Discovering All-time Elite: The Top 10K Managers
Introduction
What separates a truly skilled FPL manager from a merely lucky one? It's a notoriously difficult question. A top 10k rank in any single season could be a sign of genius, but it could also be a flash in the pan—a fortunate run of good luck.
Any strategy that simply emulates the choices of managers who might just be lucky is a recipe for failure. To find a more reliable signal of skill, we developed a methodology to identify a cohort of managers whose success is less about short-term luck and more about sustained, long-term performance.
Methodology: Identifying All-time Top 10K Managers
To identify the truly elite managers, we went beyond single-season performance and developed a methodology to measure sustained excellence over time. Our approach was designed to filter out luck and focus on consistent, long-term strategic skill.
In essence, we:
- Looked back at full historical data, excluding the current season to ensure we were analyzing managers based on a significant body of work, not just recent form.
- Filtered for managers with at least four seasons of experience. This step was crucial to ensure we were only considering managers with a proven track record of adapting to rule changes, player rotations, and evolving FPL metas.
- Calculated their average rank, excluding their worst season. This is a key part of our methodology. Dropping the worst season prevents a single outlier—a bad year due to life events, a failed experimental strategy, or just plain bad luck—from disqualifying an otherwise elite manager. It rewards consistency while allowing for a margin of error, giving a truer picture of a manager's typical performance level.
- Selected the top 10,000 managers based on this adjusted average rank, creating our cohort of "all-time elite."
This approach captures the essence of sustained excellence and separates the truly elite from seasonal anomalies.
The Performance Gap: Quantifying Elite Consistency
The most revealing finding emerges when we compare the historical performance of our all-time elite managers against those currently at the top. We analyzed the past season ranks for three distinct groups: our all-time top 10K, the top 10K managers from the current season, and the top 4 million managers from the current season (representing a roughly average manager).
While our all-time elite group's historical superiority is expected—we selected them for this very reason—the truly striking insight emerges when we compare the other two cohorts. The data reveals that managers currently in the top 10,000 this season have a worse historical performance than the average manager in the top 4 million.
Let that sink in: a high current rank is not just a poor predictor of past success; it's correlated with worse historical performance than an average manager. This strongly suggests that many of today's top-ranked managers may be benefiting from high-risk, high-reward strategies that are unlikely to deliver consistent, long-term success. Their current standing appears to be more an outlier than a pattern of excellence.
This isn't persistence. This is structural superiority.
Elite Manager Selections: What Can We Learn?
Now that we've identified this cohort of historically elite managers, we can analyze their player selections to uncover valuable insights. What preferences and patterns can we derive from the players they choose?
To do this, we examined their player ownership percentages in Gameweek 7 and compared them to the ownership data for the general FPL population. This comparison allows us to see which players the elite managers favor more (over-owned) or less (under-owned) than the average manager, revealing their strategic biases.
By Position: Where Elite Managers Diverge
Forwards
Elite managers show extreme conviction in their forward line. Erling Haaland is a prime example of an over-owned asset, appearing in 99.9% of elite squads compared to just 57.9% of general teams. Similarly, Viktor Gyökeres is significantly over-owned by the elite (52.4%) compared to the general population (27.8%), signaling a clear recognition of his value. Conversely, some popular players are notably under-owned by the elite. For instance, Hugo Ekitiké, owned by 17.8% of general managers, is in only 1.4% of elite squads, suggesting the top managers see him as an over-valued asset or a trap.
Midfielders
The midfield shows the most striking divergence. Reijnders is heavily over-owned by elite managers (81.1% vs. 33.6%), but the elite also fade popular choices. While 42% of general managers own Salah, he is found in only 16.5% of elite squads, making him significantly under-owned. Similarly, Palmer, who is in 12.2% of general teams, is in only 0.1% of elite squads, making him another popular pick that is under-owned by the top managers.
Defenders
Defensive selections reveal a strong elite consensus. Players like Senesi (70% vs 24%) and Gabriel (57.7% vs 28.1%) are heavily over-owned. On the flip side, popular picks like Cucurella (21.7% general vs 4.3% elite) and Guéhi (29.9% general vs 14.1% elite) are significantly under-owned by the elite, who have largely avoided these highly-selected defenders.
Goalkeepers
The goalkeeper position provides the most dramatic example of elite consensus. Dúbravka is massively over-owned (94.8% vs. 34.2%). This conviction creates opportunities to fade the popular choices, with keepers like Pickford (10.7% general vs 0.5% elite) and A.Becker (9.1% general vs 0.06% elite) being almost entirely ignored by the elite group, making them heavily under-owned assets.
The Bigger Picture: What This Means for You
The all-time top 10K represents a cohort that has navigated FPL's structural changes, tactical shifts, and injury devastation while consistently outperforming. Their collective wisdom—visible through these asset preferences—offers a window into what superior decision-making actually looks like.
While you won't become elite overnight by copying their picks, understanding why they make different choices is a strategic advantage. Elite managers don't chase points; they chase percentiles. They identify value others miss. They recognize form cycles before the market catches up. And they have the conviction to build around certain players with near-unanimous confidence.
What's Next: From Insight to Action
Understanding the patterns and preferences of FPL's all-time elite managers is more than just an analytical exercise. It provides a data-driven foundation for building smarter, more effective team optimization tools.
In upcoming releases, we will be introducing new features that directly leverage the insights uncovered in this analysis. By codifying the patterns of these exceptional managers, we aim to provide you with tools that can help you make more informed decisions, spot high-value differentials, and ultimately, improve your own FPL performance. Stay tuned.