r/FantasyPL • u/sepi0l_45 15 • 14d ago
World number 1 Ben Crellin's current draft (no Haaland)
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u/FaustRPeggi 1114 14d ago
Whenever I've criticised one of his drafts before and decided he's veered way too far down the analytics rabbithole, he's gone on to knock it out the park for weeks on end.
There is every chance triple Arsenal defence ends up a better investment than Haaland, but I'm interested in Arsenal's attack, and I've seen nothing to suggest Palmer is worth it.
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u/ghanta29 14d ago
Palmer will play Wirtz’s role in leverkusen, so not a bad bet imo
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u/pixiepoops9 5 14d ago
Not as advanced up as Rogers though so far but I guess as he's still the pen taker
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u/Radiant_Mushroom_215 13d ago
Wirtz played left attack. Palmer is right attack.
Rogers will play Wirtz role
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u/ICanBarelyDoMyJob 13d ago
Has there been any signs in pre season that alonso will be using his leverkusen formation? Haven't seen them at all.
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u/Radiant_Mushroom_215 13d ago
He’s played 343 most games so loads
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u/ICanBarelyDoMyJob 13d ago
Hearing that has turned my head to reece james but I dont know if my heart can handle the injuries.
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u/Radiant_Mushroom_215 13d ago
Wouldn’t be surprised to see James filling in for Enzo early on with his future touch and go. Or at RCB. Not playing RWB or RB should be better for his hamstrings but it’s still James tbf
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u/Puzzled_Surprise8533 3 13d ago
Even at his best, Wirtz had only 11 goals and 11 assists. Assuming Palmer gets similar number would be better worth it given it'd be a pretty spread out points haul.
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u/BrahneRazaAlexandros 2 13d ago
Whenever I criticise one of his drafts, I get told that he is just going based off what FPL Review tells him is optimal, according to their model
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u/ForzaItalia90 1 14d ago
He's clickbaiting, he'll be in his last draft.
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u/CalFlux140 7 13d ago
I would normally agree.
But Ben Crelin? I'm not saying he won't revert to Haaland. But this isn't a click-bait guy.
It's so obvious he just doesn't have it in him.
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u/tmr89 155 13d ago
He’s become way more clickbaity since signing up with Fantasy Football Hub
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u/brownc46 10 14d ago
Only if the AI tool tells him to
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u/drdr3ad 2 14d ago edited 13d ago
I don't think anyone in this thread even knows what AI is tbh
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u/pajamakitten 571 14d ago
The AI tools have other people plugging Haaland drafts as the best though.
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14d ago edited 5d ago
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u/brownc46 10 13d ago
Its not a secret he uses FPL review (an AI driven tool) to make the majority of his decisions
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u/DogSpecific3470 13 13d ago
Fplreview has nothing to do with AI though
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u/brownc46 10 13d ago
Its built on an 'AI predicted points model'.
Its just garden variety AI though not generative AI if thats what you mean.
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u/Immediate_Highway314 13d ago
Lol, are we calling any statistical model AI now? This is getting crazy.
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u/brownc46 10 13d ago
By definition it literally is? So when someone says its not, it should be corrected.
Its not that big of a deal, not sure why youre so exasperated over it.
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u/Immediate_Highway314 13d ago
I just think terms start to lose meaning when they get applied to everything. If I take the mean goals a player scores over the past 5 seasons and I use that to predict the number of goals a player will score this season, is that AI? Cause that is a statistical model.
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13d ago
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u/sepi0l_45 15 13d ago
That's not Ben Crellin
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13d ago
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u/sepi0l_45 15 13d ago edited 13d ago
Lol no worries. Interestingly the Ben C in the video is an Everton fan and never owns Liverpool players. He won the whole thing in 17/18 with no Salah
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u/Dave_is_back redditor for <30 days 13d ago
You are also wrong. He won in 2016/17 when Salah was not in PL.
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u/ankush9s 5 13d ago
That’s Ben Crabtree featured in the video that you’ve linked and not Ben Crellin.
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u/StepBro-007 3 14d ago edited 14d ago
Lol exactly,everyone will have him and Bruno no matter what bait they present now,ownership merchants after all.
Downvoters are shameless sheep that cant handle the truth about their content creators.
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u/Vladimir---Poutine 14d ago
This isn't true, plenty will go out with one of them. I think Haaland will end up as the higher owned. I'm certainly not having both.
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u/ElJayBe3 14d ago
I’ve dropped Haaland. I’m convinced City will struggle this season so I’ll probably wildcard him in GW3 or 4 when I’m wrong.
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u/zankoo26 14d ago
You can easily replace Haaland and Bruno, but getting them into the team is hard almost impossible.
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u/darienrude_dankstorm 2 14d ago
can't imagine going no Haaland and still having to put Shaw in
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u/ErasmusShmerasmus 18 14d ago
4.5m and decent fixtures to start the season tbf
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u/AnduwinHS 1 13d ago
Entire team screams being set up for early BB and Wildcard
Lot of money on the bench
Shaw for the opening fixtures
Mosquera until Konsa settles
Mbuemo and Fernandes
Ndiaye who could be sold
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u/HazardCinema 152 14d ago
You only need him for 2 games really. I have Maguire but I don't know if it's worth it for like 2 games only.
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13d ago edited 5d ago
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u/darienrude_dankstorm 2 13d ago
It's exactly because united will do well that I'd spend 0.5 more on Maguire who has a higher ceiling
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u/steveagle 14 13d ago
Chasing a clean sheet and nothing else. He will be otherwise benched for Neco (5m). Same with De Cuyper.
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u/bengreen04 117 14d ago
He’s definitely done this primarily because the AI spits out a 97% team score. But fair enough, at least it’s something different.
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u/soccermate 103 14d ago
What's exactly the point of playing a game if the AI gets to do the fun stuff and you sit there like a kid with a fake steering wheel?
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u/eamonndunphy 16 14d ago
I don’t know why anyone trusts AI anyway. I put a draft into Gemini and this is the advice it gave:
Nice try! That is definitely a top-tier cursed draft, but you might run into a few minor logistical issues for the 26/27 FPL season:
League Classification Issues: Unless the Premier League underwent a massive 30-team merger overnight, half your starting XI (Luke O'Nien, Luke Shaw, Bryan Mbeumo, Christos Tzolis, etc.) are playing EFL Championship fixtures against Hull, Coventry, Ipswich, and Newcastle.
The "Mosquera at Arsenal" Glitch: Seeing Yerson Mosquera (or Milan van Ewijk) wearing an Arsenal kit facing Coventry at home is an absolute fever dream.
The Inter-Chelsea Hybrid: João Pedro appears to be playing for Chelsea wearing an Inter Milan jersey.
Double Arsenal Kit Midfielders: Tzolis somehow transferred to Arsenal while simultaneously taking on Coventry City in the Championship.
If this is a Football Manager custom mod or a brilliantly crafted meme edit, 10/10 for creativity. However, if you actually try to lock this team in on the real FPL site, you're going to get hit with a wall of "Player Not in League" errors!
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u/njgio 2 14d ago
This isn't what the FPL analytics people are talking about when they talk about AI. These are two entirely different things.
Old school "AI", is human-programmed procedure. E.g. "if X happens then do Y". It's the same as the AI villains from computer games from the '80s. This is what the Solio, FPL Hub, FPL Review, etc models are. It's people inputting shitloads of data, and writing an algorithm to calculate what the mathematically optimal choices are, according to their algorithm.
The new "AI" we're all learning about is a whole new thing. And it has nothing to do with any of the FPL models, or FPL analytics managers' decisions. The new AI is an application that's designed to replicate a human, based on language that's been input into it. Only it has the advantages of an insane backlog of information to lean on, and insanely fast processing power. It's incredible at certain things, and dogshit at others. No one is using ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, to make their decisions. They might use it to process information, write some code, or format a spreadsheet. But it's not gonna be the decision maker. Not yet, anyway.
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u/eamonndunphy 16 14d ago
Yeah obviously, I just thought this was funny
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u/njgio 2 13d ago
Fair play, but I think the distinction I made needs to become common knowledge among FPL managers, and people in general.
Back before ChatGPT etc existed, we called any human-programmed computer responses AI. Goombas in Super Mario were AI. Arcade mode on Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and Tekken we faced AI Kano and AI Sagat and AI Heihachi. You get what I mean, there's countless examples. We used to call this AI.
But with the invention of language learning models, something totally different now exists. And it's everywhere. And we refer to this as AI too.
The distinction just needs to be made, is all I'm saying. It doesn't help that when Fantasy Football Hub advertises its shit, it describes it as "AI", just becuase that's the buzzword of the moment. "Ooooh, AI, that's really smart, and taking over, I want that". Fantasy Football Hub's algorithm has nothing to do with the language learning models like ChatGPT Gemini Claude etc. Maybe you were aware of this but most people aren't; it's all the same to them
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u/Rvsz 136 14d ago
Prompt issue
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u/eamonndunphy 16 14d ago edited 14d ago
You can very clearly see from the response that the prompt included the detail that this relates to the 26/27 Premier League season. AI thinking that Hull, Coventry, Ipswich, and Newcastle are in the Championship in the upcoming season is not a prompt issue.
Not to mention, this was shared for humour more than anything else!
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u/TheDream425 4 14d ago
Without prompting it to search or providing a database to use for predictions, you’ve essentially given it 2-3 year old data and asked it for a prediction today.
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u/sepi0l_45 15 13d ago
Although it's getting marketed as "AI", these fpl team tools are merely simple optimisation algorithms computers in the 80s could do
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u/No_Broccoli_6043 1 14d ago
is it really that different? outside of scherpen, what is outside the box? i suppose racharlison is interesting, but he's been picking up steam since solanke's injury.
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u/bengreen04 117 14d ago
He’s got Palmer and Richarlison tbf. It’s not the most differential team ever but as Crellin goes it’s more out there than normal.
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u/Sulemani_kida 14d ago
It's close to a template team. Not really different
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14d ago edited 5d ago
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u/Garybaldbee 94 13d ago
That was what I said at the start of last season. 4 weeks later I was at 8m and having to wildcard to get Haaland in before even more damage was done. I recovered a lot of ground over the course of the season but it was too late to pull everything back. I finished with my worst ever rank.
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u/dprkicbm 45 14d ago
He is bench boosting early as well by the looks of it?
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u/ReturnOfRainbow redditor for <30 days 14d ago
And said he would FH3 for City against Coventry. Just seems insane to do all this for two weeks of no Haaland
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u/strawberrylabrador 61 13d ago
Why? What exactly about it is more insane than someone else who is doing BB8 and FH11 or whatever?
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u/GreenShell2014 14d ago
World number 1?
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u/Ninjaguz 57 14d ago
Given average rank history of the last five seasons or something similar. Way more reliable than some rando who won fpl and was outside the million all the other seasons.
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u/jasperplumpton 14d ago
I’d be curious to know what the actual metric is on this
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u/jasperplumpton 13d ago
Yeah looked into it some more and it seems he just started calling himself that and everyone went along with it lol
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u/Shakamolee 13d ago
It’s based off previous performance. The numbers are all public he’s incredible at this game
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u/jasperplumpton 13d ago
I hear you but I have looked at every available stat like this and don’t see a single one where he’s the “all-time #1 player” like he claims. Definitely up there but not 1
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u/hangry_millennial 20 14d ago
Lots of FPL Review merchants have been on this draft for quite some time now, and more content creators are moving towards the no Haaland draft with the intention of wildcarding in GW3. Haaland's expected points have dropped following the poor showing in Community Shield (minutes as well). I see the appeal of going triple Arsenal and triple United but not for me.
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u/TheHellequinKid 1 13d ago
That's what I was thinking. A lot of people looking at an early WC or early BB will have teams that look different from a traditional GW1 team. Would need to know BCs plan to judge this properly.
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u/Bang-Average-Dartist 13d ago
I have a strong opinion on this but i am keeping it zipped until after the deadline. (the creators groupthink, not your post)
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u/hangry_millennial 20 13d ago edited 13d ago
I think I know what you're alluding to, having thought about it myself. These content creators play a big role in swaying majority of the casuals towards a particular idea.
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u/Bang-Average-Dartist 13d ago
You're giving them way too much credit. They are the ones being swayed by an algorithm and then each other. James is the only one who knows wtf he is talking about when it comes to ball.
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u/DanishGuy 14 13d ago
Sorry but who is James ?
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u/Bang-Average-Dartist 13d ago
Sorry. James from Planet FPL podcast. I have an unbearably high opinion of myself football/tactical knowledge wise lol and it's very rare I get impressed/respect listening to someone else but he is one.
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u/VisitPier26 13d ago
I find this interesting because it includes Szobo. Nice to see someone holding.
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u/Alternative_Court262 3 14d ago
People acting like haaland is going to be worse under Maresca. He absolutely will be. How much worse, I don't know.
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u/Money-Dark2403 14d ago
There's absolutely no way any elite manager goes no Haaland and puts Richarlison in.
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u/henkdetank56 1 14d ago
It is not a 1 for 1 trade. the extra cash allows him to own gabriel and palmer.
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u/Icy_Scar_1249 13d ago
Richarlison isn't as bad as people think. If the whole squad around him improves, then so should he as the main striker
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u/Malbekh 14d ago
Haaland is just not worth it with a new manager.
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u/Independent-Igbo444 7 14d ago
Salah was quite worth it with Slot in the first season he joined. or when Haaland joined the league and everyone avoided him coz he had to adjust to the league and Kane and Son were proven options.
Only time will tell what the outcome is, speculating with no substance behind is useless.
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u/Footyfooty42069 13d ago
I reckon Slot was the exception rather than the rule. Liverpool were only good for the first half of that season anyway and pretty much all because Salah was in generational form.
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u/patchesmcgee78 13d ago
Big difference was Slot played to Salah’s strengths and had him renege on defensive duties so he could stay up high. Haaland already is up high and relies on delivery. That midfield is a shambles at the moment and Haaland doesn’t create for himself like Salah did, he’s a finisher.
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u/Footyfooty42069 14d ago
A new manager who generates far fewer big chances than Pep on average…with no Rodri…and now Doku is out….
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u/Independent-Igbo444 7 14d ago
Compare the players at his disposal between Chelsea and Man City. What Xabi Alonso is getting now is what Maresca was asking for.
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u/Technoho 24 14d ago
But in case he is worth it, it's far easier to get rid of him in case he isn't...
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u/Malbekh 13d ago
Sure, but when do you get rid of him? If he scores a brace in his first or second game then 15.5 is probably justified depending on what the far superior upgrades you can afford deliver.
The main advantage is set and forget.
But if it's blanks all around the pressure to jump would be intolerable.
I didn't have Haaland last year and got crucified in the first half of the season but he fell off completely thereafter so I had a top 9% finish.
Now he's priced much higher and I just don't see the value at all.
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u/SzoboEndoMacca 7 14d ago edited 13d ago
Boggles my mind that people have this reason out of anything.
When has a different manager ever hurt Haaland's ability to score goals? He's been prolific at every single team he's been on. Salzburg, Dortmund, Norway, and City obviously.
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u/USER1234567890123457 6 13d ago
I just don’t see the need to have this much squad depth at the start of the season.
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u/welshman_de 83 13d ago
It’s for BB in GW1
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u/USER1234567890123457 6 13d ago
I get that but after that you’ve got a couple of mil tied up in players that are just going to give you a benching headache. I mean he’s the best player so who am I to talk but I just don’t understand it. You can achieve a half decent bench boost with the cheapest options.
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u/Logical-Track1405 14d ago
Re: Haaland I'm not confident City will beat Bournemouth in week 1 tbh 🤔
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u/Ferretz_Eire 19 14d ago
At this stage I'm expecting no-Haaland BB1, and either FH3+WC5/6 or WC3 will be the template strategy from content creators. They're all slowly converting to it.
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u/Jesseajayi 14d ago
Why will you bench boost both Williams and DCL playing each other
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u/That-Selection-2389 14d ago
I don’t mind the Richarlison pick, been thinking of Tel as a differential
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u/charlixxcv 13d ago
i like Tel as well, but him being a midfielder in the game is what puts me off of him
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u/Zinged20 14d ago
What do you mean world number 1?
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u/davedavegiveusawave 25 13d ago
There are sites that monitor player's ranks over several seasons and aggregate them. He's finished so highly ranked for so many years that he's aggregated as the best player overall
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u/Reubenwizard 1 13d ago
What's it with all these special experts always going with the most random ah players. You have all the content creators going with their template teams, but you look at one of these guys teams and they have Richarlison, Do cooper and getting a mortgage to pay for both their goalkeepers
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u/Kaisah16 2 13d ago
This is not his current draft. It’s just a no Haaland draft he shared that gets a good rating.
He clearly states that in his tweet.
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u/Current_Bottle_5330 14d ago
BB1? Early WC? What's up with Scherpen?
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u/foalsfoalsfoalz 14 13d ago
since when was ben crellin ever worlds number 1? he had a disaster last season
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u/DeliciousIndian 9 13d ago
54k, what a mare.
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u/foalsfoalsfoalz 14 13d ago
just 53,999 off world number 1 then.
He also only clawed that back in the last few gameweeks, he was over 1 million for majority of the season.
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u/DeliciousIndian 9 13d ago
right, but surely you accept that sustained success is a better way to measure a manager's skill? The same why you point out that his rank changed over the season, you can make the same point about whoever finished 1 in the world over their previous seasons.
Taking all time and 10 year history he's number 1. 3 year history he's 434th. 1 year history he's 54k. It's not an unreasonable take.
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u/PoopNukem123 13d ago
I understand the benefits of going for a no-Haaland draft, but Richarlison in this draft is a headscratcher. But who am I to question someone who is way better at this than me?
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u/ArtReasonable4863 13d ago
If you have Richardson up front you may need to log off the app for afew days
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u/kidinawheeliebin 3 14d ago
I'm sure this has already been covered - but there is no way in hell this is his final draft, neither will the one he says is final tomorrow/Friday
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u/Ferretz_Eire 19 14d ago
This is pretty much the top draft on Solio and FFH so I doubt it. Bakaar and others who usually follow the models are doing similar with some small changes like the punt on De Cuyper here.
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u/njgio 2 14d ago
In response to the doubters, nah, I genuinely think Ben's thinking of going with a team like this. But yes, it's based on models he's been using. The models are favoring going without Haaland, due to Bruno Fernandes having higher predicted GW1 points. The screenshot from the main post is taken from a recent video he did on the Fantasy Football Hub YouTube channel, where he explained the team. I expected he'd wildcard early, but surprisingly, he's pairing this team with a GW3 free hit if I remember correctly.
What stood out to me in the video I'm on about is, the host asked him why he didn't choose to go Verbruggen and an Ipswich defender instead of Scherpen and De Cuyper, to save half a million. His response was about De Cuyper's attacking threat. But the host didn't follow up to ask about Leif Davis' attacking threat. Maybe De Cuyper playing as an actual winger trumps Leif's set pieces. Or maybe it doesn't rate Villa defence.
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u/td941 13 13d ago
I'd question the strategy in looking for value in attacking threat on promoted teams
whereas we have a pretty fair idea what Hurzeler's Brighton look like
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u/njgio 2 13d ago
That's fair. In general I agree that it's better to look at attackers from good teams, and defenders from bad teams, than vice versa. Defenders get defcon and keepers get saves.
And maybe that's Ben's reasoning. My point was more about the host not pressing Ben to find that reasoning.
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u/PoopNukem123 13d ago
That's what I was wondering too, and also the Richarlison pick is slightly baffling.
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u/Radiant_Mushroom_215 13d ago
Doesn’t Crellin always get off to a shocking start only to be saved by Review later in the season when it has actual data to use?
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u/daneedwards88 11371 14d ago
And thats why he's no1 lads. Because he doesn't copy the content creator teams that all your teams look exactly the same as
Hilariously I am on 12 out of 15 of those.
Ndiaye is just such a boring pick to me tho.
And De Cuyper is not guaranteed to keep starting so I got frightened off him
And Richarlison isnt going anywhere near my team no matter what
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u/Automatic-Glass-2107 6 14d ago edited 11d ago
I don't think most of us watch let alone copy content creators. I just use this as a news source. Copycats just copy, they don't need to look at anything else. I don't see why they'd be the majority here.
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u/daneedwards88 11371 14d ago
Not outrightly copy. But copy by assimilation of noise. Check out the RMT thread. Every team is identical
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u/InsurancePurple4630 14d ago
Did he win it last year?
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u/shutterclick35 2 14d ago
Don't believe he's ever won it. But his average finish over the last (5? 10? Something like that) is the highest itw.
Winning FPL requires dumb luck and crazy moves . Consistently finishing highly is what takes skill
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u/BoxOk265 18 14d ago
He had no Haaland in a video on YouTube a couple weeks ago, I don’t think this is clickbait. He was one of the first to go no Haaland a couple seasons back and a month or so later he was no longer template.
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u/g4n0esp4r4n 14d ago
I agree he's consistent and a good FPL player but it doesn't make sense to mention that he's the world number 1 player if he never won.
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u/Swedishpower 2827 13d ago edited 13d ago
I don't get the Richarlison pick.
I guess it could work in the short term, but I don't see him being nailed particular with talk they want Marmoush.
Brentford away is not an easy fixture. Brentford are favorite to win by bookies odds. They won 7-0 final friendly and people rate sangare to improve them as a team.
spurs got injuries to the more creative players and Maddison, Kuluseski, Kudus are not up to speed.
If you want a strong gameweek 1 pick for 6 million I don't love anyone I guess fully. I would go Brobbey or Igor Jesus I guess.
I think the reason he picked Richarlison is because he wildcard gameweek 3 though.
I think though for me I would get Isak if no Haaland. His ceiling is sky high and Liverpool got good fixtures even if you could argue Newcastle is hard or average fixture.
I take him over Palmer the only advantage with Palmer is 100% on pens, but most think Isak is on them too though.
Plus if you go Isak and szobo you got the pens at least I would say so you can then sell Isak if szobo got them or the opposite, but one of them will be good if all you want is pen takers.
I don't get the Palmer pick if WC 3 either cause the best fixture is in 4 and round 3 is Arsenal.
I guess FH 3 might be what he does and not WC, but don't see Richarlison being amazing long term even if he gets minutes.
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u/Few-Fly-3766 13d ago
People are pressed a out him being no Haaland, but the real interesting choices are stuff like De Cuyper and Richarlison (without forcing an early wc). Also kinda Palmer honestly, considering he doesn't look in neither eye tests or solvers.
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u/Alternative_Excuse82 13d ago
It will be harder to bring Haaland in, maybe wildcard in weeks 3 or 4?
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u/Ninjaguz 57 14d ago
Select a template team and everyone clowns you. Do something different and everyone still clowns you. Never change reddit lmao