PLAYER OWNERSHIP. FOR THE MANY OR BY THE FEW?

PLAYER OWNERSHIP. FOR THE MANY OR BY THE FEW?

It’s the end of a gameweek and everything seems to have fallen into place. Alonso has got you a clean sheet and bonus, Marcus Rashford not only scored but also bagged an assist.

So why have you not moved up the FFUK league as much as you might have expected?

The answer could well lie in player ownership. The number of other fantasy managers around you who own exactly the same players.

Take a look at the following ownership percentages for FFUK (as of the 3^rd January 2019).

Player	Percentage Owned
Wan-Bissaka	82
Kane	78
Richarlison	74
Pogba	64
Digne	60
Salah	60
Hazard	50
Doherty	48
Robertson	48
Fabianski	46
Rashford	46
Felipe Anderson	44
Jiménez	42
Alonso	36
Aubameyang	32
Son	32
Wilson	32
Alexander-Arnold	24
Bennett	24
Patrício	22
Alisson	20
Fraser	20
Hamer	18
Ings	18
Martial	18
Shaw	18
David Luiz	16
Kolasinac	16
Foster	14
Kamara	14
Lingard	14
Pereyra	14
Laporte	12
Lovren	12
Balbuena	10
Kiko Femenía	10
McCarthy	10
Sané	10
Success	10
Billing	8
Deulofeu	8
Duffy	8
Hennessey	8
Leno	8
Pereira	8
Snodgrass	8
Speroni	8
Sterling	8
Torreira	8
Trippier	8
Arnautovic	6
Brooks	6
Button	6
Hart	6
Højbjerg	6
Mitrovic	6
Rüdiger	6
van Dijk	6
Agüero	4
Boruc	4
Ederson	4
Gibbs-White	4
Guaita	4
Kepa	4
Maguire	4
Peltier	4
Pickford	4
Stankovic	4
Stephens	4
Alderweireld	2
Alli	2
Azpilicueta	2
Begovic	2
Bernardo Silva	2
Boly	2
Calvert-Lewin	2
Chambers	2
Chicharito	2
Chilwell	2
Deeney	2
Delph	2
Dubravka	2
Dunk	2
Elneny	2
Eriksen	2
Etheridge	2
Guendouzi	2
Gunnarsson	2
Heaton	2
Herrera	2
Holding	2
Jonny	2
Jorginho	2
Kayal	2
Keane	2
Kenedy	2
Lacazette	2
Lindelöf	2
Lloris	2
Lössl	2
Maddison	2
Mané	2
Masuaku	2
Murphy	2
Neves	2
Origi	2
Paterson	2
Sakho	2
Schneiderlin	2
Shaqiri	2
Sigurdsson	2
Simpson	2
Steele	2
Stones	2
Taylor	2
Ward	2
Young	2
Zabaleta	2
Zaha	2
Zanka	2

 

Most Popular

With his hugely accessible starting price of £4.0M and impressive early season form, it’s no surprise that AWB is the most popular player in the league, being owned by 82% of FFUK managers. (How many of these leave him glued to their bench is another matter!)

Other players currently gracing the top positions are also no big shock. Kane (78%) and Salah (60%) both have consistency of returns to entice prospective owners, whereas Richarlison (74%) is still very reasonably priced at only £7.0M.

There are a couple of eyebrow-raisers in the upper echelons, though. Lucas Digne is now owned by 60% – in other words, three out of every five in FFUK. And Fabianski is by far the most popular goalkeeper, with a whopping 46% ownership to his name (that’s nearly half the league, for fans of fractions).

Trends

This is a first write-up, so we can’t be too precise regarding the movement of most of the players listed. But it’s a fact, and probably comes as little surprise, that Pogba has risen astronomically recently.

Prior research into writing this article had him at 34% ownership on the 30^th December. Fast-forward to today and he’s currently rocking at 64%! Despite his blank vs Newcastle last night, the Pog has nearly doubled in ownership in the space of just 4 days. Amazing. Obviously this is an extreme case, but it goes to show the margins we are sometimes faced with.

Compared to FPL

A quick scoot through some of the percentage figures reveals that there are some fairly big discrepancies between ownership in FFUK and FPL overall.

Ederson is currently just 4% owned by FFUK decision-makers, compared to over 21% in FPL. I’m sure there are more than a few ghost teams we should take into consideration here.

Swinging the other way, Felipe Anderson is part of 20% of FPL squads, but in 44% on FFUK – more than twice as many.

So, with players like him, are we ahead of the curve or more prone to knee-jerking after a good performance? I’ll leave that up to you.

Potential differentials

And then to the bottom of the table. The bargain basement in Percentage Towers. Who down there has the current form or upcoming fixtures and is currently held by a mere handful of rivals?

You could do worse than take a chance on Lacazette, Mané or Zaha to rediscover their early-season performances. Each is owned by just 2% of FFUK managers. Or how about Mitrovic or Arnautovic, both at a surprisingly low 6%?

Over to you

As ever, it’s your call as a fantasy manager. If you’re placed well in the league, you may want to protect your ranking and make sure you’re packing most of the highest-owned in FFUK. You won’t rise much, but then you probably won’t fall either.

Alternatively, if you’re chasing (and that must be 95% of us, in some respect), it’s probably worth taking more of a left field approach to who graces your team next.

 

Reidy