Famous People Playing FPL – GW11 Review
A weekly round-up of how comedians, actors, TV stars and generally famous people are doing at FPL, including footballers.
There is a new leader at the summit of the ‘Comedians Playing FPL’ mini-league, as Love Island narrator Iain Stirling racked up 71 points to overtake Emily Dean. He was one of many in this article to finish with both Ben Foster (11 points) and Tino Livramento (6) stranded on sub island but his potentially risky transfer of selling Cesar Azpilicueta for Reece James went well.
No strikers scored for him – or for anyone without Teemu Pukki, Adam Armstrong, Divock Origi or Matej Vydra – yet his goalkeeper and back three brought in 40 points.
Emily’s ‘Dogs of Warnock’ side not only suffered due to a lower-scoring defence that lacks Joao Cancelo or Arsenal coverage, but because team name inspiration Neil Warnock was dismissed as Middlesbrough manager. The 13 points between Sergio Reguilon and Eric Dier remained on her bench.
Co-host Matt Forde somehow scraped just 23 points after benching Reece James at home to Burnley. With Robert Sanchez’s -1 points joined by a back line of one-pointers, his whole line-up produced neither a clean sheet nor goal.
Elsewhere, Sky’s Sophy Ridge stood still in the rankings, going from 1,265th in the world to 1,338th. She had rolled over a transfer from last week but still didn’t use it, meaning she only has two for Gameweek 12. Her ‘Sheffield Thursday’ scored 65 points thanks to a strong defence and the goal from Raphinha. Tennis star Daniil Medvedev tallied up a fantastic 73 to almost halve his previous 407k position. Furthermore, this was achieved in spite of the -1 from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and 22 benched points of Foster and Conor Gallagher.
The 5-4-1 formation of Bukayo Saka saw his back five total 47 points on the way to a score of 72. He has himself in midfield and had a goal ruled out by VAR against Watford. The pain on his face was almost certainly FPL-related, just like during Aubameyang’s penalty miss. If you look closely at match footage, you can pinpoint Saka’s realisation that Ben Foster’s save would not be coming in for Brighton’s sent off Sanchez.
At least he didn’t transfer in Aubameyang and hand him captaincy, like Leeds United’s Luke Ayling did. Ben Gibson is another unlucky victim of Sanchez (-1) playing over Foster (11) with Livramento (6) on the bench.
Shane Duffy continues to make more hits than a Five album, losing 32 points from the last four weeks’ alone. Each week has come with a red arrow, as this time he had the negative points of both Sanchez and Aubameyang.
QPR striker Lyndon Dykes out-did Duffy in Gameweek 11 hits, making five transfers – two of which went on bringing in Roberto Firmino last Tuesday, only to be stung by Wednesday’s hamstring injury and having to sell him again on Friday. Inspiration for a Craig David song, surely.
