Where did it all go wrong?

[MPTree]

I try really, really hard at this game.

I've been sensible this season. Planned ahead, haven't been particularly impulsive, only taken one hit (though whether or not that's a good thing is a separate discussion). And yet I'm languishing down at 400k in the overall rankings. I've been thinking a bit recently about where it all went wrong.

GW11 I brought in Bony (NOR, avl) as a short-term move over the longer term Lukaku (SUN, whm). Lukaku outscored him 22 to 3 for a 19 point swing (though last week I brought him in).

That same week, due largely to fixtures, I transferred out Coutinho (che, CRY, mci) for Mané (BOU, sun, STO). Over those three weeks, Mané has scored a grand total of six points to Coutinho's 37. That's a 31 point swing, and now I can't afford to by Coutinho back.

That's 50 points lost over the course of three weeks from two decisions that, at the time, seemed fairly sensible. Those 50 points would put me at around 70k, which I'd be happy with at this stage, instead of 400k, which I'm not happy with at all.

The most frustrating thing about FPL is when these borderline decisions go so heavily against you. And you? Which decisions do you wish you could take back? Which close calls really didn't go your way?

[Dragon!Mullet]

[MPTree]

Brilliant. Love your avatar too.

[Tall Paul]

You're doing better than me, I'm just inside the top 600k and I'm not too unhappy with my season so far. To be fair though, that's probably because I'm only 7 points behind the guy I have a big bet with this season (after being 80 points behind in GW 7).

[Dragon!Mullet]

On a more serious note though, I strongly feel that hopping on and off bandwagons this season has been crucial to most people's success (duh ). I am doing rather poorly myself and I am beginning to see why. I ignored Man Untd's defence for too long on the premise that the team wasn't playing too well and had bad fixtures. I chose Mane over Ozil while lots of others got the latter right after the first signs of improvement and guess what - it paid off for them. Up until GW13 I didn't want go get Lukaku, as I got trolled by him too many times before. But a lot of people got him after his short dry spell (some never replaced him)... and it paid off. Same with Pelle, really.

In a nutshell, I think that having the very best recently performing players on each position, as opposed to owning some differentials with high scoring potential and good FPL history has been crucial this season.

[Ruth_NZ]

The main feature of this season as far as I can see is that hit-taking has been rewarded in the main. Those that have jumped on "in-form" players and taken hits to do so have won out over those that have tried to take a longer-term, smoother approach. The hit-takers have tended to gain on TV too (which is worth something though not all-important).

I find myself caught between two stools here. Many very experienced FPL managers with good records will tell you that you don't chase last week's points and especially don't take hits to do so. My instinct is to slow down on hits (I have taken 7 so far) after the initial frenzy of the opening weeks. But the way the game seems to be working right now seems to say otherwise. For example I have kept Sanchez despite having a view that with Walcott out he'd be less effective and Ozil would be better value. Taking a hit for that sideways shift just seemed wrong. But it would have been right on points and also on TV and would also have freed up valuable budget.

The question is whether normal service will be resumed and if so when. That's how the matter looks to me anyhow.

[payetme]

I was ranked in the 300k region 4 weeks ago... My plan was to keep rising but then my team starting to play below part and within these last 4 weeks I've dropped to 1M.

Time for some major changes to my team and hopefully I can have a resurgence

[Sutter Kane]

The main feature of this season as far as I can see is

1) Chelsea/Mourinho
2) What you said - it's not just that the form players (a lot of them cheap) have kept doing it (I mean ffs, Leicester top of the league, Chelsea relegated), it's that the expensive ones have mostly flopped. If we all had a budget of 85mn, this season would have been so easy because that's all we should have spent, spending any more loses you points.

The question is whether normal service will be resumed and if so when. That's how the matter looks to me anyhow.

Yes. I'm in worse than 1mnth place; it all went wrong when I decided Chelsea HAD to turn it around and Vardy wasn't as good as Messi+Ronaldo put together. Wrong.

However, barring a ban/injury there's zero chance I'm relinquishing Costa/Hazard until their ridiculously good run of games is over. If it continues much longer, it'll be some kind of hideous hex.

[Ruth_NZ]

The question is whether normal service will be resumed and if so when. That's how the matter looks to me anyhow.

Yes. I'm in worse than 1mnth place; it all went wrong when I decided Chelsea HAD to turn it around and Vardy wasn't as good as Messi+Ronaldo put together. Wrong.

However, barring a ban/injury there's zero chance I'm relinquishing Costa/Hazard until their ridiculously good run of games is over. If it continues much longer, it'll be some kind of hideous hex.

Interesting. Chelsea are playing steadily better actually. Apart from the Liverpool game but Liverpool played exactly the same way against City and did them 4.

I had to remove Pelle this week and considered Costa. Would have been for free as well, I had money in the bank. But he's just not looking sharp like last season, though his goal last weekend will help. Hazard is another matter though, he's looking more and more like himself after having appeared to be unfit and lacking confidence a month ago. Hazard in - probably for KDB, possibly for Sanchez - will almost certainly be one of my moves for GW15. So we can go down under the hex together.

[umistboy]

Taking hits is ALWAYS a negative move that never ever does anything other than lose you 4 pts per hit. FACT.

What makes some players do better than others is the decisions they make in which players to bring in or not. With 3.5m+ players there will always be players who get there fair share right, loads who get more wrong and loads who get more right. It's variance.

Some work out some don't. But the OP sometimes borders on mocking decisions others have made as being worse than his but got lucky. That's poor form.

At the end of the day OP made his decisions. Tey didn't pay off. Live with it and move on.

[MPTree]

Taking hits is ALWAYS a negative move that never ever does anything other than lose you 4 pts per hit. FACT.

That's demonstrably incorrect.

But the OP sometimes borders on mocking decisions others have made as being worse than his but got lucky.

Not at all. I'm just having a little moan about getting poor returns from well reasoned decisions - something we can all relate to, surely?

[gallus]

Taking hits is ALWAYS a negative move that never ever does anything other than lose you 4 pts per hit. FACT.

I made 2 transfers last week, one was for a 4pt hit. The transfers I made were Pelle&Payet Coutinho&Lukaku. But it was a negative move that lost me 4 points, right?

[cesc408]

Some talk on hits. I'm currently around 127,000 and so far used 48p in hits.

I used my wildcard on GW2. 48p in hits seems a hell of a lot, but most of them I have felt needed, planning my transfers weeks ahead, of course injuries to Wilson, Aguero & recently Payet changes everything, I either put everything back a week or 2, missing fixtures I want certain players for, or I take hits. I think hits are great.

Last week I bought in Ozil for the injured Payet, who picked up 8 points. I then used -4 selecting Kane for Pelle who scored 13 points and now i have him rdy for the next 12 GW. To fund that move however i had to downgrade a defender, selecting Moreno who i wanted this week anyway so now im rdy for his decent run of fixtures. Left him benched vs city. -8 in points on hits. Took 21 points from them 3 I bought in (2 players only played)

Lucky? Maybe. Good judgement? Maybe. Things could have easily gone the other way this past GW. It's all about how players play on the day, and I'm willing to take whatever hits I feel is right each GW to get maximum points and have the best team I can have

[gallus]

Some talk on hits. I'm currently around 127,000 and so far used 48p in hits.

I took 7 hits and am ranked 6,1k OR. No regrets.

[cesc408]

Some talk on hits. I'm currently around 127,000 and so far used 48p in hits.

I took 7 hits and am ranked 6,1k OR. No regrets.

Nicely done. I feel as if I could have managed a couple better, paticularly early on. Lots of top players having no form didn't help. Feel Im on the right track now

[Aldershot Rejects]

I'm currently around 750k having dropped another 100k this week and am just getting incredibly frustrated. It feels like I have a good side, but most of the 50:50 decisions I have made I have got wrong - I also seem to have got into the habit of having players at the wrong time.

I've made the odd stupid decision in hindsight but not that many although I have probably tried to overpush by making too many transfers (6 hits) to compensate for the slow start, but then again part of my original plan was to be aggressive early on to try and build team value. I also did a kneejerk wildcard following a week when 3 of my defenders didn't play in GW6 - that was a stupid over-reaction which meant I didn't have the wildcard for sometime around now.

The fact that Azpi came on for a 1pt cameo in a Chelsea clean-sheet kind of sums it up (having held onto him for such a time as Norwich (H)).

I'm now stuck with Sanchez and KDB knowing that they will score big it I take them out and continue to score slowly if I keep them in!

[jacksosi]

... My plan was to keep rising

I like it, cunning

[cesc408]

... My plan was to keep rising

I like it, cunning

Ahhh isee it now. That's where a lot of people have been going wrong

[Pirlo's Beard]

... My plan was to keep rising

I like it, cunning

He must have spent the whole summer formulating that one.

[umistboy]

Taking hits is ALWAYS a negative move that never ever does anything other than lose you 4 pts per hit. FACT.

I made 2 transfers last week, one was for a 4pt hit. The transfers I made were Pelle&Payet Coutinho&Lukaku. But it was a negative move that lost me 4 points, right?

What I said was that taking a 4pt hit always costs you 4 pts. Hence, (in losing 4 pts) the hit (in pure isolation) is negative.

My response was towards comments like this

The main feature of this season as far as I can see is that hit-taking has been rewarded in the main.

I'm not having a go at Ruth_NZ at all (before he/she gets unhappy ) but the many, many comments that insinuate that "taking hits" can ever be rewarded. It is the making good decisions that are part of making extra (point costing) transfers that are rewarded, not the act of spending 4 pts on a transfer.

For the record, this week I did Mane and Pelle (total 2 pts) Ozil and Lukaku (C) for 32 pts. I was rewarded for taking a 4pt hit (I lost 4pts for that - a negative score). I was rewarded for making decision that paid off.

[gallus]

I'm not having a go at Ruth_NZ at all (before he/she gets unhappy ) but the many, many comments that insinuate that "taking hits" can ever be rewarded. It is the making good decisions that are part of making extra (point costing) transfers that are rewarded, not the act of spending 4 pts on a transfer.

That's like saying that walking in the rain with an umbrella is stupid because it's just another thing you have to carry, but the act of protecting yourself from rain is smart.

Taking a hit and making a transfer are not two separate actions, you have to judge them as a whole.

[liquidfootball2]

There is a player on the transfer hub who came in the top 250 last year who took a stupid amount of hits, there's more than one way to play this game. Hits can be very good it's not as simple as hits are always bad. Hits to build value early season or get the set-up right has always been a feature anyway. Sometimes you need to act calculating the likely rewards are much better than four points.

[umistboy]

I'm not having a go at Ruth_NZ at all (before he/she gets unhappy ) but the many, many comments that insinuate that "taking hits" can ever be rewarded. It is the making good decisions that are part of making extra (point costing) transfers that are rewarded, not the act of spending 4 pts on a transfer.

That's like saying that walking in the rain with an umbrella is stupid because it's just another thing you have to carry, but the act of protecting yourself from rain is smart.

Taking a hit and making a transfer are not two separate actions, you have to judge them as a whole.

No it's not because at no point have I ever claimed anything to be stupid. What I'm highlighting is that nobody is rewarded for taking hits, you're rewarded if you make good decisions when choosing your new players as part of taking hits.

I'm moving the emphasis away from it being hits that can reward/punish to the decision making element that is where you are rewarded/punished (for the want of better words).

If it's simply that this season "taking 4pt hits is paying off" then why don't we just keep doing them all day every day?

[PitchBookMaker]

I've just taken my 13th hit on Sunday, and although I would admit that at least 3 or 4 were a bit-shortsighted, on the whole I'm pretty satisfied as I've built great team value and now have a team with which I'm really pleased... It's those bloody hits I didn't take that annoy the hell out of me...

[Ruth_NZ]

The fact that Azpi came on for a 1pt cameo in a Chelsea clean-sheet kind of sums it up (having held onto him for such a time as Norwich (H)).

Yeah that sucked, I had him too. Worst thing was had Chelsea been 2-0 up Mourinho would have brought Traore on rather than Azpi and I could have had Johnson's 7 points off my bench.

[Ruth_NZ]

For the record, this week I did Mane and Pelle (total 2 pts) Ozil and Lukaku (C) for 32 pts. I was (not) rewarded for taking a 4pt hit (I lost 4pts for that - a negative score). I was rewarded for making decision that paid off.

I hate these semantic arguments. Clearly taking random hits is not beneficial and I never implied that it was.

I guess the truth is that those who have been more willing to take hits have been rewarded more than usual so far because points have tended to be followed by more points for a lot of popular targets. Those that have been reluctant to take hits have suffered as a result. Last season this was not the case - stable and conservative managers did better by and large and the winner of FPL didn't take a single hit all season.

A clear example is your own. Had you refused to take a hit you'd have lost by that decision. That has been replicated multiple times this season - hence my comment that the hit-takers have had a favourable time thus far and the conservative approach not so much. Last season I don't recall an early bandwagon other than Sigurdsson that kept producing - not until Kane came along. But there were loads - Bojan, Ulloa, Naismith for example - that appeared and quickly disappeared like mushrooms accompanied by wild swings up and down in price.

This season we have had Mahrez, Vardy, Payet, Lukaku, Barkley, Smalling, Ighalo - all popular early bandwagons that have kept producing. And for the failures I can really only think of Martial and Pedro (partly through a snafu at FPL Towers) that have let the bandwagon-followers down.

Incidentally, it's patently not true that a hit is always -4. For instance if an injury/suspension crisis means you can't field 11 players. Or in a DGW when a hit for an extra DGW player gives you 2 sets of appearance points rather than one.

[Valeron]

Sitting at 400k now, if you have a good team now and know what you're doing, you still have a very good chance at finishing inside the top 10k. I'm sitting in a similar position and expect to finish in the top 10k. Every season goes the same way, for me anyway.

So keep doing the right things and it should turn. that said, I was close to quitting the season recently with bad break after bad break.

I think there are some very good players behind you, that Triggerlips fella?

[Ironfist]

Here -> viewtopic.php?f=18&t=119388 !

[Bao]

This season rewards players who take hits and follow the form, not fixture or name. I am reluctant to take hits to get some in-form players early and I suffer losing my rank. E.g. I am reluctant to bring in Coutinho and Kane last week due to 4p hits. It ends up with even more hits (8p) to bring them in, losing TV and points.

Another point that some new FPLers used their chips early including bench boost and triple captain. Their OR seems high but they will lost their high rank in DGW.

[Crooker]

Moaning about being placed 400k? Try being in the 2 million club, mate.