Sheep Picks (10)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think.

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are deangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

So, for Gameweek 30 I'm going to nominate...... Bruno Fernandes (again!).

Yes, Bruno's a great player; and he's been in fine form lately; but......

1)  Manchester United are still a complete shit-show under Amorim; but for the utter hopelessness of all three promoted clubs this year, they would be in real relegation trouble.

2)  Bruno's actually been more than a little bit fortunate in his last few games. Everyone was expecting him to score against dreadful Ipswich and Leicester; but he failed to in the first of those games, and only nabbed one against Leicester in the very last minute - having had a fairly quiet game. (I kind of feel, too, that there ought to be a subjective element in the awarding of 'assists': you should really only get them for incisive pieces of play that really set up the chance - the inch-perfect cross, the defence-splitting pass; not just being the last person to touch the ball before a teammate carves out a brilliant solo goal - which was the case for both of Bruno's 'assists' in his belatedly huge haul against Leicester!)  The draw away at Everton in February was a travesty, marred by a welter of poor VAR/refereeing decisions; and the home side were so absolutely dominant in the first half, they really should have won the game by 4 or 5 goals. And that free-kick against Arsenal?? Very nicely taken, yes: but the ref had the wall 12.5% too far back: that's a massive error. And the normally flawless David Raya was hugely at fault on that one too - far too far over to the right side of his goal: the effort should have been comfortably saveable.

3)  Lately, Amorim's often been playing him in deeper midfield rather than as one of his 'joint 10s' - where he's likely to have rather less of an attacking impact.

4)  The fixtures now turn sharply against United - with Forest, City, and Newcastle their next three opponents. In fact, they don't have an easily winnable-looking game for the rest of the season.

If you got Bruno in three or four Gameweeks ago - perhaps to replace faltering Cole Palmer - Fate smiled on you. But NOW is the time to be offloading him again, not bringing him in.

And yet Bruno is currently the most acquired player for the Gameweek, with over 250,000 managers transferring him in. That makes no sense at all.