2026/27 Draft League · 14 managers · one spoon

The Wooden Spoon Papers

Post-draft review, new-scoring deep dive, a 2,500-run season simulation — and the live punishment odds for who ends up dressed by the winner, ordering for the table, with a case of beer on the tab. Tap anything.

Next game weekGW 1starts 21 Aug
Title favourite
Spoon favourite
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Projected top 4 full table →

Spoon race full odds →

This week's fixtures live tab →

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Latest sledges the board →

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Game week 1 — the previews

One write-up per matchup, sim lines from the 2,500-run model, injuries priced in. Disagree? Each one has its own comment thread — that's what it's there for.

Last season — Fantrax Floggers 2025/26

The season that begat the spoon. 12 teams then — Sean played as A bunch of Fairly Average Goal Scorers, Tom as Saka or bust. Dilan is this year's only true debutant; Jarod returns from a year in exile, having been replaced by Michael last season. Final table straight from the Fantrax archive.

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Projected finishing order

Dot = expected season points across 2,500 simulated seasons; band = 10th–90th percentile. Hover for title / bottom-4 odds, click for the team card. League play itself is weekly head-to-head — these are the sim's season point totals, the engine underneath the matchups.

How close is the top? 101 points separate 1st from 4th — barely half of one good game week. Title odds top out at 23%. Nobody has earned the right to talk yet. Re-simulated 14 Aug with the full 13-round squads and the current injury list — Saliba's back (out until ~spring), Timber's groin and Ekitike's achilles are all priced in.

Title odds

All 14 squads, audited

Click a card for the full roster. Grades score the draft: value + structure + fit to the new rules.

The "minor adjustments" that moved the furniture

Goals 8→9 · second assists +1 · corners forced +1 per 2 · clearances off the line +1 · 6-second violation −1. Re-scoring last season under both systems, by position:

Pure midfielders are the big winners (35→51 in the top 200, +46%) — second assists and corners forced land with whoever touches the ball most. Forwards win at the very top: doubling from 1 to 2 in the top 10; a 20-goal striker banks roughly a full extra game week of points from the goal bump alone. D,M hybrids are the big losers (−34% in the top 200, −40% in the top 100) — the new avenues flow to genuine creators, not moonlighting full-backs. Pure defenders are untouched through the top 100/200. And the implied numbers say ~10% of the top 200 are goalkeepers — remember that when you open the Steals & crimes tab.

Strategy in one sentence: you want goalscoring forwards, ball-dominant central midfielders, an elite keeper — and someone else holding the D,M bag. Five managers obliged.

The Wooden Spoon race

The stakes: bottom after 35 weeks = rename to Wooden Spoon, get dressed by the winner for a meal, order for the table, supply a case of beer for the trip. Rounds 36–37: the bottom four play off to nominate one more manager for the same treatment.

Finishes bottom-4 Serves the punishment Wooden Spoon (14th)
Reading it: Joelinteon is bottom-4 in 61% of sims and dead last in nearly a quarter — 36% overall to be at that dinner. Then it's Tom (29%), Sean (28%) and Jrod (23%) fighting over the other chair, with Hamish (20%) breathing easier: round 13 bought him an actual starting keeper. And a new face in the conversation — Saliba's back just tripled Dilan's bottom-4 odds to 28%. The playoff rewards one thing: a healthy squad in May. Bottom-four managers — hoard waiver priority for that fortnight.

The goalkeeper run

11 keepers went by the end of R12. Three managers (Tyson, Harry, Hamish) drafted none and paid their final pick for it — Kinsky #169, Verbruggen #178, Petrovic #182 — in a league where a keeper is mandatory every week.

The steals

The crimes

Live table

Straight from Fantrax through this site's own API (cached 5 min). This is a head-to-head league: the table is your W-L-T record, fantasy points are the tiebreak and the truth.

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Fixtures

All 38 game weeks of head-to-head matchups. Week 35 hands out the spoon; rounds 36–37 are the bottom-four playoff that nominates the second victim.

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Squads & moves

Current Fantrax rosters against the draft board — waiver pickups in green, drafted-then-dropped in red. Updates as the boys panic.

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Captaincy

One captain pick each game week, 10-game limit on any single player — the sim prices the armband at roughly a 16% boost on captained weeks. Fantrax's public feed doesn't publish captain picks yet; this tracker lights up the moment it does.

No captain data in the feed yet — check back after GW1 lineups lock.

Treatment room & team news

Injury flags, suspensions and availability for every rostered player, from the official Premier League fantasy feed (cached 15 min). Amber = doubtful, red = out. For predicted starting XIs: SportsGambler · FF Scout.

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The Sledging Board

Visible to anyone with the link, attributed to whatever name you type — so exactly as trustworthy as the group chat. Screenshots are forever.

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