The last post I wrote, over ~40 days back was about preparing for GW11, when I was ranked just outside 1M after GW10. Since then, I have managed to break into top 1M and rise to 539k, drop to 717k and now up to 585k at the end of GW18. Last couple of weeks have been absolute carnage with Covid-19 related cancellations but FPL wise ending GW18 with a solid green arrow has been a saving grace.

GW18 was always going to heavily luck based with fixtures getting cancelled left, right and centre. I almost pushed the trigger on the Free Hit chip in order to navigate this GW, hoping to make ground in OR, however I bottled it in the end. In hindsight it worked out fine, took a gamble on Cancelo captain against the Salah wave and that played out brilliantly for me, a 16 point swing taking me to 66(-4) with a GW rank of 451k.

Prior to this gameweek, GW11 and GW14 were particularly good for me with a gameweek rank of 730k and 124k respectively. In GW11, it was the differentials in Adam Armstrong and Kai Havertz scoring 17 points combined that significantly contributed to the GW rank. GW14, which was even better, my best so far this season, had a lot of players clicking – my captain (everyone’s captain!) Salah got 30 points, and relative differentials in Ronaldo and Reguilon got 25 points, leading the team to massive 87 points, while the overall average was 54 points.

Since that gameweek, up to GW17, my FPL team continuously witnessed red arrows, dropping 123k, 33k and 22k over the next 3 gameweeks. So GW18 came in as a good break with a significant green arrow going into Christmas!

Few takeaways from the recent GWs:

1. There is no such thing as a permanent captain, although Salah has been amazing this season wherein I myself captained him 8 weeks in a row, but decided to captain Ronaldo in GW16 and Cancelo in GW18 as I felt the fixture and form had higher scoring potential for others over Salah
2. Taking Hits is OKAY, as long as player we are getting in has a much higher ceiling (determined by form, fixture, attacking (and, or defensive) potential
3. Need to balance the high ownership team members with differential picks or differential captaincy picks!