I thought given the international break that it would be worth putting down a few thoughts on the fantasy premier league season to date to start off a discussion from others on the same theme.
fantasy premier league – some reflections on the season to date
Here’s a few thoughts of mine to start the discussion about the season to date
So many options
With the money coming into the premier league there are so many teams that have title and top 4 aspirations and player choice has exploded making selection difficult and points scoring each week very variable. I think FPL managers need to be prepared for a roller coaster and not get put off with a bad week as there will be positive and negative variations along the way as a result.
Just as an example if you look at Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs you’ve got a multitude of players to choose from there
Liverpool – Firmino, Coutinho, Mane, Lallana when fit
Arsenal – Sanchez, Walcott, Ozil
Spurs – Eriksen, Alli, Lamela, Son and Kane when fit.
You can see from there that the midfield is the particular minefield. In the forward positions it’s not so bad. Aguero will be in most teams and then it will often be a choice of Lukaku or Costa and then a cheap striker in the nature of Deeney, Rashford, Defoe or Benteke.
In midfield as you can see from just those teams that there are a number of options. The use of 4-2-3-1 often gives 3 attacking midfield options to choose from. Stoke at the moment with good fixtures coming even have 3 options in Shaqiri, Allen and Arnautovic.
So I think at the moment midfield will be a crucial area.
The top 10 managers article is an interesting window of these difficulties. This week the scores ranged from 27 to 59 and the overall ranks between 21k and 1.3m. That’s a massive range of scores and ranks even for so early in the season. The irony though is that there is quite alot of uniformity on choices. 8 or 9 managers have Sanchez, Antonio, Sterling, Capoue, Lukaku and Aguero but those 2 free spots are often making a huge difference in scores. You can see from my top 10 FPL managers article this week that a score difference of 26 points between 2 managers had 17 points accounted for in the differences between Firmino instead of Antonio and Costa instead of Beneteke
Very few clean sheets
It comes to something when a very cheap £5.0m Man City defender in John Stones is being sold en masse due to lack of clean sheets. The 2 Manchester clubs came out as clean sheet favourites but only have 3 between them. Up until last weekend Arsenal and Spurs only had 2 each and we were averaging only 4 per gameweek. When FPL teams start becoming very similar in attack good selection and rotation of defenders is a strong way of getting points. However so far this is looking less fruitful and more difficult to predict.
Price drops
While price rises don’t seem too much of an issue there does seem to be alot of price drops. I’ve never liked transferring early in the week although I do recognise the value of team value as it were and would recognise that it’s a goal worth pursuing. I just find it hard to do. However this season price drops have really hit me and holding players until there is a difficult fixture as a natural exit point has been a costly strategy with little reward. Last season value wasn’t so much of an issue with the likes of Vardy and Mahrez. This year the uncertainty may see a flight to proven quality which could come at a price.
Captain spread
The Aguero suspension and the game against Spurs gave us a view of what it would be like with multiple captain choices. Getting the wrong captain in a 50/50 choice is a certain way of losing a lot of ground. Aguero back in the picture should neutralise that to some extent but it’s a still a variable which is hard to get right consistently and a big punishment when you get it wrong.
So what’s the answer?
Football is a game of few events leading to FPL points and obviously if I could predict those I would be living in the South of France from my betting winnings rather than doing this. I think concentration on the basics of form and fixtures plus consistency will remain the focus. Last year the chips of Bench boost and the second wildcard used in double gameweeks around March were the saviour of many. Keeping those will be crucial.
Trying to manage risk and avoid price drops through covering the players owned by the active managers will still be crucial. Capoue Sanchez Aguero and Lukaku are owned by over 50% of the top 10k overall ranked managers. Those players especially with captain choices will hurt you if you don’t own them when they score. You will see that at least 8 of the top 10 FPL managers I follow own those 4 players.
You will see I’ve introduced the bookies anytime goal scoring odds into the frame more and they are more relevant as the bookies team based on those odds are flying at the moment with an overall rank of 38k. I make no bones about using outside help as much as possible. Bookies don’t make hundreds of millions of pounds from luck. They make it through analysis of possible results. They will be an additional layer of assistance going forward.
I hope that gives you some thoughts to start a debate and get your though process starting. Please leave any comments or even if you want to submit an article with your experience so far there are contact us details at the bottom of the site
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