After lots of grumbling about “downturns” in recent weeks, the market set alight again after the announcement of the latest bonus.
There are a mix of experienced and new readers on this site. The old hands will be familiar with this madness but some of the newer traders must be wondering what the hell is going on and what will happen next!
Just one of the things I do for members other than the extensive Scouting and market analysis is provide detailed guides everytime a major event happens on FI, be it a bonus, changes to performance scoring or the share split from last season. This benefits all traders but particularly those who are experiencing such events for the first time.
Once or twice a year, I unlock one and open it up to non-members to give them a feel for the sort of articles available in the members area. The bonus Strategy Guide is now unlocked and open to anyone. Bear in mind that this was written and released within hours of the bonus news, so some of it may have moved on by now.
However, some of the thoughts on what may happen come the weekend are still relevant so readers may want to check it out. It’s also worth bearing in mind that each bonus and the circumstances around it are different, so this isn’t something you should use as a template for any future bonus as each one is different and requires thinking about carefully.
On the players, where do I start?! It’s always tough to pull out risers and fallers in week’s like this because there are so many I could mention and only space to discuss a few.
If there is an overall theme I’d say the most important point to note is that after the “downturn” where many overpriced players were dropping (and most of them were overpriced) the money did not necessarily go straight back to them.
Instead, it went to the players with positive sentiment rather than back in holds that have dropped. Traders do like the comfort blanket of seeing a rising player and generally don’t like buying players who have been falling recently.
This instinct is actually something to fight against in trading. Often, it is the dropping players that offer value and the players that have risen recently who may be getting overpriced.
An important point to note here however is that the “buy the dip” trading catch phrase does not apply where the player was already significantly overpriced in the first place.
A player’s true value rests on their potential to return dividends in future and nothing else when it comes down to it. We should stray a little bit from that to pursue one trend or another. But we should stay in touching distance of reality. We are increasingly seeing that players have to deliver on the real FI win mechanics to maintain momentum.
Risers
Mikel Oyarzabal
Oyarzabal’s best ever score and this week is the time to get it with traders so keen to spend their money.
This was his best game for a long time with 2 goals and an assist. Can we expect this regularly? The stats would say not. He’s over reliant on penalties for goal threat over the last 10 or so games and doesn’t have quite enough outside of them.
He creates a reasonable number of chances so an assist every 4-5 is not out of the question.
Overall, the underlying numbers are fairly average so he will need these big days to challenge and they won’t come along quite often enough. Just 1 goal alone will not cut it for him.
However, he is well regarded as a big future talent and I would expect him to significantly improve if and when he moved to a bigger more performance suitable club.
This is likely, and may have been expected a long time ago. But he is one of those rare players with actual loyalty to their club. With a contract until 2024, that may or may not be this Summer.
He appeared for Spain in the last round of qualifiers but was underwhelming. Whether he gets minutes in the October qualifiers and makes a claim for a Spain spot for the Euros will be important.
Quincy Promes
Ever get one of those players who you buy, faithfully stick with despite an underperformance and then when you finally decide it’s not working out you part ways only for them move to Ajax and score a hatrick without you? Well this one of those for me.
Betrayal.
I originally spied Promes playing for Spartak Moscow way back in August of 2018. His stats there looked excellent and when he moved to Sevilla it was a no brainer pick up at the bargain price.
However, he showed a few flashes there but never really got going and overall it was a disappointing hold. Later, he transfered to Ajax and an ineligible league which could have been another blow.
Until of course traders collectively decided that players who have very rare chances to win are in fashion!
His recent numbers look fantastic, with superb goal threat, involvement levels and some assist potential, too. The Champions League and the increasing minutes for the Netherlands give him a stage.
The headwinds are the lack of regular football and at 27, you would worry whether he will actually become a regular fixture at Ajax rather than someone who will get another move to an eligible league.
However, at still under £1, with Champions League and Netherlands involvement in a Euros year, you can see him getting attention in the build up to big games and he is capable of a big performance score when he plays.
Fallers
Rhian Brewster
A beating for Brewster lately which is interesting, especially when people are so keen to spend money and he has been rising lately.
At root, he is grossly overpriced, especially when you consider that he is a weak performance player even if he turns out to be a good goalscorer at senior level (which is possible).
He has been rising in the last month, likely in anticipation of the Cup game. So it’s fairly normal for him to fall back down after he didn’t make an impact there.
The reason I mention him though is that with eligible league games going on midweek, it felt to me like the Cup games did not get the same amount of attention. So we may want to bear this in mind when buying for any cup games in future and whether fixtures are clashing.