You may remember that last season one of the fantasy premier league strategies we used was a bookies team based on anytime goal scoring odds. That team finished with an overall rank of 6k out of 4.5 million teams. Those particular odds aren’t available just yet but I thought people maybe interested in a team constructed from the bookies odds available to date. That will at least give you some food for thought for your FPL team selection
fantasy premier league strategies – an early look at the bookies team
Just to make it clear this will not be my actual team. The bookies team is just a team invented for a particular strategy.
Structure
So to construct this team I’m looking at the clean sheet odds and the top goalscorer for the season odds from William Hill, you can view the football betting odds online here.
I’ve then looked at constructing a team within a certain structure as follows:
GKs 2 cheap
Defs 2 premium plus 3 cheap
Mids 1 premium plus 2 mid range, 1 cheap plus a £4.5m benchwarmer
Forwards: 2 premium plus 1 cheap
All the attackers will come from a different team
The bookies team uses the best anytime goal scoring odds in that gameweek for the captain choice. It also transfers players by finding the best improvement in odds for the overall team transferring every 2 weeks. When the anytime goal scorer odds are out I’ll produce a final team
I’m going to talk through the odds for top goal scorer in some sort of order they appear. Many have the same odds so I’ll refer to them in groups.
Forwards
The forwards will invariably have the best goal scoring odds each week so to start I’ve picked the 2 top goal scorer favourites. Unsurprisingly these are Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku. For the cheap forward Rashford is the highest ranked. As he’s also from Man United and unsure of a starting place I’ve avoided him. Then there’s a big group of Defoe, Austin, Gabbiadini , Sandro Ramirez and Benteke. Austin is the cheapest so I’ve gone for him at the moment. He is a gametime monitor though
Midfield
Alexis Sanchez is obviously the hot favourite for midfielders from a goalscoring persepctive but he just unbalances the side to much so I’ve ignored him. Dele Alli is next but with Kane already in he won’t go into the side. Then there’s Hazard who’s injured and Mane who’s still an injury risk. Martial is next but due to Lukaku he won’t go into the team. Next is Salah who makes the team . Philip Coutinho is next but with Salah in the team isn’t picked. Sane, who’s in the same group, is though.
De Bruyne and Sterling are in the next group but overlooked as Man City are represented through Sane. Sterling’s gametime looks a big risk anyway. Mkhitarayn and Pedro are in the next group. Mkhitaryan is overlooked due to Lukaku but Pedro gets the nod. His recent injury makes him a gametime monitor though. Nathan Redmond who the bookies also love is in that same group but overlooked due to Austin
Lastly on to the cheap midfielder. The 2 top ranked are Andre Ayew and Kachunga of Huddersfield. I’ve dismissed Ayew as with 7 attacking midfielders for 3 places he’s a gametime risk. I’ve put in Kachunga of Huddersfield. That is a surprise as I would have thought Tom Ince, who’s not featured, would be the better odds
Defence and GK
To select this it’s as I did for the bookies team last season. I just used the clean sheet odds in the next game. The bookies don’t do odds on the most clean sheets for the season surprisingly
The 2 premium teams with the best clean sheet odds for GW1 are Chelsea v Burnley and Man Utd v West Ham. Therefore I’ve chosen the cheapest who I think will play in Luiz and Lindelof
Then to make up the numbers I picked the 3 teams that had £4.5m mids and selected 3 with the best clean sheet odds. I had to balance that against finding 2 £4.5m GKs. I ignored rotation for this team.
The 3 best defensive options resulted in Schindler of Huddersfield (C Palace A) Yedlin of Newcastle (Spurs H) and Fernandez of Swansea (Southampton A). The best £4.5m GK odds were for Crystal Palace’s Hennessey (Huddersfield H) and WBA’s Foster (Bournemouth H)
Captains
Personally I’d like to have 3 captain options each week so when I do the actual team I will probably go 4-3-3 with 3 premium players upfront. 3-4-3 made 3 premium options difficult but it was useful for this article to show who the bookies liked in cheap forwards.
Caveats
The bookies team that finished with a 6k overall rank last season seemed to defy all logic. It was selected for GW1 by selecting the best anytime goal scorers odds for GW1 alone and the best clean sheet odds for that week alone. That was subject to a pre-determined team structure. No account was taken of future fixtures or the players assist ability. Transfers were done every 2 weeks on this basis and no hits were taken all season.
This season the prices may mean I will start the bookies with a hopefully flexible 4-3-3 when the anytime goal scorer odds come out
The team
Here it is:
Buy our 57 page Ebook “a guide to fantasy premier league 17/18” with loads of graphics and detailed stats on 150+ players from last season. Only £3.00
the FFGeek league code is 5379-1967
Try the new way of playing fantasy premier league football by clicking DraftFantasyFootball.co.uk here or on the banner below. It’s free to play.
Follow us on twitter and facebook for article updates and news
