I spoke to 3 FPL World Champions for their final GW1 teams. 🏆
I was blown away by the variety in the teams, whether you agree with their opinions or not it's refreshing to see such differing views on the game and best picks.
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Jonas up first who won FPL recently, and an analytical manager. 📊 What a team as well - look at this.
So it's Raya, Gabriel, Maguire, Mosquera. Wirtz, Mbeumo, Fernandes, Ndiaye, Szobo, Joao Pedro and Isak. ⚽
So his bench is Rushworth, Richarlison, Thomas and Van Ewijk. 🪑
Looks like a definite GW2 bench boost with triple Coventry. No Haaland and definitely chasing maximum rank swings here. 📈 Triple Arsenal defence, triple Liverpool attack, triple Coventry defence for GW2. Bruno captain and no Haaland. It's actually brilliant and you've got to respect the approach, it's what won him the whole thing comfortably before.
I asked the Champions for their thoughts. Jonas said:
I am looking to BB in GW2 and bet against Haaland. I like the structure without Haaland and believe it can do well. It’s obviously a risk, but I hope it can pay off. It's incredible what you can do without Haaland.
As you can see, I have triple Arsenal defense, so them getting clean sheets to begin with would be huge. Same goes for my triple Liverpool, triple Coventry and triple Man Utd. My plan to WC early allows me to do this. Trying to grab some differentials and co variance over the first few gameweeks. Plan is to WC in 3 to get Haaland who is, imo, essential from that GW
I'm honestly still not 100% sold on Wirtz’ minutes, so he’s the one that could be a late change.
The upside with Richarlison is defo there. With him potentially having pens and Spurs improving massively, and Solanke injured. But if they sign another attacker before Friday, I might have to leave him out.
I believe Thiago is being overlooked. Great output last season, with numbers to back him. But understand it might be tough fitting him into your team.
Gakpo can be interesting, but we know too little about his future and Liverpool’s Barcola business.
Tarko as well, if you’re going long with your wc/bb. Goal threat, great for sefcons, but his mins might be threatened long term
Bruno has so many routes to points, he’s a no brainer for me. Same goes for Szob who might be on pens, but we don’t know if Isak will be the designated pen taker. Anderson's left my draft but I expect he'll continue to do the defcons. Gross may have pens and in that case be the standout 5.5 option. They have just signed Promise David on loan who has taken 12 in his career. He's still a valid option even without them though, as he was last season.
So that's Jonas's team, what do you think? As Jonas said, it's a short term strategy, just the opening two gameweeks then reset the team with the wildcard. 🃏 It's perhaps the biggest trade off to no Haaland, you cannot go in to Coventry home without him really, meaning that's a GW3 FH or WC. It's a brilliant team and I hope it does well for him.
Joshua Bull next. A genius mathematician winning FPL in 2020, but is his draft genius? 🧠 He's gone Kinsky, Pedro Porro, Maguire, Calafiori, Davis, Mbeumo, Bruno, Semenyo, Foden, Joao Pedro and Haaland.
A super light bench Dubravka, Walle Egeli, Thomas and McAteer. 🪑
The idea is to start Davis, I just like a cheap defender with attacking potential and think he'll have a slightly different role this season to last time we were in the prem where he was really overstretched. 🛡️ Everyone else probably speaks for themselves - not at all sure about Bruno at 12m but he's got great fixtures to start and it'll be a lot easier to jump off him to someone else if needed than it would be to get him in if he starts the season brilliantly.
I haven't thought hard about chip strategy, but I'm not planning an early bench boost - between rolling transfers and the first wild card I think it's much easier to get to a good BB team once the season has settled in a bit, so I don't see huge value in the early BB. I'd love to have one of Saka/Palmer in, and also there seems to be good value in the 6m FWDs - you can't have everyone though and the idea is that between Foden/Mbeumo/Semenyo/Bruno it should be easy to pivot to one of those more expensive mids if they suddenly look essential. Same at the front, JP to the 6m is an easy move to make if needed and JP doesn't take off. Walle Egeli won't be nailed but will get minutes so he's a handy 4.5m FWD.
Foden is one spot I'm unsure on, he could still change. For example Szoboszlai for the same price, or a 6m mid frees up 1m to strengthen the team depth.
You always need luck to win; the skill is in putting yourself in the best position to be lucky. 🍀
The best tool we have to do this is stats, they're the least biased way of comparing players and making decisions. That doesn't make them perfect, and people can always cherry pick stats to support a pre-existing narrative, so be careful! 📊
That includes fooling ourselves into pretending our decisions are based on evidence and not the other way round - don't be afraid to recognise that your own picks are biased/not working out, and change them. Recognising that you've made a mistake backing your favourite player/ignoring a popular choice and correcting it is better than doubling down!
Yeah it's a completely stacked starting 11, just a very light bench but that is a valid approach for the start of the season given you can activate the early wildcard, GW3, GW4, GW6 and all fantastic weeks for it. 🗓️ There will be tons of early wildcards this season mark my words. I've not seen Pedro Porro in many drafts but he should be set for a big year, and in case you missed it Josh is an Ipswich fan and he's gone for Davis over the other 4m defenders O'Shea or Diop interestingly.
Lastly Ben Crabtree, who got style points for his FPL win avoiding Liverpool all season as an Everton fan. 💙 He's gone Verbruggen, Gvardiol, Mykolenko, Calafiori, Mbeumo, Semenyo, Ndiaye, Cunha, Calvert-Lewin, Haaland, Joao Pedro.
On his bench Rushworth, Rogers, Bogle and Van Ewijk. 🪑
Here's what Ben said:
I have settled on my attackers Calvert-Lewin Joao Pedro Haaland quite quickly with just a little question mark over Rogers starting gameweek 1 but he's on the bench.
After deciding to bench boost in gameweek 2 followed by a likely, but not locked in wildcard shortly after, I’ve landed on some cheaper defenders that I’m happy with due to the short term nature of them. Gvardiol and Calafiori I like a lot but are rotation risks. I’m hoping good early form will at least keep them secure at the beginning. Muharemovic, Mykolenko and Van Ewijk all have reasonable fixtures for gameweek 1 and the gameweek 2 bench boost. The plan is to have 2 transfers for gameweek 3 where I’ll likely make at least one defensive transfer, hoping my attack will be in good shape and not need any changes.
In midfield, the double up on Man U is to attack their first two fixtures with having to make the compromises that Fernandes requires. Cunha has a question mark over him at the moment so I will monitor his likely start and might have to make a late change.
Unless his form drops then Semenyo looks like a season keeper. I've swapped Ndiaye to Dewsbury-Hall from my last draft. Rogers is a player I really like and is ok to bench for gameweek 1 on the assumption he’s deemed fully fit to start gameweek 2. I see myself owing him for a lot of the season.
Up front feels like the obvious 3. Haaland and the underpriced Pedro are easy picks with DCL having the pre season form and early fixtures to be the safest bet for the 6m slot.
In goal, I’m keeping it cheap with Rushworth backup just for the bench boost. 🧤
So that's two champions that are both going to bench boost GW2 not GW1 which seems to be more popular, that's something I'll need weigh up some more. ⚖️ What's really interesting to me as well is the variety between the drafts, Jonas with the 3-5-2 no Haaland BB2, Josh with the 4-4-2 no chip planned Haaland and Bruno. Ben with no Bruno, 3-4-3 bench boost 2.
You never know what you're going to get back when you reach out to these world champions and it's refreshing to see very differing opinions even if you don't agree. Ultimately, going against the grain is what led to all 3 winning the whole thing and I've battled with this myself if I'm totally honest because how rogue do you go and what if it completely backfires?
You can play relatively template and earn a respectable final rank top 50k, top 10k whatever but you'll never ever win FPL by playing template for 38 gameweeks. Erik won FPL last year doing some mad stuff like captaining Tarkowski in GW1 and then later settled down to a more template strategy once he got a grip of the game.
80% off flash sale on membership ends soon. Just go to fpl.page/subscribe to take advantage and see the list of benefits. That's 80p all the way til GW5!