Here’s site visitor Ian with an article on thinking outside the box to improve your fantasy football team
Thinking Outside the Box to Improve your Fantasy Football Team
Source Pexels
The hardest part of playing fantasy football, or at least playing it well and being successful, is to be proactive as opposed to reactive. The hat trick hero of the previous weekend might seem to have been such an obvious pick in hindsight, so you figure that you might as well put him in the following week, only for (lo and behold) someone else to take the glory, the headlines, and the 30 odd points. Obviously, this is easier said than done, and there is always going to be an element of guesswork when making your selections, but there are a couple of ways to make it less a matter of chance and more one of knowledge.
Currently, most managers get their information in one two ways, or from a combination of the two. First of all, there is that wealth of knowledge and expertise gleaned from years, if not decades, of following the beautiful game. This might have involved thousands of hours spent watching matches either in the flesh or on the box, and a similar amount listening to TalkSport while they analyse to death every detail of the nil-nil between Stoke and West Brom.
Then there are those who study sites like this, and The Scout on the official site, as well as the numerous podcasts and programmes dedicated to fantasy football. There are problems with both of these. The issue with our own knowledge, deep though it may be, is that invariably it will be lacking in certain areas and will almost certainly be prejudiced for or against specific teams and players. We can’t help it — over the years we’ve built up so many of these prejudices that it’s incredibly hard to be 100% impartial and objective.
The problem with basing your opinion on the viewpoints of “experts” on The Scout and podcast shows is that a lot of other people do. So, all you are doing is following the herd, and you will end up with the same big hitters as those you are competing against. In order to be successful, you need to get there before the rest and let them follow, by which time you have moved on. Proactive, not reactive.
So, how do you do that? By tapping into two resources with vast pools of inside knowledge that are readily available, but almost always ignored. The first of these is bookmakers. There is a reason why bookies win almost every week of the season, and we have one, two, maybe three decent Acca returns a year. They are able to pump a huge amount of money, resources and time into it. Why not use it to your advantage for a change? Next time, instead of flipping a coin or leaving it to some gut feeling about whether to go for Jesus or Aguero, have a look to see who the bookies have as their favourite to score. Likewise with clean sheets. They are also a good resource at the beginning of a season for identifying players from lesser teams, who might have just come up, or other players and teams who might have otherwise gone under your radar.
SOURCE: Wikipedia
The other resource is football forums. Every club has a site populated by those who have lived and breathed that club all of their lives. Once you cut through the circular arguments about whether the owners are the club’s saviours or the single thing holding them back from achieving greatness, there is a wealth of invaluable information. This can include whether a player is actually injured, likely to return, rested, prone to like/hate a certain style of opposition, etc. The list goes on and on.
You can bet your bottom dollar that those two resources are not going to be utilised by the vast majority of people in your league, and — as with everything in the world — knowledge is power.
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