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Last year it was 52 HIGHS: Being part of the inaugural Team GB & Friends Ryder Cup team - Shared Winners (19-19).
Finishing 56th in Play Togga's Perfect XI.
Scoring two 100+ scores (missed out on a 3rd ton by 3pts in GW8).
Rising almost 1,000,000 places in the last 13 Gameweeks (but alas, left it too late). LOWS: Lowest OR finish since 2007/2008.
Falling outside the Top 1% (Final OR) after 4 consecutive seasons.
Not winning any of my mini-leagues.
Poor start (35pts / red arrow) and poor finish (35pts / red arrow).
SUMMARY
"Form is key, class doesn't matter" was the literal
embodiment of the 2015/2016 Premier League season.Unfortunately, I didn’t realise this until it
was too late.This was my toughest
season to date. In many respects it was stop-start to say the least, one step
forward two steps back. I finished with my worst overall ranking in 8
years and least successful since my debut season.Four consecutive Top 1% finishes (2012-2015) were blown out of the water
by a final rank of 261, 424 which just about mustered a Top 7% finish. Such a
finish was unacceptable in relation to my past ranks and pre-season expectations.To understand how I
reached this nadir I need to look back at the 38 Gameweeks which formed my
final rank.
Glancing retrospectively at my Gamweek 1 team I was naïve in
my thinking. I thought the proven likes of Rooney (with no rivals upfront) and
Premier League winning Hazard (& Ivanovic) were musts. Sterling didn’t live
up to his price tag and I relied on a 3-5-2 formation which over the course of
the season haemorrhaged points from my team as shown in the stats. The team
represented so-called class over rising stars.The fact I totally disregarded in-form Leicester players from April 2015
(except for Huth as he was cheap) only served to highlight the stale predictability
of my team.
I put down the first dozen Premier League results down to
freakish results – unexpected away wins and a bit of bad luck.Four green arrows out of five by Gamweek 6
couldn’t mask the fact I was ranked 1.4M.I finally managed to chew on a slice of luck in Gameweek 8 when Aguero
scored 5. Suffice to say I captained KdB which led to 97 points and a rise of
almost 1 million in the overall rankings. This was meant to be the moment my
season started.I should have seized on
it but by Gameweek 12 I was ranked back at 1 millionth.The failure of hits from Gameweeks 9 to
Gameweeks 11 only added salt to open wounds.Buying Mahrez and selling him made sense at the time when he was absent
and made a no show.At least I had Vardy
(even though I only captained him once). But the fact was that Leicester were
unrelenting as was my fall.
By now, I couldn’t afford to sit back and wait as I fell
down my mini-leagues and the gap between my rivals opened up insurmountably – the
wildcard was finally activated.Kane’s
captain inspired 26 points were a much needed boost.The weekend after I managed to shoot up to
559k.But as autumn ended and winter
began the slide recommenced.I was back
to 1 millionth by Gameweek 18.My
defiance of the template team (high ownership players) and template captains
failed spectacularly.The turn of the
year saw some green arrows (albeit with low scores). By now the chance of
bagging a top 1% finish for five consecutive seasons was at serious risk.
By Gameweek 25 I was back to 1 millionth.The yo-yoing of my rank was nothing but a
frustration and a farce.By now, I
realistically needed 13 consecutive green arrows if I was to finish in the top
1%.Inspiration came from Kane and Alli
as Spurs became serious title contenders.Leicester’s goals dried up which made the Mahrez-Vardy combo less effective.Investing in Schmeichel helped as Leicester
began racking up 1-0s.Making early
changes on the aforementioned fronts helped me gain some lost ground.
From Gameweek 26 to Gameweek 32 I only saw one red and
steadily rose up by 600k.All-out attack
was used in Gameweek 31 when I had a depleted defence which meant no clean
sheets were lost on the bench.I was
ranked as high as 380k by Gameweek 32. But by Gameweek 33, looking at the state
of my team (injuries and rotation risks) on the eve of Double Gameweek 34, I
decided to wildcard when everyone else used the Triple Captain chip, rather
than taking a -12/16 hit in Double Gameweek 34 and wildcarding on the eve of
Double Gameweek 37. I still captained Sanchez and bagged 50 points from him
with a score of 136.With hindsight I
probably would have scored slightly more if I triple captained – but I didn’t
mind.Gameweek 37 saw a -8 hit instead
and I scored 100 points after my hit was factored in as I reached 229k in the
penultimate Gameweek.
Gameweek 38 summed up my season – full of promise but ended
on a downer.I was hoping for one final
push to get up to 99,999 but that wasn’t to be.The rearranged Manchester United v Bournemouth fixture gave me hope that
Smalling could get a clean sheet (and a cheeky goal), but all that ended in the
final minutes of the game as he scored an own goal which cemented a red
arrow.Ironically he did get a clean
sheet win (with a goal) on international duty for England – such is life for
any FPL manager.On the plus side I
finished 59th in Play Togga’s Perfect XI!
Looking ahead I am looking to take an immediate break from
FPL.I won’t be participating in the
official “European Fantasy Football” game – I just want to enjoy the tournament.If I continue playing, tweeting and/or blogging
next season I will certainly be doing things a lot differently. Remember this, if and when I quit FPL, I know that I would
want to finish on a high which probably indicates that I can't quit just yet!A Top 1% finish has become
all the more difficult with a million more FPL managers taking up the game over
the last 4 years. In addition, managers have become more educated with nifty tools and apps that have allowed us all to make more informed choices.
Total Points for the Season : 2088
Total Benched Points for the Season : 181
Total Weekly Points Averaged Over All Gameweeks : 54.9
Total Base Points for the above Gameweeks (no captain doubling/trebling) : 1867
Average Base Points for the above Gameweeks (no captain doubling/trebling) : 49.1