The apparent slowing down of fantasy premier league price changes is a hot topic at the moment so I thought it was worth a few words on my take on it.
Why I’m happy with the slowing down of fantasy premier league price changes
Before I start this is purely a piece from my own personal opinion and obviously I would say this given my playing style. So I thought I’d get that out of the way because I can imagine a few managers are already reading this through gritted, very annoyed, teeth.
Secondly I’m not going to roll out stats as to how price changes are different than previous years. I’m going to start by saying it appears that the volatility of price change has slowed down and from my reading other sites and forums that seems to be accepted. If you don’t accept this then I’m probably going to annoy you even more than I have so far.
What is FPL about?
Here’s a good point to start. I don’t know what the creators of FPL thought the point of FPL was and why fantasy premier league price changes are a part of the site. However I’m willing to put forward my interpretation. To me it’s a game about using your football knowledge to predict which players will score, assist or get clean sheets the most each gameweek over a season. Fantasy premier league price changes I would suggest were introduced to reward FPL managers who identified a player ahead of other FPL managers meaning he got them cheaper as a reward.
So how have fantasy premier league price changes affected this objective?
To me what has happened in previous seasons is that the fantasy premier league price changes have been so rapid, positive and negative that this became the leading driver for a reasonable proportion of FPL managers in the game. Transfers were often done to avoid price drops or to get a player likely to rise. A commonly used tactic would be to build up team value to after Christmas and then use that team value in order to buy the most expensive players and storm past all their mini league rivals. That tactic meant that a decent proportion of FPL managers made transfers up to Christmas, around half the season, based purely on price considerations. Half the season gone and they could have not done 1 transfer on football merits. Furthermore they would probably have used their only wildcard, as it was a few seasons ago, during the first international break purely to capture price rises.
I never followed this methodology but apparently it has been quite successful. Now I know I’ve presented this in a very black and white manner to illustrate the point. I know it isn’t quite the case but I would maintain it’s not far off.
Now proponents of the strategy would say that are just maximising the game as it is presented and I have no argument with that. I would just say that surely the rate of price changes had made fpl managers act in a way that can’t be consistent with what the game is supposed to be about. I would argue that is about picking the players who will score the most points. Not maximising your bank balance for half a season.
Why am I happy?
I personally don’t like being rushed over my transfers. What fun is a transfer if you haven’t procrastinated for a whole week over doing it, discussed it with everyone who know who will listen (including your dog) and then let it distract you from all things you should really be doing in life. Like your job and shopping for food etc. Why would I want to just check a price change site and make my transfer on Monday and then relax for the rest of the week. What fun would that be?
But seriously I hate being rushed over my transfers so this is a good thing for me.
But aren’t player success and price changes correlated?
I often hear that players fall and drop for a reason and that reason being that they are likely to obtain less or more points so it’s a win win. Tell that to those managers who bought Xhaka after GW1. However a while ago you could have banked a few price rises and then dumped him moving on to a few more targets.
In theory they should be correlated and maybe that is the case long term but I would say not necessarily. I’m not sure even if you are successful that if you transfer late in the week that you will have a decent bank balance.
Now I’m going to bore you again with the bookies team of last season (I even bore myself). It finished 6k overall rank last season despite having a bank balance at less than £100m for most of the season. So in that case no barrier to success and a successful rank didn’t mean a healthy bank balance as a result.
So I can’t answer the question I suspect with more quality players coming into the league that it’s harder to pick the right players even with bundles of cash in the bank.
So what is the point of this article?
There is no point. I’m holding De Bruyne over the international break and I’ve only lost £0.1m despite him being the most sold player so I’m happy. I can wait for all the injury news and managers press conferences and make an informed transfer without having lost bundles of cash. Every time I make a quick decision based on price I make the wrong one is my perception. I guess I just wanted to share my happiness :) at this slowdown of price changes. Feel free to bust my good mood with comments below
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