GW14 Thought Process: Solving Sarr and Senesi

This one could become a carnage...

We meet once again, reader.

Although there isn’t much time during the festive FPL period to reflect on previous gameweeks, I still want to dwell on it a little longer.

Last week was the one I likely dedicated more time than ever to creating fantasy content. At the same time, it was also one of the most rewarding.

It came with a big deal of responsibility, given how many of you were playing some of those chips, and much could go wrong. It’s not a good feeling when Phil Foden, whom you snubbed in those articles, scores in the very first minute of the Gameweek, but luckily, there were other picks to perform.

I’m not saying this in the braggy, trust-the-process way — just genuinely happy that it might help some of you enjoy playing the game more.

Despite not playing my Free Hit chip and the Erling Haaland triple captain fiasco, I managed to get a nice green arrow — in fact, it’s 9 points, not ten as stated above — which tells me that I actually didn’t forget how to analyse players and match-ups. (alright, not mentioning the 'trust the process' idea lasted exactly 10 seconds…)

The same cannot be said for my differential chip strategy, which was accompanied by a truly bizarre chain of events along the way. You probably shouldn’t imitate that, ehmm. If you’re new here — I might do a mid-season review to extend the pain.

Although this season is a huge mindset test for me, it’s still only Gameweek 14. This marks my fourth consecutive green arrow, and I am confident I will get there eventually. It just takes time and patience. 

The same applies to all of you whose first half of the season hasn’t gone as you had envisioned.

You’ve got this.

Appreciate what went well, make good decisions, play it your own way, and the rest will come with time. It’s impossible for it not to. And that basically holds true for everything in life.

You might be wondering what happened to Erling Haaland in that game. It was a puzzling watch, as Manchester City:

• created 3.10 non-penalty expected goals

• scored 3 actual goals

• had 4 shots inside the 6-yard box

• gathered 14 shots inside the box, and 18 in total

• maintained a massive positional threat throughout the match

… yet Haaland recorded just 1 shot with 0.13 xG, although he had a solid number of touches in the box, and thanks to his great movement, he received passes in dangerous areas close to the goal. Sometimes outnumbered, but he’s used to that.

Although Leeds aren’t a standout Premier League team when it comes to headed duels (4th worst win percentage in defensive ones), and Haaland is ranked in the 90th percentile for success rate in those, Leeds defenders dominated him in the air. That alone suggests he had a pretty bad day.

This was one of his three worst performances of the season. Unfortunately, no one can predict these things. They happen in a single GW, and you can’t time the market, so to speak. Perhaps his daughter was unwell this week, and he has slept poorly over the past few days. Maybe… it just happened. Who knows.

Phil Foden truly stole the show.

He was utilised in the most advanced role so far this season, which then led to his best performance in terms of the final product. He was impressive in some previous games, but it was a different kind of impressiveness, not as useful in FPL.

Most shots, most crosses, 0.70 xG, and a brace. As I mentioned in the last Q&A when we discussed Foden, in some situations, FPL involves placing yourself in a position to get lucky, and this was one of those moments.