This week, battle lines were drawn in the FI twitter community and the term ‘reverse pump’ was invented. Max Arnold had been heavily ‘tipped’ by various tipsters/traders on social media for a while and had seen some decent price grown. Then, another trader gave an alternative, less positive, take on his PB potential based on stats, and his price collapsed for a short period. Traders were not happy.

I don’t hold Arnold, although I have looked at him due to the favourable fixtures he’s got ahead of him. For me, I didn’t see enough value to buy in, largely because I think there are better options in the Wolfsburg team. Clearly, some of the traders that did buy into him didn’t really fancy him that much either, otherwise his price wouldn’t have collapsed so easily…

This episode did get me thinking about the nature of stats though, and how much I actually refer to them when I make purchases, or whether sentiment holds more sway. I’m still not sure which is the better way to make profit on this platform, although using stats is probably the safer option of the two (as demonstrated by the quick exodus of the ‘soft’ money in Arnold).

I bucked the trend on stats (and sentiment) this week with my two purchases. I’ve added Aaron Ramsey into the Performance fund, based on the fact that I know he can perform – even though he’s not had a chance to show that this season. Juventus have got some decent fixtures ahead and have injuries stacking up, so my hope is that Ramsey will be given a chance to do what he can do. This is a real gamble.

In a similar fashion, I’ve added Hirving Lozano into the Potentials fund. He’s not yet demonstrated that he can perform in a PB league with Napoli, having signed from PSV last month, but if he’s ever going to do that, the time is now. Napoli have got a stonking set of fixtures coming up, including playing Liverpool in the Champions League on Tuesday, so if he does start to show some form, his price is almost guaranteed a big rise. But, as with Ramsey, that’s a really big ‘if’ at this point – a real gamble.

So how did everyone else do last week? Better than last week – all in some degree of profit!

The Premium’s fared the worst again, with Pogba’s continual slide draining the profit from the port. His price bounced a bit when it hit £6.50 so we can assume that there is a bit of a floor there for now at least. I still expect him to rise again when he’s fit and the transfer rumours come back, but patience is needed for a while yet. Luckily, rises on Sterling, Sancho, Neymar and Messi kept the fund as a whole in slight profit for the week.

My Performance assets had an ok week, up by around 1%. Fabian Ruiz and Depay were the standout performers for the week, with Depay in particular starting to look like a must have this season. A few small drops in the port prevented this being a stellar week, and my stubbornness to hold onto Maguire is continuing to bite me in the ass. I may have to accept that he’s more of a £2 player than a £2.50 one and finally move on.

The best performance this week came from the Potentials fund, around 1.9% up over the week. Odegaard had a huge rise over the week and really is starting to look the real deal for FI. I had thought his ceiling would be around £1.80, but now I’m starting to think it could be nearer to £2.50 or more. Osimhen and Håland also had some significant rises, and I think they are looking like two of the big breakout stars of this season. I’ve taken the opportunity to top up on Håland with his Champions League debut coming up this week.

Several of the youngsters in my port are struggling to impress on the pitch, or sometimes struggling to even get on it, so I’m starting to cut my losses on some of them. This week I binned Gouiri and Diawara at a loss. I also called ‘time’ on my holding of Callum Hudson-Odoi, just before his expected return from injury, for a nice £83 profit.

The full breakdown for the week can be found on the separate fund pages as always. Comments, observations and even ‘tips’ are always welcome!