Update: my "path less traveled" BB ended up being BB9 - lucked into my GW1 4.5 fwd having good xmins for a good fix, combined with a ~good fixture for both my GKs. EV on bench was ~13, didn't impact my transfers before or after, scored 14. Overall, happy with taking the opportunistic BB approach.

Given Brentford's track record, I lean that the latter is more likely than the former (and as an aside, I think the markets are way too low on Brentford's prospects this season) but as a non-partisan observer I'm very excited to watch it play out.

Or Brentford could do Brentford things to soften Dango's weaknesses and accentuate his strengths, find creativity from other areas, and turn him into a >0.40 xG winger whose goal output more closely approximates those underlyings.

It might be that Frank was critical, they don't have enough progressive passing with two black holes on that front on each wing and they become completely dysfunctional as an attacking unit. All of which would likely make this signing a disaster and relegate him to the bench, or relegate Brentford.

Dango should now get full-time starter minutes for the first time in his career and I think he's got about the lowest floor AND the highest ceiling of any ~40-60 million purchase this season.

But Brentford have a track record of developing far worse 23 year old attackers (check out Mbeumo's bars aged 23) and have a guy who made a huge leap last season to look a lot like a slightly lesser version of Dango, who will likely play on the opposite side to him this season (Schade bars below).

But the one I'm most excited by is Dango Ouattara to Brentford:
Fascinating attacker
Special skills: intelligent off the ball running,workrate, taking people on, high pressing, aerial ability, lots of high quality shots
His flaws are: everything about his passing is bad! and (maybe) a -ve finisher

Most interesting intra-PL transfer of this summer has a lot of candidates:
Will Eze (who is incredible) fit okay into arsenal's system?
Kudus potential could be unlocked now he seems to be given a position within a structure
Will Joao Pedro and Delap make Chelsea better than they were w/Jackson?

New season, new disappointments!

By over here I meant Blue Sky. But yes a decent contingent of fantasy premier league players are based in the US, like me

Ha - a niche community that’s obsessive about fantasy premier league made its way over here a while back and some of us nerds are very in the weeds on strategy to hide from what’s going on in the wider world. Your funny reply earned a follow 👍🏻

thanks mate. you were always my fave fantasy champ man live watchalong host 🫶

And I like to take risk with chip strategies when the spread of possible outcomes looks like that and BB1 is going to be the most popular (I think)

I'd say there's roughly a 50/50 chance that BB1 turns out to be the hindsight optimal play, but I think the expected points gain from the best of later BB options in the worst case is ~10, and the ceiling is more like ~15-16.

But there are lots of things that will happen which will change the value of later BBs. BB booster events are e.g. an unforeseen blank/double, an amazing min price FWD emergence, cheap DEF/MID getting pens. BB killers would be an injury crisis, low-priced players being even worse than we thought.

Kind of. Models are telling us that BB1 is worth ~11-12 expected points over the best "no chip played" plans. It's saying that, with the information we have right now, that's probably a bit better than later BB plans.

It seems BB1 will be popular. Given the EV differences between any and all chip strategies in the first half look like they will be quite low, but there are (fairly remote) upside cases for later chip strategies, I think I will prefer to choose outcome polarization and take a path less traveled (🌍)

2. The value of these extra first half chips is also lower than we are used to. BB1 looks like a good strategy right now, but things will change as the season goes on which will inevitably either improve or worsen all the future GW BB opportunities.

So I think that means the number of opportunities to grab more points by chasing fixture runs, and the average magnitude of the best ones that do still exist, has gone down; and b) we have 3 more FTs! (+4 AFCON FTs less 1FT lost to an extra FH week). More supply = lower price.

Some big picture thoughts on #fpl 🧵:
1. The value of our free transfers to start the season is a bit lower than it's ever been before because a) defcon points decreases the impact that fixture difficulty has on expected points for a lot of viable picks (defenders and CMs).

The best preseason podcast is here!

I’m going to disagree here re: mins or position risk, as I think AWB was potentially West Ham’s best player and had the best season of his career, as a two way player, last season. Would be very surprised to see potter push him into a different position, or out of the team.

Pretty confident we’ll have a live relegation race in 25-26 much later than we’ve seen in recent years

I wasn't trying to refute the article at all. He's an interesting / unusual attacker, but 60m feels like too much. I was noting that the 1 yard pass that was cited as stats farming was actually an example of a LBP received and completed, which were (rightly imo) identified as his greatest strengths!

Terrific and succinct write up of Joao Pedro - a very hard player to profile! One note: that 1 yard assist in the centre circle was a delicious layoff off a long ball which put Mitoma in for a one on one vs. SOU (h) - probably one of the clips that illustrates what potential suitors love about him!

🌴🌹🌸🌻🍀

🫎

Nice work RøbT

DGW25 including AVLLIV and ARSCHE (on a contingent basis) was a surprise, but this DGW32 announcement for CRYNEW is bigger. There's been a complete change in PL rescheduling policy: no preference between rescheduling in open midweeks vs. European midweeks and prioritization of notice for fans.

This guy’s work is sooooo good