The best (legal) team of the first 9 Gameweeks...

                         

In my typically analytical nature, I was looking at FPL leader boards, GW top scoring teams etc. and decided on the idea of working out what was the best possible team you could've played between game-weeks 1 and 9 so far this season. One caveat to this is the fact that I have played it like a 9GW season, not a 38 GW one; for example, all chips have been used within those 9 weeks (so not a completely fair comparison). The team and chip usage is actually considerably different if I were to continue past GW9, so if this is of interest, let me know and I will, at some point, continue the team on. I'll add a bit of insight on each GW team, but will mainly let the pictures do the talking (apart from where I ignored the spell check so there's lots of red underlines...).

Gameweek 1

Here's the GW1 team. Just some feedback about how it all works - it has to be legal, so within budget and chips cannot be used in the same GW. The formation has to be one accepted in FPL, price changes can be accounted for, but sales work as per the FPL game with value losses for those players that rise. We are 28 points off of the best score achieved in this GW, but our team is for more longevity than the best GW teams; if we have to change multiple players between GWs we will lose points for transfer hits. There are some GWs where we set a new highest score, but do end up behind the cumulative 'best achieved' total for that reason. Just FYI, if we were doing this team to continue after GW9, Salah would probably be TC'd here. You'll see why he's not later. Also avoided top scorer for the GW Bruno Fernandes as he's not worth it in the long run, although I'm sure there'd be a way to fit him in for this GW only and still improve our overall score.

Gameweek  2

Bench boost activated! As stated before, the team is for the longer term, so no transfers used and our squad from GW1 was set up well to give us an extra 34 points from the bench this week - a new best for the GW! Nice bit of profit gained, although it doesn't make a huge amount of difference in this team. Again missed a few big points, but nobody that had a good GW1, probably could've got someone in for 1GW and took a -4 to remove them down the line, but it probably isn't completely worth it, and it disrupts other plans too (e.g. Alonso is better longer term).

Gameweek 3

Just the single transfer, seeing Tsimikas lose his spot in both the Liverpool team and our team, and keeping us set for two FT next GW. Keane comes in ahead of what will surely be a few good fixtures for him... Antonio keeps the armband as we get less than some FPL players achieved, but still a strong GW score once again. A few names looking to earn a place include Gallagher, Vardy and Jesus, but it doesn't quite work in the long term.

Gameweek 4

With 2 free transfers still available, we take our first hit of the season, bringing in Sa, Cancelo and Saint-Maximin. Trent takes the armband and we resist the urge to bring new Man Utd signing Ronaldo into the team. A relatively poor score considering some of the one off player we could have had, but a solid performance again in the long run.

Gameweek 5

Another hit taken, and this time it is for a big point swing, so is certainly worth it. Greenwood and Gray make way for Saka and Sarr, who outscore them by 17 points this GW, and 15 in the next, making the hit well worthwhile. They guide out total to 93 points, which is again much less than the best in real life, but still a good GW score, although a 2 pointer from Fornals is not ideal.

Gameweek 6

Another -4 taken. I didn't want this team to be littered with hits, and in total only 12 points are lost from extra transfers, which I think is ok. I only took a hit if I thought the transfer was of a proper benefit, just like the two we did here were - one of them bought in the GW top scorer! Knowing that I still had WC to play, a 1 week move on Hause seemed suitable. This GW was close to optimal, and we set a new GW high score.

Gameweek 7

Gameweek 7 was Wildcard time, plus we had Free Hit still to use, so Llorente came in to captain for a week. Plenty of our team had two weeks of returns, so made sense for these game weeks. A couple of players could have improved our score, but were not as beneficial over the two weeks. I also should admit at this point that I almost overlooked Tim Krul as I completely overlooked the chance of any Norwich defence getting into this team; Sorry Tim. Another new GW high for the team with a score well over 100. It is worth noting that this WC team is completely different and gets far less points if we are considering this team lasting the length of the season (likely not to FH within the first 9 GWs so need more longevity).

Gameweek 8

There was one player who needed to come in for this GW, and at first, I didn't think I'd find a way to get him in. A bit of tweaking, re-arrangement of chips and certain transfers and we have found a way to get in Firmino for just the single GW, and to steal TC from GW1's Salah. Also, Krul probably could've stayed in goal but I just fancied a bit of a change for no reason whatsoever. This GW we blew away the GW best score, which may not have happened without the TC on Bobby. One improvement could have been Kane over Benteke, but budget wouldn't allow, even with a Mendy downgrade.

Gameweek 9

Considering we hadn't used the Free Hit chip, it maybe seemed obvious that it'd be used here. Obviously, we have the best possible team of the gameweek, and gave Mount the captaincy instead of Salah because captaining Salah every week is boring, right? A huge 193 points! Probably could have had a tonne of bench points too, but I'd already done the research for the cheap bench in case we needed the budget - £12.9m ITB suggests not! Salah completes the GW as the only player to be in the squad, and to play, in every GW from 1 to 9. 

What does this all mean then?

Yes, there were plenty of new GW record scores, some less impressive, but we get the idea that this team will have a pretty strong total score. I couldn't find who the leader of the official FPL game was after 9 game weeks, as I am writing this midway through GW20, but I am using the current overall leader's cumulative scores to compare to our team, and give us an idea of how we'd be doing in real life. Check the image below for a week by week point accumulation comparison.

It was close at the start (well, GW1), but the gap was over 400 points by the end of GW9. If anybody actually was close to that total in GW9, it'd have been mighty impressive. Some of the obscure choices like Llorente/Hause captains, Firmino one week punt in as TC, and the use of all chips already, to name a few, would not have happened with any serious manager. 

I thought I'd finish the post with some statistics from the team. My favourite one is that we used at least one player from each team apart from Southampton. Leicester had Amartey on the bench in the GW9 FH as their sole representation, but I feel a little bad that I didn't do the same for a Southampton player; I'd already done the majority of the work before I considered it. Also Salah's 136 points were including captain points, but arguably it should've been higher had I captained him in GW9, and then he'd be outright the most captained too. 

I hope you enjoyed, and let me know if GW10-18 would be of interest...