Sheep Picks (9)

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.

Now, I know I'm going to risk getting egg on my face with this one, but..... I'm sorry, I can't resist.

Yep, for Gameweek 29, I'm going to say..... Erling Haaland.

Quite a lot of people seem to be bringing the big Viking back into their squads for this week: he's one of the 4 or 5 most transferred-in players for the week, with just over 200,000 new owners coming in for him already (with a day left before the deadline). Now, that is probably mostly those benighted souls who are unwisely using their Free Hit this week; and not even all of them - only perhaps something between a half and two-thirds of them. Still, that's a pretty substantial phenomenon, which could have a big impact on relative outcomes this week.

I acknowledge it is dangerous for me to pooh-pooh their optimism. And I must state that I am by no means a detractor of Haaland: I admire his talent, and I believe he could be one of the most potent points-producers we've seen in FPL for a decade to come. He is the sort of player who comes up with some mighty BIG GAMES, often out of nowhere; he could produce a huge haul at any time, against anyone. So, yes - he might have a big game this weekend, and make all those 200,000 people who've just rushed in for him (and the getting on for 4 million who have - unaccountably! - been hanging on to him anyway; though many of those are probably extinct accounts, people who became disillusioned and abandoned the game during the first half of the season) feel very smug about themselves.

However, are there really any persuasive reasons to suppose that this weekend is likely to be one of those big games for our Erling? I can't see any. City's form continues to look extremely flakey; last week, against Forest, they managed to shore themselves up somewhat in defence (though they still weren't great), but at the cost of failing to produce any attacking threat at all. City are not looking like a side in contention for the Champions League places; they're looking like a side that are desperately scrapping for a chance of any European football at all next season. And now they're facing Brighton, who, although they've often been a bit defensively flakey this season, do appear to have been on a strongly improving trend again in the last few weeks. They have a brilliant - if somewhat eccentric and over-bold - young coach, and they're almost always very dangerous in attack, especially in swift counter-attacks down the flanks: i.e., exactly the kind of threat City have looked most vulnerable to this year. This is a game that is tough to call, could easily go either way; but it does not look likely to be a straightforward and emphatic win for City. If anything, on recent form, I'd make Brighton narrow favourites for a win.

So, why are so many FPL players suddenly so enthusiastic about Haaland's (non-)prospects this week? Well, in this post on the mechanics of the 'sheep' phenomenon, I warned against the malign impact of online influencers. And one of the worst of these is FPL's own anonymous tipster, 'The Scout', whose output is mostly so lame, superficial, and obvious - and occasionally so bizarrely eccentric and divorced from reality - that I increasingly suspect this content is largely or wholly AI-generated. This week, The Scout has somehow seen fit to not only recommend including Haaland in the starting eleven, but to make him captain. WTF???

Many people are feeling a little bereft and directionless, with so many top picks missing this week, including of course the man who's become most managers' almost invariable default captain this season, mighty Mo Salah. In circumstances like this, they may be even more easily suggestible than usual; and so, when The Scout comes up with his bizarre suggestion of a Haaland captaincy, The Sheep run bleating eagerly and gratefully towards it.... even if there is a sheer cliff of DISAPPOINTMENT adjacent that they might be about to run over the edge of......

Of course, yes, it might work out. But it looks to me like a very big risk - one that really does not deserve to work out.  I wouldn't even rate Haaland among the 3 best forward picks on this weeks' fixtures; in fact, I think I'd probably favour his opposite number on the visiting team, Joao Pedro, over him. But certainly, with the much easier opponents they face, and the much more convincing team and individual form behind them, Wood, Evanilson, Beto, and Strand Larsen look more promising prospects; just returned-from-injury Dominic Solanke, against an up-and-down Fulham, probably does as well. And if you're going to play a third forward (though most people are surely keeping Isak on their bench this week...), Raul, Vardy, Wissa, or perhaps even Rasmus Hojlund might be worth gambling on. But Haaland???  There is just no strong rationale for that pick - in the context of City's form, or the week's other fixtures.

Well, this one probably ended up in the mid-range of expectations: Haaland did play quite well, and did pick up an early goal (albeit only from the penalty spot) - which is rather better than some pessimists might have projected for him from this game; but City again weren't very convincing, didn't manage to dominate the game,... and didn't win - which is exactly what I, and the other 'pessimists', were correctly predicting. Some managers might feel well satisfied with a 7-point haul for their captain, but that is severely unambitious. Haaland's return here has to be viewed in the context of who else did well this weekend, and who else might have been expected to do well; he was, frankly, extremely lucky that the in-form Wood, Beto, and Evanilson - against very vulnerable opposition - somehow didn't manage to get on the scoresheet this weekend; but, among forwards, Hojlund, Muniz, and even Southampton's Onuachu did as well, Wissa did slightly better, and Strand Larsen (and, of course, his own attacking teammate Marmoush) did substantially better - which was not at all unexpected. When 3 forwards, and 14 more players in other positions (especially midfielders: there's rarely a strong argument for giving the captain's armband to a forward rather than a 'midfielder'...) all outscored him this week, you can't make much of a case for even having put him in the starting eleven, let alone making him captain.