Season 4 Weekly Update 29 - League A

Hello everyone and welcome to gameweek 29! We have midweek matches starting Tuesday so waivers were due this morning at 10am PST / 1pm EST! Some great matchups this week, led by the wild 37-all draw between Kevin and Luke! Elsewhere, the FPL gods blessed me with a 27-25 win against MatthewR, Zach took a high scoring victory over Dylan 54-48, and Scott piled onto Matt's unlucky run with a 52-44 win of his own. Full results are as follows:

  • Matthew 27-25 MatthewR
  • Scott 52-44 Matt
  • Kevin 37-37 Luke
  • Zach 54-48 Dylan
  • Coop 23-39 Jesse
  • Gavin 15-43 Darryan

League Table

Weekly Matchups


And taking a look at the league table we have a good bit of movement! Starting at the top, Darryan and Zach keep up their 1 point of separation from one another, but extend their lead over third to now 9 points. And that third place is held by me (on PF ahead of MatthewR and Jesse). Dylan slides back 3 points to solo 6th, now 2 points ahead of Kevin and Luke following their tie. The gap between the duo and 9th (now held by Scott) finds itself at 7 points, with Scott moving ahead of Matt and Coop.

Game Changers!

  • Matthew: Antoine Semenyo - 8 pts - A classic ~~Haaland~~ Semenyo performance where he ghosted for 90 minutes and scored the winning goal (but got 0 bonus points (unlike Haaland would have)).
  • Scott: Bruno Fernandes - 13 pts - The Portuguese midfielder continues his solid form with his 9th double digit week of the season off the back of a goal and assist against a perpetually angry Glasner.
  • Luke: Rayan Ait-Nouri - 11 pts - The Rayan - Rayan connection proved valuable to Luke this week as the latter Rayan assisted the winning goal against Leeds, while also picking up a clean sheet and all 3 bonus. (Also shoutout to MGW's 9 pointer on the other side of this draw)
  • Zach: Hugo Ekitike - 15 pts - A really interesting points total this week for the Liverpool striker as he breaks his 2 pointer streak with a goal and 2 assists in a wild 5-2 win against West Ham.
  • Jesse: Ruben Dias - 9 pts - A vintage Ruben Dias display as his 14 defensive contributions earned him a single bonus point against Leeds.
  • Darryan: William Saliba - 10 pts - Yes, that is a center back who has earned 10 points from a goal and 2 bonus points. And what a messy goal it was.

Congrats to Zach for winning February Manager of the Month! His undefeated 12 points was enough to take the award and his 3rd of the season!

Manager of the Month


And on the form table, Zach of course takes the top spot with 15/15 points earned in the last 5 weeks! He sits ahead of Darryan and Jesse who are on 12/15!

Form Table


This week will see some great matchups, headlined by what should be a great one between two in form teams in me vs Jesse! Elsewhere, Darryan looks to fend off Dylan while Zach takes on MatthewR in our title race, and Matt and Coop square off! Full matchups are as follows:

  • Jesse (5) vs Matthew (3) (all-time: 3-0-8, 370-492)
  • Dylan (6) vs Darryan (1) (all-time: 4-0-6, 393-425)
  • Luke (8) vs Gavin (12) (all-time: 6-0-2, 298-241)
  • Matt (10) vs Coop (11) (all-time: 3-0-2, 166-130)
  • MatthewR (4) vs Zach (2) (all-time: 6-1-2, 456-343)
  • Scott (9) vs Kevin (7) (all-time: 1-0-9, 292-399)

Shoutout this week to Zach for his 6 winstreak! And also to Jesse for 3 wins in a row! And to Darryan and Scott for back to back wins, along with 2 undefeated for Kevin (1W1D)!

Stats

Copium Tables

Performance Table

Luck Table

xP Table (manager vs average)

All Manager Table

Statistical Breakdowns

Gameweek Breakdown

Manager Breakdown

Timelines

Position Timeline

Points Timeline

Points For Timeline

The League

Hello and congratulations to the winner of The League (tm): Dylan! He has come from behind to defeat Matthew2 in the final by a total score of 80-74!

Knockout Stage


Champions Cup

And with The League (tm) coming to its end… welcome to the Champions Cup! Our final tournament of the season in which it has been decided (by the voters on Discord) to do a combined league tournament to close it out!

The Group Stage

To start will be a 5 week group stage in which 4 groups of 6 will battle it out to qualify for the knockout rounds! The top 4 from each group will move on, and the bottom 2 will be eliminated! These groups have been crafted with 3 managers from each league, pulled from 3 different pots (Pot 1: #1-#4, Pot 2: #5-#8, Pot 3: #9-#12). And have resulted in the following groups:

Group A:

  • Darryan
  • Luke
  • Matt
  • Alex
  • Emma
  • Andrew

Group B:

  • MatthewR
  • Jesse
  • Gavin
  • ZachA
  • Chris
  • Travis

Group C:

  • Zach
  • Kevin
  • Scott
  • Matthew2
  • Mack
  • Divya

Group D:

  • Matthew
  • Dylan
  • Coop
  • John
  • Morgs
  • Cara

The Knockout Rounds

The knockout rounds will consist of another 5 weeks: a single elimination bracket starting in the Round of 16 and culminating in a two-legged final in gameweeks 37 and 38! And, of course, how well you do in your group determines where in the bracket you end up, so every group stage match matters!

Oh, and in the case of knockout round ties, this is how we will handle it:

  • Number of goals scored by team - Number of saves made by opposition goalkeeper

For example, if Team A has 3 goals and Team B's goalkeeper has 2 saves, Team A will have a score of 1. You get the gist. And in further case of tie I'll have to brainstorm some more whacky ideas to try, which will probably look something like:

  • Total number of assists
  • Total sum of BPS
  • Most minutes played
  • Highest scoring player in the matchup

Anyway, just some ideas and feel free to let me know if y'all come up with anything else I should consider!

The Matchups

Okay and switching gears back to the actual cup matchups, here is who you all will be playing this week:

Group A:

  • Darryan vs Andrew
  • Luke vs Emma
  • Matt vs Alex

Group B:

  • MatthewR vs Travis
  • Jesse vs Chris
  • Gavin vs ZachA

Group C:

  • Zach vs Divya
  • Kevin vs Mack
  • Scott vs Matthew2

Group D:

  • Matthew vs Cara
  • Dylan vs Morgs
  • Coop vs John

And here's the matchups for the entire group stage!

Group Stage


Power Rankings

On the bubble (in no order): Jesse, Scott, Luke Fell off: None

Btw this is probably gonna be a quick one due to the turnaround between matches and the fact it is 11:50pm and I am just now starting this section…

10 - Matt (-) - League A - Last 5: 41 (W), 37 (L), 46 (L), 50 (L), 44 (L) - I mean you gotta give it to Matt and Dylan, they are putting up consistently solid scores and getting rewarded with loss after loss. Still, probably not someone you really want to go up against at this time, with points coming from players across the board. James picked up an assist this week, and O'Reilly (if not injured) and Donnarumma seem to be a solid Man City duo to have. On top of that Jacob Murphy returned for the first time in who knows how long, Cunha got an assist, and Bowen the defcon beast just hit the threshold 2 weeks in a row.

9 - Chris (-1) - League B - Last 5: 39 (L), 36 (L), 42 (L), 38 (W), 43 (L) - So this is just the section where people are scoring pretty well and finding ways to still lose. This time a 43 pointer just wasn't enough, despite Harry Wilson taking his g+a tally up to 17 (he actually is the goat). He also had Saliba's goal, Rice's assist, and Barry's 6 point ass-first goal sitting on the bench. Although it wouldn't have been enough anyway, since Cara put up 60.

8 - Dylan (+1) - League A - Last 5: 40 (L), 52 (L), 41 (W), 32 (W), 48 (L) - The symmetry of me removing a 48 (L) from the beginning of Dylan's 'Last 5' section and putting it at the end of the section was kinda beautiful. And I'm excited to do the same next week with a 40 (L). Although, his team is sorta starting to fall apart as 4 of his 9 vertical striped jerseys are now underlined with red. That is: Janelt, Mukiele, Brobbey, and Livramento for those who don't want to go check. But he still has: Richards, Van Hecke, Dango, Minteh, and Welbeck holding it down. So I think he'll probably be alright.

7 - Matthew (-1) - League A - Last 5: 34 (L), 40 (W), 70 (W), 38 (L), 27 (W) - You may be asking yourself: how is a split of 27/34/38/40/70 better than 32/40/41/48/52? Unfortunately the answer is that the first split can somehow win with the lowest score listed and sometimes luck is the best player you can put out there. And honestly watching the games this week made me want to fire my entire team into the sun (see Gakpo missing a tap in, Burnley scoring 3 goals against Brentford, and Aston Villa losing 2-0 against Wolves). Anyway, I write the list and y'all said vibes count as a viable method of ranking so I'm staying right here. In 7th.

6 - Kevin (+1) - League A - Last 5: 47 (W), 67 (W), 45 (L), 63 (W), 37 (D) - One of those results where I can't tell if Kevin or Luke is happier about drawing, or if they're both just sorta miserable. Either way, Kevin's been solid and obviously outscored me this week (and didn't lose) so I gave him 6th because why not. KDH, Caicedo, and Gravenberch have been ticking away, MGW is BACK, and Joao Pedro failed to return for the first time in 7 weeks. Anyway, it's too bad Keane didn't start because that was totally a game he'd score a screamer in.

5 - Mack (-1) - League B - Last 5: 41 (W), 30 (L), 52 (W), 46 (W), 35 (W) - Another huge win for Mack this week against Matthew2, which means she has now beaten Chris, Alex, and then myself in back to back to back weeks. And other than Guehi who got his clean sheet, all of her returns came from her midfield, as KDH and Garner represented Everton well with 6 points a piece, Semenyo scored his goal, and Casemiro continues to show us that you can commute from the Aegis Living to the soccer field and get 14 defensive contributions.

4 - John (-1) - League B - Last 5: 43 (L), 61 (W), 46 (W), 64 (W), 41 (W) - John's 2-game lead in League B is looking like more and more of an obstacle as he continues to just put up solid scores and dodge that dastardly 43 number. This time his points came from literally 3 players: Gabriel, O'Reilly, and Bruno Fernandes. Too bad there are rumors Nico could be injured.

3 - Zach (+2) - League A - Last 5: 40 (W), 41 (W), 54 (W), 52 (W), 54 (W) - Absurd consistency these past few weeks from Zach as he continues to knock on Darryan's door. He just need Ekitike to keep it up. And Sesko to keep it up (at least he proved he can score when starting). And Manchester City defenders to keep it up. And every time I look at his team I ask myself why I picked up Ajer instead of Van den Berg. Oh well. At least I don't leave a 7 pointer from Tavernier on my bench(I had 1 point on my bench this week :)).

2 - Darryan (-) - League A - Last 5: 61 (W), 51 (W), 24 (L), 46 (W), 43 (W) - Huge week for Haaland to be out considering Haaland got a Jurrien Timber 8 pointer off his bench to join his Saliba and Evanilson goals. It will be interesting to see how Darryan's team can handle the run in without Haaland. Or with him? Who knows with Pep how long he's actually out for.

1 - Matthew2 (-) - League B - Last 5: 49 (W), 45 (W), 39 (L), 43 (W), 31 (L) - Just a momentary blip here as I definitely wasn't rigging the promotion spots race by losing to Mack. Really just nobody did anything other than Evanilson and Thiago. And the most disappointing part of it was that Anderson didn't hit defcon for the first time in like 15 weeks. What's even the point anymore.

Good luck all!