With goals flying in from all corners and results like Aston Villa 7-2 Liverpool, even the FPL’s finest brains are struggling to make sense of the opening rounds of the fantasy season.
So just how have elite FPL managers attempted to gain a foothold in a campaign which sees Everton and Aston Villa currently top of the division?
We have identified a sample of 500 elite managers who have finished in the top 10,000 in the FPL on multiple occasions to see how they have been navigating the chaos.
Looking for Mr Right
With the form book apparently out of the window, managers are scrabbling to find someone who will settle their side into a point-scoring rhythm.
With that in mind, almost all of them have pivoted to Kevin De Bruyne, the Belgian having notched 36 fantasy goal involvements last term.
De Bruyne’s popularity among them has soared from 13/500 in gameweek two to 452/500 in GW4, his elite ownership rising 90 percentage points since GW1 when Manchester City did not have a fixture.
His returns this season have not set the world alight, having registered one goal and one assist in three games, but he is already the number one ranked midfielder for Creativity within the game, suggesting assists are not far away.
Elsewhere, Wolves’ Mr Consistent Raul Jimenez has become popular with the top bosses during a difficult time, his popularity among them rising from 2.4 per cent in GW1 to 70.8 per cent in GW4.
Jimenez has a knack for scoring regularly, if not in bulk, but has delivered excellent returns of 181 points and 194 points in his past two seasons.
At £8.6million – and with Leeds, Newcastle, Crystal Palace, Leicester and Southampton to come – he could steady your FPL ship amid choppy waters.
Last but certainly not least, Everton’s in-form frontman Dominic Calvert-Lewin has jumped from 15.4 per cent ownership to 65.8 per cent among the elite in just three gameweeks.
With six goals in four games, and 37 FPL points, Calvert-Lewin has helped the Toffees win their first four games of the season, and still costs only £7.6million.
His goals have not been flukes either, the 23-year-old achieving the highest overall Threat score of any forward so far this season.
Out of fashion
While the best of the best are bringing players in, that means they must be ditching some of the league’s non-performers.
It would be harsh to level such a criticism at Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang, but for his premium price he has only delivered one goal and one assist so far this season.
As a result, his elite ownership has dropped from 98.8 per cent in GW1 to just 1.6 per cent in GW4 – and, with the Gunners facing Manchester City, Leicester and Manchester United next, can you blame them?
A little further west in the capital and two of Chelsea’s new boys have been largely given the boot by the cream of the FPL crop.
Timo Werner‘s arrival at Stamford Bridge prompted much excitement, but the German has failed to score in his opening four PL games for Frank Lampard, prompting his ownership among the elite to drop by 51 percentage points.
His price too has dipped after just one assist in 360 minutes of play, and he is not the only Blue to suffer such a fate.
Kai Havertz notched a hat-trick in the League Cup but has yet to light the PL up despite two assists in his last two games.
With players like Jack Grealish scoring two and providing three against Liverpool at the weekend, such modest returns as Havertz’s simply are not cutting the mustard in the current climate.
Havertz has, as a result, seen his popularity among the best managers dip from 29.2 per cent to 8.8 per cent – will this group of 500 managers return to the Blues Brothers after the international break?
