FPL Fortress FPL Fortress

And just like that, the 2023/24 season comes to a close. It’s been a pretty good one—both of us enjoyed our best ever finishes, and there have been a number of memorable moments, from Palmer’s 26-pointer to the mouth-watering Gameweek 34 Free Hit. In what is now customary fashion for the Fortress’s season reviews, we assign our superlatives, which include Player of the Season, Most Consistent, Purplest Patch, most maddening to own, and favorite moments. Then, it’s the classic Breakout XI (Jacob’s second-favorite segment) and Flop XI (Jacob’s favorite segment). Finally, we finish off with our reflections and lessons learned going into next season. We have greatly enjoyed keeping the Fortress going strong during our busy first year of college, and wish everyone a healthy green summer!

A bald striker who likes to tuck in his shirt and bangs in goals for fun? No, he’s not Ronaldo Nazario in the early 2000s while he was playing for Real Madrid. No, he’s arguably even better (and certainly more of an FPL hero at the very least). The club is Crystal Palace, the time is April 2024, the number on his shirt is 14, and the man of the moment is Jean-Philippe Mateta. His whopping 29 points is the capstone of, quite frankly, a feast of a gameweek—one in which the top-scoring FPL team (aptly called “Hakuna Mateta!”) ended on 216 points. Funnily enough, the popular Liverpool assets turned out to be the big disappointments, with the triple-up of Salah, van Dijk, and Robertson getting outscored by Will Hughes. It may be tempting to linger forever on DGW 34, but we must set our sights on the few remaining gameweeks of the season. To that end, we discuss which Chelsea and Spurs assets are good for DGW 35, the Salah problem (crazy that he’s become a “problem”), and overall transfer strategy before the big DGW 37. Since we won’t have time to record an episode next week, we look at captaincy options for GW 36 in addition to GW 35. Jacob presents an enticing idea that Jiayang may just take up next season…

Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

Unsurprisingly, this episode centers around creating the perfect Free Hit team for GW 34. (And if you’re not using your Free Hit, hopefully the points we hit on will still be valuable in helping you determine who to prioritize with your precious transfer or two). First, we try to figure out the ideal triple-ups from Liverpool and Arsenal; then, we determine who else should be a lock; and finally, we try to logically fill in the remaining spots in our XI. In this last section, we tackle the thought-provoking and delicate act of weighing 1) a good single gameweek player with a good fixture vs. 2) a slightly worse double gameweek player with two slightly worse fixtures. As for captaincy, Jiayang might just channel his inner Sybill Trelawney…

Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

On paper, this upcoming gameweek seems like it’ll be the last relatively calm one before the inevitable chaos of the tail end of the season ensues. By examining what the best course of action might be for our own teams, we touch on key topics that will hopefully be relevant for many FPL managers right now, such as whether it’s time to move from Darwin/Solanke to Højlund/Isak/Jackson (yes, Nicolas Jackson). Finally, in our captaincy segment, we’re back to pretty much picking between our two old friends, Mo and Erling—though at the moment, it seems like both are stuck in a bit of a rut. Who, then, to go with? Would it be foolish to make this decision based on the famously reliable metric of xNV—expected Negative Vibes?

Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

As the title of this episode conveys, we are concerned this gameweek with what words rhyme with Romeo’s close friend in Shakespeare’s classic. The answer we present: TIOotIO (pronounced “ti-OO-shee-oh”). Humor us and take a moment to think about what that might stand for—yes, it’s an acronym. Got a guess? Well, if you landed on “The Ins and Outs of the Ins and Outs,” that you’d be right! And we’re aware of the inconsistency of how the “of” and the “the” are represented in the acronym by lowercase letters while the two “and”s are not; we just like the way it sounds better this way. What this crazy acronym means: we talk about the intricacies of the three most transferred-in and transferred-out players for next gameweek, a topic that is always relevant. Somehow, the topic of capitalization comes up yet again later in the episode when Jiayang talks about his strong—at this point, well-established—preference for captaining a player whose upcoming fixture is spelled out in capital letters next to their name. Near the end of the segment, Jacob gets dangerously close to succumbing to a very self-consciously un-scientific way of making captaincy decisions, though he will hopefully NOT do that by the time the Gameweek 32 deadline rolls around.

Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

The greater good has rarely outweighed my own self-interest. Specificity breeds universality. The ends justify the means. Are you confused because this sounds an awful lot like a philosophy podcast? No, this is still the FPL Fortress! And in fact, we here at the Fortress pride ourselves in forging connections between the ideas we learn in the classroom and the teams we so painstakingly manage in the game. We cover a tremendous amount of ground in this episode, moving from a short segment on the premise of the new Fantasy Challenge game mode; to a review of our predictions last week in which Jiayang expresses renewed disapproval and doubt about the nature of Jacob’s divination; to a lengthy discussion on Jiayang’s GW 31 Wildcard draft. In this segment, we hit on a bunch of important interlinked talking points, including the benefits of having 5 starting midfielders vs. 3 starting forwards, double Arsenal defense vs. double Arsenal attack, and an enlightening explanation of why most people seem to be leaning FH34 + BB37 rather than BB34 + BB37.