Team of Shadows



Episode 10 - GW 38 Wrap-up, the “Conventional Wisdom 1, Scott 0” edition

And so it ends…

The ten-week span between prematurely playing my second half wildcard in GW29 and the final day of the season. A span during which I also ran a parallel Shadow Team on paper, in which the pre-wildcard team soldiered on patiently, patching here and there with their eyes on a plan of wildcarding in GW36 to optimize the squad for a bench boost in GW37. A span during which I thought my real team was going to steal a march on those conservative, patient Shadows, racking up points because I got all of the “good guys” into my squad early. I had loaded up that early wildcard with players who were going to have DGW in GW34 and in GW36, as well as in GW37. These players were going to be rising in price and I’d have ALL of them already by the time the Shadows played their wildcard, but because they waited, they weren’t going to be able afford all of them. At least that was the theory…

Hmm, it didn’t quite work out that way.



For a full-blown explanation of WTF is going on here, go back to Episode 1.



The Moves

Just one move for each of the teams in the final week. They both decided to roll the dice on Daniel Sturridge to deliver some ass-whuppin’ on a Middlesbrough team that was on the road and on the way back down to the Championship. A team that had been defensively fairly stable at home at least, especially back when Victor Valdes was between the sticks. But now they had Brad Guzan back there. Yes the Brad Guzan of #PrayForGuzan infamy. The one who had allowed a hat trick of goals through his five-hole against Chelsea in GW36. That Brad Guzan. Both teams dropped Jamie Vardy, because Kane and Jesus were both never going anywhere and because Vardy was the only other option to sell. There was some consideration of going with Coutinho instead, but as with so many 50:50 calls this year, that one went a bit sideways. The real team would have had to ditch Ozil to fit Coutinho, and Ozil had been delivering. The Shadows would have had to ditch either Ozil or Alli, and with Alli facing also-relegation-bound Hull City, that wasn’t looking great either. Seemed more reasonable to ditch Vardy than either of those two.

The Teams

The Early Wildcard team is in the table below, as is the Shadow Team that has been teaching me a lesson. The prices are at the deadline going into GW38 after the moves were made. Points in parentheses were those that ended up on the bench after subs.

The Verdict

Sturridge popped up with an assist as the new boy in each of the teams, but the departed Vardy netted a goal, and outscored Sturridge 9-5. Meanwhile, Phil scored and bagged a couple bonus, for ten points, and would have been a good swap for Bug Eyes, who only delivered five points. Sigh. Hindsight. The Shadows ended up playing four defenders when Josh King sat out the match, but the two teams ended with nearly identical scores, 84 and 86, which wasn’t surprising given the similarity between the squads.

Before I started this experiment, my overall rank was 19,971



Early WC team: 84 points, overall points 2275, overall final rank 19,052



Late WC Shadow team: 86 points, overall points 2333, overall final rank 5,396



Both teams took tiny little steps backwards from GW37.



I didn’t anticipate there would be that much of a difference over the stretch of this experiment, and cocky as I was, I figured I’d be talking about the ways that my departure from conventional wisdom was going to have led me to glory.

As it turns out, there were probably a few more hits than anticipated for my real team, due to WC players changing form and due to the evolving season and priorities of the EPL teams. There were definitely players in the squad who had a DGW34/DGW36/DGW37, but who wouldn’t have been the first choices by the time a GW36 WC would have been played. I’m talking about you, Manchester United. But by that time, the early WC team wasn’t willing to burn four points just to swap them out for someone else who might end up getting rotated as well. Nine of the players from that early WC team didn’t end up lasting to the end of the season, but one of them (Alexis) sure as shit should have. Ah well, in the end, he had departed for reasons that made sense at the time. He had sputtered, I was chasing, and it looked like City players were on fire. In aggregate, the new players may have balanced out against Alexis over the run-out, if you just looked at points scored, but none of them provided the captaincy power punch that Princess Alexis did, and I suffered because of it.

So that’s what went wrong with the real team. What went right for the Shadow Team? With limited early moves, they were forced to sit tight with Coutinho, and as a result, benefitted from a top-quality player bouncing back from a dip in form. They ended up making a single shift at the critical start of this experiment, moving from injured Kane to new focal point Alli, instead of throwing out the whole squad. Alli came through and delivered critical points during that window.

It wasn’t all bad for the real team, though. They got their defense sorted out more comprehensively for the first part of this experiment, but those gains didn’t outweigh the benefit that the Shadows reaped, with their late WC being able to capitalize on the current situation at hand. The Shadows torched me in 36 and 37 and ended up 58 points, and almost 14K ahead of me at the end.



Coming Up

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Except for beers by the pool, summer break, and a respite from agonizing over which crap defender to add to my squad as a makeweight for the next shiny new midfielder. And maybe some U20 World Cup matches streaming on Fox in the middle of the night. Enjoy the month and a half (or less) until the 2017-18 season, which they announced is set to go live on July 10! Who knows which corner of the Rabbit Hole I may stumble into next season, but if it’s interesting, I’ll let you know.

Scott (@tempebug)

