As a 21 minute appearance of Wilson blocked a massive 15 pointer of Pinnock at home against the champions Manchester City, much to the dismay of the eventual Runner up of FPL 2022-23, FPL Gunz bagged a famous win for himself. The manner of the win itself emphasizes on the importance of several variables that are not in the control of an FPL Manager. In the meantime, I was competing in the final of a local tournament in Last Man Standing format and lost to the eventual winner by four points and became Runner Up. However, I am fairly satisfied with my season, managing an overall rank of 16,089 with 2593 points, 183 less than the champion.

While we are waiting for another exciting season to launch, it can be a good time to reflect on the shortcomings of previous season and who could be a worthier benchmark than the winner of Season 2022-23.

An average of 4.81 points deficiency per week may seem a big difference at first. However, once you break it down to smaller units, the picture suddenly becomes a bit more cheerful. Knowing that you were at a higher rank than the champion in Game week 6 is a pretty encouraging thought, right?

** Point chart based on game weeks

What is the significance of the information that I managed to score more than the champion in 35.1% game weeks? One interpretation can be that I am not far behind. Another take away would be that I am not consistent as a manager. Well, both are true actually. While I was trying to be at par with the crowd, someone was planning to win over the same crowd.

Also, the fact that FPL Gunz gained at a rate of 13.34 points surplus per game week, whenever he got better of me compared to a not so bad 12.53 points surplus for me clearly suggests that you do not need to be perfect to be a winner. The idea is to become consistent first.

Captaincy performance was not that bleak as well. An average of 19.45 points per game week thanks to Haaland, in comparison with a 20.49 by season winner gives plenty of positivity going forward. Although, analyzing weeks where difference were made, it was evident that I could have been a little braver when it came to not captaining Haaland. Nevertheless, captaincy wise variance was lower in general this season; therefore, a 38points gain is significant enough.

Chip wise, I thought I performed worst this season as I was not even close to optimizing any of the chips. It was a unique season due to break between Game week 16 and 17 for world cup and an effective extra wild card, game plan of every FPL Manager was based on the team they were putting in game week 17. Moreover, as I was playing with only one team in all competitions, I had to postpone the use of chips till last. For example, I did not play Tripple cap chip on Marcus Rashford in game week 22 which was as obvious as it could get. Rather, I ended up using it on Haaland in game week 37 which resulted in a effective loss of 14 points compared to the champion.

Comparing Bench boost & Free hit performance of two managers is little tricky due to variance existing in decisions that led up t that particular week. However, in hindsight, variance of free hit stood at a negative one for me while Bench boost helped me to get a 13 point gain. 2^nd wild cards were used pretty late in both cases. A wildcard at game week 33 may have pushed me to a bit higher rank with a 31 pints gain compared to wild card played by the champion in game week 34.  Although, it is worth mentioning that by the time of game week 33/34, we were already playing for different goals.

Finally, we will look into an aspect which is often ignored by managers like me who are mostly concerned with short term gain rather than benefits in long run. I made 40 transfers in total including 32 points hit in which, 52% gave me positive return with points per transfer ratio stands at 64.825. For the champion however, numbers are much better as expected. 42 transfers in total were made throughout the season with 36 points hit. However, a whopping 84% success rate in terms of positive gain with points per transfer ratio standing at 66.095 made the hits worthy enough.

For many of us, a major part of playing Fantasy Premier League is to get involved with EPL while we can have banter with our friends in mini leagues. In spite of that, the game sometimes can be very stressful and frustrating mainly due to missing out on something which was before our eyes all the time. It makes us think low of ourselves regarding decision making and understanding of the game. However, it is not always the case. The purpose of the writing was to find out some positives while understanding how to get better going forward.

By Shihab

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