All the fantasy football formats for the premier league are different and increasingly new rules are brought in to the different formats. Facebook premier league fantasy certainly is a very different one. Heres some of the unusual rules and the ways to take advantage
Price rises/falls
The main idiosyncrasy with facebook premier league fantasy is the volatile pricing and the vesting period for holding players. This gives you an incredible incentive to transfer early in the week to avoid price falls for players in your team and buy players where prices are rising.
The vesting period is increasing from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. You will need to hold a player for 28 days to earn the full difference in value from the price at purchase to the market price at time of transfer.
Player values fluctuate based on ownership. If you have players whom other owners add to their roster, their value will increase and be reflected in your cap number. If other owners drop players you have, your cap number will decrease.
This goes completely against how I want to play the game. I recently lost £2m in value for Tevez as people were selling him hand over fist. However his next game was a home game to Sunderland which I knew City would walk. City also have good fixtures coming up and Tevez was rested so there was a good chance of him starting so why was everyone selling. It made no sense to me. In the end I made him captain and unluckily in my mind he then got no points and I had to sell him early this week as the price kept plummeting. What I should have done was sold him early for Ageuro or such like to avoid the price drop. My team value is now less than when it started. Its easy to capture price drops for players in your team you just need to check your team regularly and remember what the price was to see if it has fallen.
There’s no way that I can see of who is rising outside your team. A good proxy though is to go on to the Barclays site and look at the transfers in (gameweek) drop down which will show who is being purchased in that format. that will give a good indication in the facebook format.
As I say transfers early in the week dont sit with me well due to the risk of injury but in this format if you don’t you could find yourself facing people with a value of £10m more come the latter part of the season. Also transferring in solely on value increase rather than points prospects makes no sense to me. You should strike a balance between the 2 to avoid being totally outnumbered value wise later in the season. I will certainly be making a shift towards this
Shots on target
facebook premier league fantasy is a goal scorers format. Goals get 4 for a striker 5 for a midfielder and 6 for a defender compared to 2 for an assist in every position.
In addition a point is awarded for every shot on target.
Heres some of the leaders on a per game basis (assuming a reasonable number of games played) for shots n target “SOT”
Forwards
Rodellaga
Ba
Mirallas
Defoe
Suarez
RVP
Heres a few who have played less games but have strong ratios
Anichebe
Dzeko
Rooney
Berba
Its worth remembering these in a captain sense as it provides a bit of a hedge even if they don’t score. 2 or 3 shots on target would get another 4-6 points in that instance
Midfielders
Bale
Fellaini
Cazorla
YYT
Pienaar
Nolan
Michu
Sidwell
Gera
Lampard
also note Oscar has a high ratio for 3 games
This choice can add a point per game
Defenders
Ivanovic
Luiz
Rafael
Zabaleta
Baines
On less games BAE, Richards and Richardson
Fouls won
Each foul won will win you 0.5 of a point.
Here are the players who have averaged over 2 fouls per game and an additional point:
Forwards
Suarez
Zamora
Snodgrass
Holt
Petric
Ruiz
On less games:
Ballotelli
Fortune
Midfield
Hazard
Gutierrez
Pienaar
Arteta
Dyer
Maloney
Park
Sterling
Sessegnon
Granero
Guthrie
and on less games
NZogbia
Taarabt
Defence (generally only 1 per game)
Figueroa
Baines
Santon
Luiz
Williamson
Who has appeared on both SOT and FW?
Suarez
Pienaar
Luiz
Baines
The negative – Fouls committed
A half point is removed for every foul committed. Here are these committing more than 2 per game
Forwards
C Cole
Crouch
Holt
Mirallas
Midfielders
Fellaini
Michu
El Ahamadi
Arteta
Jacob
B Johnson
Holman
Diame
Adam
Schneiderlin
Granero
Defenders (all slightly less than 2 per game apart from Figueroa)
Figueroa
Caldwell
Kompany
Reid
Clark
Vertonghen
Those on both FW and FC
Holt
Arteta
Granero
Figueroa
I hope that provides some food for thought. Facebook premier league fantasy transfers should always be made on the basis of fixtures and form but taking in to account these other factors especially the value position should be part of the decision making process.