The 2023/24 FPL champion – how did he win it?

Following on from Monday’s announcement of Jonas Sand Låbakk as the FPL champion for 2023/24, we delve deeper to ask how did he win.

Jonas is the latest name to join the likes of Ali Jahangirov, Jamie Pigott and Michael Coone on the winner’s list.

In truth, it wasn’t really in doubt going into the final day. The 20-year-old Norwegian was 46 points ahead and extended it to finish 51 ahead of Euan Thompson and a further 10 clear of third-placed Ashley Marsh.

As Jonas’ strong start had him at 24k by the end of Gameweek 5, it’s worth taking a look at his initial squad. Opting for the 3-5-2 formation, midfield prices were nicely spread out and there was still £0.5m left in the bank.

To prove that nobody’s perfect, he made the wrong Gameweek 1 captaincy choice and was without an Arsenal defender between Gameweeks 4 to 9. Then again, he benefitted from a 12-point Cameron Archer haul and tripled up on multiple Chelsea clean sheets.

A slight wobble followed – by these high standards – but Jonas was back up to 23k by Gameweek 9. His first Wildcard of Gameweek 8 sold Bukayo Saka but got onto the form of Son Heung-min, Jarrod Bowen and Ollie Watkins, making sure he ranked 396th by Gameweek 13 and inside the top 1k pretty much from then on.

Particularly outstanding scores took place in Gameweek 20 (99 points) and Gameweek 25 (108 points). His sensible squad reached the top 100 by Gameweek 23 and the top 20 a few rounds later.

THE RIGHT CHIP STRATEGY

Ultimately, it was the decision not to Free Hit in Gameweek 29 that won it for him. Alongside a reluctance to take four-point hits, of which only three took place. The chip strategy featured a Gameweek 30 Wildcard that jumped onto an Alexander Isak extravaganza when general ownership hadn’t yet escalated.

A similar instinct brought in springtime heroes Josko Gvardiol and Nicolas Jackson earlier than the crowd, leading up to a brilliant Free Hit 34.

Some of those individual scores are incredible! He owned Jean-Philippe Mateta (29), Ben White (26), Martin Odegaard (20), Jordan Pickford (18) and Eberechi Eze (14) to total 143 points.

It put Jonas on top, where he stayed for the final five Gameweeks.

On X, FPL Architect managed to grab a quote from our new champion, where he credits a new analytical approach to the game.

“For the whole season, I’ve had a structured plan consisting of many things. One of them is trying to play as safe as possible and take a few calculated risks when needed. Obviously, I spend some time both doing research and watching football, but I’m trying to not think too much about FPL.

“I’m also, as a few people know by now, part of the analytical community. I’m a manager who actively uses analytics and they’ve without a doubt helped me reach this. It has helped me stay calm in the run-in, also with general 50/50 decisions and captaincy choices”

Congratulations, Jonas. You’re a very worthy FPL champion!