It immediately makes you think of something positive doesn’t it. Momentum is a good thing. It gets you to where you need to be whether late, or early. When you can see clearly on a bright and sunny day, on an empty road, you can accelerate towards your goal head-on. The thing about the game though, there are no road signs. You don’t know when nor where the forks in the road are, and directions obtained from other managers, may not always be reliable! 😁 Momentum can also be your downfall when you throw cognitive caution to the wind, suddenly a bend approaches and your journey can have a drastic change indeed! Like late notice postponed matches for instance!

It’s with the gathering of momentum that I’m wary of my teams current form. 3 red arrows in the initial 6 gameweeks, to 2 in the following 10! Both red arrows (GWs 9 & 15) occurring when a captain blank coincided with multiple hits, a -12 & -8 respectivley. There’s a lesson to be learnt here… get your captain choice right! 😆 GW15, a first red arrow in six gameweeks. Hastiness sent me into GW15 on a -8, due to the combined ditching of the “injured” Chilwell, who played, and the eagerness to own Robertson, who blanked! Those points were the difference between a small green and the small red I deserved! Improvement in standing still and allowing more data to come my way, before moving, is a continuing lesson.

🧐 Constant Vigilance 🧐

How does this newfound wariness, this drive to keep the momentum going, affect my ongoing management? Is it because of my rank (currently sat at 2.7M up from 4.4M in GW9) that the greens 👀 are easier to attain, and thus occur more frequently? Am I less tilted🥴, if at all, by what other managers around me say or do? Is it simply having mainly template assets in the squad? The one thing I think I’m sure of 😆 is that being less hasty with transfers and waiting one more GW is a ploy that is beneficial, a virtue if you will. My whole intermediate plan of action can change in that additional time, saving me from the less than savoury options I would have taken a GW earlier!

🤔 Are you playing your own game? 🤔

Data. Input. Processing. It’s all so subjective. You have to find the methodology that works for you, whether, gut-call, eye-test, or the myriad of statistical data! Note that more so in #So2020 than any other season, for reasons quite obvious, the data can, does & will flip from GW to GW, those bends in the road can be abrupt! The asset you were adamant in possessing can become a millstone within days! Then you have to re-evaluate, plan to remove the newly acquired asset for another, while also dialling 999 for the fire brigade to douse an asset or two within your squad, whilst simultaneously begrudging the shiny new asset your mate just added to their squad, which will take you two moves to make! 🥴 #dontgettilted

😷💉 Circumstance 💉😷

The effect of the pandemic was driven home to us FPL managers in this GW16 and will possibly pervade into GW17 & beyond… it’s going to be an added uncertainty in planning our ability to field a full 11. Benches WILL come under more scrutiny as the possibility of needing all four substitutes becomes heightened (it was Kilman in 3rd bench with 2pts that ensured my green arrow in this GW16)! This “reliable bench” need, combined with a spike in price movements backed me into a “now or never” position. I acted accordingly to avoid being “priced out” by market fluctuations. Multiple hits occurred (-12), the price rises/falls happened. I have the assets I scouted.

Zouma 🔄 Cancelo; Kilman 🔄 Dallas; Grealish 🔄 El Ghazi: DCL 🔄 Vardy

It will be interesting to see how this pans out for GW17, historical data says I’ll get a red arrow! 😰 All funds 💷£105.5M💷 are fully now on the pitch, this must equate to an advantage, right?! The new assets are at least medium term holds. I was making a concerted effort to only take a -4 reshaping the defence… which was complete (until the Taylor hammy!) and now, the replacement of attacking assets whose form had dipped, is brought forward…

I have capped one of them for GW17 however.

I really must find a way of identifying “form dip” sooner! 🕵🏿‍♂️

Will my New Year see momentum continue…?!

Should old acquaintance be forgot? 😃🍾🎆Buon Anno!!🎆🍾😃 And ne’er brought to mind?!