A Newbie’s Journey Into FPL, Episode 6: MiQ vs David

Team David Brian

I am writing this on Friday, before Aston Villa hosts Newcastle. I have Jack Grealish (Chris Manfredi’s new favorite player!) still to go in that one, but here’s what my points screen looks like right now:

If you tally up the individual points, the sum is an even 100 so far. Given that the week’s average score is 64 up to this point, I’m pretty pleased with that. I’m on 1169 points overall, which sits me in 151,070th globally. All my arrows are green, and I’m in 319th place in the NMA BTB league. I’m also crushing my FPL Cup opponent by 37 points.

Ahead of GW-19 I took a -4 hit to drop Mohamed Salah and Ollie Watkins for Kevin De Bruyne and Michail Antonio, and I’m glad I did. At the time of this writing, Watkins hasn’t played his second game yet, but he mustered only two points in his first. And Salah put up a mere four over his double.

On the other hand, KDB put up seven in his first match before exiting early in his second due to an injury inflicted by... Jack Grealish! As for Michail Antonio, well, I wish I had captained him instead of KDB. He scored in both of his games, earning full bonus in each. The result was a cool 18 points, more than justifying the penalty I absorbed to effect the double transfer.

Sadly, although I’m generally loathe to take hits, I need to do it again this week. KDB looks to be out for over a month to heal a hammy, and Jamie Vardy will miss “a few weeks” for hernia surgery. These players are too expensive to park on my bench for an extended period of time, so I’ll take a hit again to move both now.

Which will raise £22.4 to spend. I like Manchester United’s upcoming fixtures, so Marcus Rashford (£9.6) looks a good bet to replace KDB in my side. But Raheem Sterling (£11.4) and Ilkay Gundogan (£5.5) have good fixtures too, and Gundogan has scored four goals in his last five games. I’m also eyeing the form of James Maddison (£7.1), who has scored in each of his last three. Depending on how much budget is left after executing my midfield purchase, I’ll then bring in either Harry Kane (£11.1) or Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£7.6) at forward to replace Vardy.

At the moment I’m most persuaded by Gundogan for my KDB replacement. Gundo’s form is irresistible, his starts should be (relatively) secure with KDB out, and his low price makes him a massive bargain who can enable a bigger purchase at forward. And there I think I do prefer Kane to DCL,, so my squad to face off with MiQ’s tentatively looks like this:

I’ll probably wait until Monday or Tuesday to execute my transfers so that I can incorporate the latest team news into my final decision, so I can’t show you a screenshot of my starters and bench just yet. But from the squad above, my team would line up like this:

Sanchez (McCarthy)

Robertson, Coufal, Chilwell, Justin (Nkounkou)

Grealish, Gundogan, Fernandes (Soucek, JWP)

Kane, Antonio, Bamford

I’d have £5.8 left in my bank, which I could then use to upgrade JWP (to Sterling, Rashford, or Maddison) with GW-21’s free transfer.

I hope you profited nicely from DGW-19, and may your arrows be green in GW-20.

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MiQ

I’m going back to GW-18 before the tears start for GW-19 and GW-20. I got lucky in GW-18, scoring an even 60 points using the free hit chip. Betting on Phil Foden and choosing Harry Kane as my Captain was enough to record my second NMA victory. On the other hand, Ali’s team, presented in the fourth episode of my journey, returned only 37 points.

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Game-week 19

Sadly, DGW-19 is not living up to the excitement I felt when my GW-17 team returned to the screen after the free hit chip expired. With Bruno Fernandes, Kevin De Bruyne, Hueng-min Son, Thomas Soucek and James Ward-Prowse, I felt invincible in midfield backed up by Andrew Robertson and Ben Chilwell in defense and led by Jamie Vardy in attack. I made one transfer (I should have saved it) to bring in Phil Foden for JWP. I was thinking Foden has 90 more minutes than Jamie to earn more points, but it was useless.

Currently, my team has just one assist and zero goals. This is what I would call a week to forget unless Jamal Lewis and/or Matt Targett decide to salvage my worst week thus far. Also, it seems that I will be knocked out of the FPL Cup since my opponent is more than 50 points ahead. Looking at Paul’s line-up from the fifth episode of my journey, I cannot say that he is doing any better. I will be writing about the result in the next episode after Aston Villa vs Newcastle match is over and points are finalized. Here is my pathetic DGW-19 points screen shot so far:

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Game-week 20 versus David

David and I both face the De Bruyne and Vardy injuries. I have one free transfer, but they are both too expensive to bench, so I may spend to do a double trade. I am looking to bring in two of Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan, Marcus Rashford, or James Maddison. I am leaning more towards Maddison; since Vardy will most likely make way for Antonio, this would distribute my attack among eight different clubs. This will also leave me enough funds to probably bring in Sadio Mane or Mohamed Salah for Soucek for GW-21.

So here is what my probable squad looks like for now. I do not feel comfortable with more than £8 in the bank, so if you can give me any advice, please shoot!

I will probably bench both Chilwell and Son; then I’ll consider playing my bench boost chip, but it is highly unlikely with my benched keeper injured and Davis a late sub as usual. Remember, it’s Maddison for De Bruyne and Antonio for Vardy so far:

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Newbie’s Journey

Team Name: MiQsters.

Current Level: Newbie (60/100)

Current Rank:

• Globally: 7,570,115 —> 7,524,442
• Own Country: 45,952 —> 45,680
• NMA: 5,001 —> 4,992
• GW14: 489 —> 334 (Apparently this compares me to other players who started on GW-14 as well)

Self-imposed criteria to become “Competent”:

• 10 Points: Prepare for GW14 and select initial 15-player squad
• 15 Points: Score more than 70 points in one GW
• 10 Points: Defeat one NMA blogger! (Current Score Wins 1, Draws 0, Defeats 1)
• 10 Points: Defeat 2nd NMA blogger! (Current Score Wins 2, Draws 0, Defeats 3)
• 10 Points: Successful selection of Captain/Vice Captain 2 GW in a row (GW-17 captain selection was Son again and that worked. Kane was my second best performer in GW-18 scoring 16 points as the Captain. If you think this is not enough to claim the points. Let me know in the comments!)
• 5 Points: Play a total of 5 GW (Current progress 5/5)
• 10 Points: Play a total of 10 GW (Current progress 5/10)
• 20 Points: After 70 points are collected, NMA blog readers to vote MiQ as a competent EPL fan and FPL manager (90%)

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How has your team performed in DGW-19? How are you planning to approach GW-20? Will you need to replace KDB, Vardy, or anyone else? How much overlap does your squad share with David and MiQ? Which of their teams do you like best? Please take the poll and then share your thoughts and plans in the comments!

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