Mark Mansfield is a seasoned Fantasy Premier League (FPL) veteran, boasting an impressive 18 seasons of experience. His track record includes two Top 1k finishes, six Top 5k finishes, and seven Top 10k finishes, with his best ever ranking being an outstanding 227th place in 2014.
This remarkable consistency showcases his expertise and elite status within the FPL community. Let's check out his latest draft.
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Mark describes himself as a ‘flexible opportunist’. His primary focus is doing whatever he thinks will get his squad the most points. A simple outlook which, like most things, requires a large degree of complexity to pull off consistently.
In this sense, Mark is a more balanced manager, using a variety of different playing styles to reach the right decision. Eye test, stats and models all inform his decisions, but it is Mark’s latent intuition and experience which guides him, even when it means going against the pack.
Few managers have decided to splash the cash on the goal keeping position, however, Mark has decided to buck the trend by bringing in David Raya (£5.0m), who was the second-top scoring goalkeeper last season with 135 points, second only to Jordan Pickford (£5.0m) who played six more games.
According to Opta Stats Sandbox, no team can beat Arsenal for defensive statistics. With just 29 goals conceded all season and 18 clean sheets, it is clear that Arsenal were strongest at the back last year. This is supported by the underlying data too; Arsenal conceded fewer shots in the box (195) than any other team, and an xGC of 32.83
“Goal is the only position where there isn’t depth. Raya and Henderson are the only players who have spent any significant time in my drafts. Raya feels like a coverage pick. It doesn’t seem he’s worth the money over other keepers, but I feel uneasy skipping on last season’s best defence despite their relatively tough opening schedule.”
With not a £4.5m defender in sight, Mark has gone for a premium back line consisting of Daniel Muñoz (£5.0m), Joško Gvardiol (£6.0m), and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.0m).
Despite their high price, Gvardiol and Alexander-Arnold are both in the top four most-owned defenders, selected by 33.3% and 25.3% of managers respectively, according to Live Insight.
Muñoz represents something of a differential but could be a shrewd move as, like the others, his attacking prowess could be the reward reaped from paying his high price tag. With this season’s BPS rule changes coming into effect, Mark intends to focus on attacking returns rather than rely on points from conventional defensive duties.
“In defence there are plenty of individual player options and strategic options too. I’d like to take few risks in defence so as not to use any transfers there. I’ll hope to get players with attacking upside, rather than chase clean sheets.”
A trend emerging in the FPL market is the exclusion of Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) in favour of Diogo Jota (£7.5m) with the balance of funds being used to upgrade elsewhere. As with Tim Walpole’s latest draft, Mark has decided to utilise Bukayo Saka (£10.0m) as a compromise for losing Salah.
But dropping Salah is a decision laden with risk. As we can see from the Predicted Points & Stats table below, Salah is tipped to be the top scoring FPL player of the first six Gameweeks with a whopping 40.2 predicted points.
“Midfield is rich with options in every price bracket. I don’t know if I want to spend 12.5 million on Salah and this is the decision that will dominate the coming days. He absolutely has to perform at that price and the saving to downgrade to another elite asset like Saka or even Bruno is huge in terms of upgrades elsewhere.”
Par for the course of the Elite XI, Alexander Isak (£8.5m) and Erling Haaland (£15.0m), make the front three. These two players are locked in for Mark and have been from the very beginning.
In third spot is Brighton’s João Pedro (£5.5m) who, at 17.6% owned, is the fourth most popular forward. Small doubts remain about his minutes, however, at £5.5m he could be too much of a bargain to ignore.
Using Opta Player Heatmaps we can compare Pedro to Dominic Solanke (£7.5m) another asset whose ownership is on the rise since his move to Tottenham, and a player Mark is also watching closely. Despite the £2m saving, Pedro beats Solanke across every attacking metric (per 90) apart from goals and xG (on which the two are even).
“Up front Isak and Haaland are nailed. The identity of the third forward largely depends on the Salah decision, with Solanke and Joao Pedro the frontrunners. It’s going to be a hectic few days. Now that the final pre-season games are over, it’s time to start taking a position on the big decisions.”
This, of course, is merely an early draft and will be subject to change. Our Elite XI managers will be tweaking and refining their squads as new information presents itself.
If you want to keep up-to-date with Mark’s (or any other Elite XI managers’) moves, then head over to the Elite XI: Team Reveal area and be sure to turn on notifications and alerts to find out when our managers have updated their squads.
EDIT: Mark has made several changes to his draft to incorporate Mo Salah, you can check out the latest team here.
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