero for a lot less money. Now obviously there’s other contenders, namely Mané for a really good price. Less than Salah and for a lot of the season, he did really well. Sterling hasn’t obviously got close to Salah as well for less money but I think Robertson probably unlucky to miss out. First offender to ever hit 200 points. Pretty much nailed every single game week. Returned so many assists, obviously Trent as well but he was a little bit less likely to start for a lot of the season. You’re always worried about Gomez so Robertson probably a close second, but it has to Jimenez. 5.5 million. Interesting to see what his price will be like next year whenever they sign another striker because they didn’t really have a backup for him. I know they played Traore and stuff up front, but he’s nowhere near the quality of Jimenez when it comes to a striker. We’ll see what they do next season. I think his price will probably be about 8 million.

I don’t think they can do it much more than that. Maybe 8.5 but we got to remember they’re counting on Wolves necessarily doing that again. There’s people talking about them getting into top six, but as we’ll see on lessons learned in a minute, they’re going to be in Europe and that could hurt their squad. We’ll see how much they reinforce it by. I think we’ll see an 8-8.5 million price. I think 9 million for a Wolves player is just going to be too much. Although we have seen Vardy at that price and obviously he’s outside the top six. We’ll see how it goes but absolutely my player of the season. Let me know in the comments below, does anyone have a different player of the season, that’s not Jimenez or Robertson. It’d be really interesting to hear it.

Lessons learned, there’s always one that people want to talk about. I’ve said this a lot already in this video, but let me know in the comments below what lessons you learned this season. Now I try and be careful with this because a lot of the times, people will write a whole thread or Twitter or video about whatever when it comes to lessons learned. Usually, it will just be them saying how it was easy to win that season just gone. Obviously, every season we have to adapt. The players we had in this year will be more expensive if they did well. At least, for the most part, it’d be hard to fit in. Everyone’s saying they’re going to double up on Liverpool twins.

That’s fine if you’re happy to pay the price, then you can absolutely do it. The likes of Robertson can be 7.5 million next year and you might say, well compared to a 7.5 midfielder, that’s a bargain. You’ve got to consider it’s not just a defender versus midfielder, it’s a defender plus another midfielder versus. Robertson plus a midfielder versus a similar priced midfielder and plus a separate defender as well. Sometimes the cheaper defenders can outscore the cheaper mids so you might want to spend your money in a different place. I’m not saying we won’t necessarily go for Liverpool players, but I just think watch out for basically your lessons learned being how to win the FPL 18-19 season because that’s been and gone now.

A few things to look out for. I suppose one that comes up a lot is teams in Europe. I think Burnley struggled at the start of the season. They came back and did a bit better in the second half of the season. We saw they had a pretty good run in 2019, but towards the start where they were playing in Europe, it was tough for them. We’ll likely see that with Wolves as well, and now Wolves probably got a bit of a stronger squad. I’m probably going to invest some money this summer. If they do that, they might cope better. Obviously, they do get to play earlier, which brings their fitness up. I think we’ve seen teams struggle in the past, so I’ll be a little bit concerned about Wolves. Given they’re probably going to get a bit of a hefty price increase. We might have to give serious consideration to skipping them at the start of the season. We’ll see how that goes.

Start big in defense now. This could be one of those ones where we say, “Yes, of course, Robertson, Trent, Laporte did really well so you’re just learning from the last season.” Actually, I learned from the season before. I remember, I think it was Barrett who came on the Scout Cast and he started big in defense. He said big, it was like four or five at the back. Now I didn’t start four or five at the back, I started with three. I started with some pretty hefty defense. I think one thing I like about big defenders, especially at the start of the season was, they’re pretty reliable for most of the season. You can pretty much guess when they’re going to get their clean sheets. Obviously it doesn’t always work like that, but obviously, the likes of Alonso, Mende, and Robertson started really well.

That’s something I’ll likely do at the start. I probably won’t look for too many players who’ve just been promoted. I’ll wait to see how they get on and I’ll try and go for some for big names in defense and just split my money throughout the rest of the team. Obviously, the wildcards and stuff are used early this year, that could easily happen again next year. If it goes wrong, if there’s other defenders I need to get in, or suddenly there’s some big hitters in attack that I need, I can easily switch for a wildcard. After we’ve seen the first three or four weeks, we can take a look at that.

Triple captain in a single game week. I will absolutely try and use my triple captain in a double game week. I think this year, I’ve got it in my head now that don’t worry about if you have to use it in a single game week. We saw that Mané and Salah as captain against Fulham did really well. We saw other people using it in single game weeks. Obviously, it’s still a bit of luck. You could use it on someone and they blank, and that’s frustrating. I’m not disregarding double game weeks just because I failed with it this year. I did it on Sane in game week 25, he got one point. I could have easily gone for Agüero who absolutely smashed it. I’m not saying no to double game weeks, but I won’t be as concerned if I am able to plan for the double game weeks around the other chips and not worry about the triple captains. I think once you get toward the end of the season, you know teams are down and out, they’re defensively poor and you’ve got some big hitters that are just really in good form. That might be the time to use it, so I will probably hold onto it. I don’t think I’ll use it early, but I won’t be concerned if I don’t have to use it in a double game week. That doesn’t mean that I won’t try and use it in a double game week. On the other hand, free hit and wildcards, absolutely save them for double game weeks and blanks. It was a lifesaver this year made planning really easy and I’ll definitely do it again. I think the double gaming some blanks will fall slightly differently to how they did this year. We’ll see how that goes but they’re still going to be so useful, especially the free hit, it makes planning around blanks really easy. Although I didn’t necessarily get the increases I wanted this year, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be using them again next year.

Then serious consideration for cheap strikers, if you look at the kind of team the dead teams that would have won it last 2 years, a lot of people put together teams that would have won FPL without making a transfer. Now obviously we’re going to make transfers we’re trying to get the best score possible and it’s not easy to predict the team that’s going to win at the start of the season. Last year Firmino and Vardy were the two strikers to have and this year I think it was Wilson and Jimenez. It’s very rare that the big strikers get in there because the midfield they get extra points we’ve seen Hazard, Sterling and Salah smash it this year.

Now, a lot will depend on whether any of those players get put forwards this year or they stick to midfielders that’s something we’ll have to assess at the start and season. I’m going to give serious consideration to start to go for cheap strikers and just get more midfielders in. That’s my lessons learned, let me know if you’ve got any others or any thoughts about what I’ve said.

I’m going around through the predictions I made at the start of the season and go through them quickly. I did top six, bottom three as well as most assists most clean sheets et cetera. Starting with the top six, bottom three, we’ll go bottom three first absolutely nailed it. I think Cardiff and Huddersfield were two obvious picks and Fulham I wasn’t quite sure about those obviously likes of Brighton and Southampton and I think I even mentioned Wolves as well because it wasn’t sure if they would do as well as everyone said they were. They absolutely did so I messed that up but I got the bottom three spot on.

Top two as well Man City and Liverpool obviously it came very very close and Liverpool did really well this season so congratulations to them but ultimately you come second you don’t win anything so hats off to Man City for back to back Premier League that doesn’t get done too often. Obviously, the big mistake was going Man United third a lot of people saying that’s bias. I think if you look at it even though Mourinho said it was one of his best ever achievements to finish second with that team. I wasn’t expecting the free fall from him although maybe it should have been expected third season, et cetera. I thought maybe we’d go from second to third, Spurs at the time I recorded hadn’t made any transfers and they didn’t make any. The last transfer was January 2018 for Lucas Moura. Obviously, they’ve coped really well, they’ve got top four and they’re in the Champions League Final so got that completely wrong.

Chelsea and Arsenal I just thought new managers might take a while to set in. Spurs and Man United are probably pretty consistent and Man City and Liverpool would definitely be fit one and two. It was hard to guess the rest of the top six. I think Man City and Liverpool are probably would be the top two again next season. I don’t think the rest of the teams will catch up with them just yet. I’m going to need a lot of investment. It would be interesting to see what Spurs do in that regard and then obviously Chelsea got top four and Arsenal missed out so not to go on the top six but nailed the bottom three.

Their most clean sheets Liverpool absolutely spot on. I just think how well they ended last season just made me think they’d be pretty close this year obviously Man City as well close behind. Liverpool with most clean sheets. Most assists most goals completely wrong. In the end, Mane, salah, and Aubameyang all finished top for goals equal. Obviously, Kane got injured towards the end of the season, which wasn’t great. I thought Salah would regressive a bit, I thought his season last year was probably hard to replicate but he did have another great season. He just set the standard so high but in the end, Kane had a pretty poor season. I think next year his price will probably come down. I’d be interested to see what fixtures Spurs start with. Obviously, I said we’re going to be looking at cheap strikers but if he’s priced 10.5 maybe 11 he’s got nearly 200 points for three seasons in a row before this season so I definitely one to look at.

Most assist De Bruyne obviously got a massive massive injury for most of the season so obviously not even anywhere near. Fraser and Hazard did really well. It would be really interesting to see. I would have assumed De Bruyne probably would have done pretty well if he played the whole season like he always does. I think when he came back for one of his games he got three assists, not necessarily in the league but he’s a great player, but just missed out through injury this season.

I believe when I talked about the highest scoring goalkeeper, I basically chose Ederson because as you’ll see in a minute I chose Robertson for defender I didn’t want to choose too many Liverpool players. I would have gone for probably Allison but Ederson saved a couple of penalties last year which is why his score was so high. I just thought Man City are probably going to get clean sheets again. If you can get a couple of penalties he would be right up there. In the end, he came second, Allison came first so I didn’t quite nail this one but he still did really well. Obviously, Pickford shout out for him because he came third and I don’t think many people were expecting that.

As I said Robertson high scoring defender he absolutely smashed it, first defender to go over 200 points even though Van Dijk did it as well this season. Liverpool defensively was so good and even Trent who missed a good few games also got really close as well. I think Robertson will probably be the prediction again next year, I don’t see another defender coming in. Mendy obviously got problems, Trent it would depend on whether he gets enough game time versus Robertson. The likes of Alonso just not attacking enough anymore even if they’re in the team at all. We’ll see who comes in for the league next year but Robertson absolutely smashed it, so many assists, so many clean sheets, so much bonus. I think he’s going to do it all again next year. This was probably the most obvious pick of all obviously scored over 300 points last year. I didn’t quite expect him to do that again but I also didn’t think it was a complete fluke that he did so many points I see he regressed a bit. I think it was 22 goals he finished on this season but that’s still fantastic for a player who’s not the only one in the team that scores goals. Obviously, Firmino and Mane really chipping in as well. I think he’ll probably be up there again next season be hard to back against him especially if Hazard leaves to go to Real Madrid. It’s probably only Sterling and maybe De Bruyne if he can stay injury free. Salah absolutely smashed it two years in a row really hefty price tag and he’s probably going to get exactly the same next year.

Last but not least, was top scorer forward and again I nailed it with Aubameyang. Obviously, I went for Kane for most goals so a lot of people will probably think you should go for him for highest point scorer. The reason I went for Aubameyang so I think he would have chipped in with assists as well as goals and that’s what happened plus Kane got injured. If he wasn’t injured maybe he would have kept up. Aubameyang had great season he’s done it anytime he’s played in any season even with Dortmund and stuff, he’s absolutely smashed the amount of goals and assists he gets. He’s done again for Arsenal, a lot of people say you watch him he looks like he’s not doing anything but he’s clinical when he gets a chance and he does set up assists as well or create chances as well.

The frustrating thing was a lot of us probably didn’t own him that much this season because you just weren’t sure whether Lacazette was going to start with him or Lacazette will start on his own. He was injured for a bit he was ill for a bit so he went the whole season became top scorer and forward. I was right up there for a lot of the season but none of us could just get him in. Next year, it’ll be interesting to see if Lacazette is still there and so would see which you assume they both will be unless maybe Real Madrid come in for Aubameyang or something like that. Then Aubameyang would be right up there for the points again next year and would probably be number one or number two forwards if he still there. It’s just whatever we can get him or not would really depend on how confident we are that he and Lacazette will play together because when they’re both around and available especially around Europe and cup ties and stuff like that, it can easily be one that gets rested for the other. It’s pretty frustrating from FPL point of view but the top score and nice for his debut season at Arsenal.

That’s it for this one. Hopefully, you enjoyed it. Thanks very much as always for watching. If you didn’t join, hit the like on there comment on anything I’ve said or any other questions I’ve asked to be me much appreciate it. As always, again, thanks for your support this season. My kind of is it now this is a wrap-up season review. There are a few more videos I’ve got planned before FPL launches. I know most people don’t care but I’m trying not to let the channel completely die till FPL launches. There’s a few things like, what changes I would like to see? If you’ve got any video ideas for stuff that can be put out before FPL launches, price predictions would be one as well. I’d love to hear our work on getting them done. Maybe we one a week or one every two weeks or something like that. I just don’t want to do nothing between now and July. I want to keep taking over a little bit. Obviously, we’ve been building up the audience this year. I’d like to keep going with that. Otherwise, I’m going to leave this one here and like comment, share, subscribe, hope you all had a great season will definitely do it all again next year. Cheers, all.