The Premier League 2023/24 matchday 11 produced some of the most memorable games of the week so far. Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea played out one of the most chaotic matches the league has ever seen on Monday night. The Newcastle United vs Arsenal clash was marred with controversy and Luton Town produced an admirable underdogs story against Liverpool.
Manchester City scored six goals to jump atop of the Premier League table again. Manchester United needed a 90th-minute winner to get back to winning ways. 30 goals were scored in 10 matches across the Premier League and it was a truly entertaining one for the fans.
With that being said, this game week proved to be a nightmare for the Fantasy Premier League faithful. That is because despite all the drama and goals scored, the ‘FPL favorites’ mostly failed to impress. Some of the most-picked FPL players failed to deliver. Even the ‘underrated gems’ could not perform to the FPL fans’ liking.
Indeed, Erling Haaland – who was among the most-captained players among FPL users – got substituted at half-time and had zero goal contributions in City’s 6-1 win over Bournemouth. Mo Salah, another vastly-picked player, failed to get a goal or assist. Even Son Heung-min saw an early goal ruled out by VAR and failed to score after that.
On top of that, the Arsenal players had a nightmare in their controversial loss to Newcastle. Even some of the favorite players outside the traditional top-six like Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins or defender Matty Cash underwhelmed in their 2-0 loss to Nottingham Forest.
With 90% of the most-picked FPL players fumbling in their respective games, game week 11 has proven to be a nightmare for the users. The average points for the week is at a meagre 32 points. It has been the week with the lowest average score in the 2023/24 season so far. In fact, it probably even ranks among the lowest-scoring weeks in FPL history.
The confidence among the FPL faithful has gone down to a low after this disappointing week and fans can only find the funny side of this. Users have started to upload the embarrassingly low scores that they managed in the game week.
It seems like many of the FPL ‘experts’ have also been badly affected by how poorly the players have performed. These users who often give tips to others in improving their points total have seen their own ranking plummet and their average score being in the mid-10s or 20s.
Some users even failed to reach double digits at the end of the game week. Indeed, because of so many key players even scoring 0, these users failed to get much from their players. Another reason behind the average score being low is that many opted to take a -4 or -8 hit ahead of the game week.
That has come back to haunt them, with the deducted points further decreasing their weekly points total. Tottenham’s loss to Chelsea was particularly damning for some users. That is because Cristian Romero and Lesley Udogie, both widely-picked defenders, got sent off and ended the game in minus points after their 4-1 loss.
The only salvageable thing is that this low-scoring week will be a learning curve for the FPL managers this season. They will probably realize how not to bank on the ‘most-picked’ players all the time and be brave with experimenting with others. Fans will also hope that this is the lowest-scoring game week of the 23/24 season and that the average points total rises significantly going forward.
