Here’s Joseph Crilley with his fantasy premier league GW1 team in it’s current form with some commentary on the reasoning behind it. Joe finished 7k overall in 17/18 and 13k the season before.
fantasy premier league GW1 team – Joseph Crilley shows his latest draft team.
D-day is fast approaching for us fantasy managers with the GW1 deadline arriving this Friday as the season kicks off at Old Trafford. Usually the lack of football can cause the summer to drag on, but the World Cup has helped it to fly by this year. Nonetheless, I am ready for the new FPL season and have started to turn my thoughts to how I want to lineup for GW1.
Structure
Rather than choosing 15 individual players, I have elected to pick the few players that I see as crucial for my team (looking at you Mr. Salah) and then work out what the type of players that I would like elsewhere. Over the last week or so, I have managed to settle on a structure that I am happy with and it looks something like this in a rough 4-4-2/3-5-2:
4.5, 4.0
Robertson, Mendy, Wan-Bissaka, 5.5/6.0, other
Salah, City mid, 9.5, 6.5-7.5, 4.5/5.0
Arnautovic, Aubameyang/Aguero, 4.5
Key Players
There is absolutely no chance that Salah won’t be in my team despite his high cost. The combination of 303 points last year and an ownership of over 50% makes not including him in your team an unnecessary risk in my opinion. He will be joined in midfield by someone from City which is currently Bernardo Silva following his impressive Community Shield display and Pep’s positive words about him. He has the additional bonus of a lower price tag compared to his teammates which would ease any rotation pains.
In attack, the pre-season form of Arnautovic has persuaded me to use him as my second striker, though I do hope that Pellegrini continues to use him as a no.9 rather than on the wing. He will be partnered in attack by a premium option which will be either Aubameyang or Aguero. Currently I favour the City man given the lovely fixtures between GW2-7 and Pep’s words about preferring to play with two up front which should reduce Kun’s rotation risk.
At the back, Robertson has been in every draft that I have created following his strong run at the end of last season. He is alongside my third City player in Mendy who I have very high hopes for, especially if his side look to utilise him at wing back as part of a 3-5-2 formation. The Community Shield game seemed to confirm his return and I thought he looked sharp and fully fit which was good to see. Wan-Bissaka has also nailed a place in my team as that illustrious £4.0mil defender after appearing to have secured his position in the Palace defence and therefore should provide great value.
Other Players
Goalkeepers
My usual tactic with keepers involves rotating, but I have decided against that this time around mainly because I am fed up with benching a keeper for a tough game who then goes on to rack up multiple save points. I have gone for Patricio as I think that he is a quality keeper in a promoted side which should mean plenty of save points with hopefully a smattering of clean sheets.
Defenders
I spoke in my last team article about the value that I believe to be in defence and therefore I will be adding a third premium defender to my side. It appears that Luiz is back in favour at Chelsea and 5.5mil is a nice entrance to that defence as well as the bonus that the Brazilian likes the odd pot shot.
My final defender is very much the 15th pick in my squad and will be ultimately determined by the expenditure on the other players. Due to the selection of Bernardo as my City midfielder, I currently have some decent funds to play with; if I were to elect for Mahrez instead for example, I would require anther 4.0mil defender – likely to be Peltier. However, the extra cash means that I can bring in Coleman for his side’s strong opening schedule though I could choose to cover the United defence instead with Bailly.
Midfielders
The choice of premium mid is effectively between Mané and Eriksen where I’ve currently elected for the Liverpool man primarily due to a combination of strong opening fixtures and an electric pre-season for the Reds. There is a slim chance that he is on penalties after taking a couple during their tour of America and I like doubling up on his side’s strong attack.
The choice of mid-price midfielder is tricky for GW1 as there seems to be multiple options available and nailing the correct choice could be crucial. I’m favouring Moura which may be due to my own biased tendencies as a Spurs fan! However, I am optimistic about his prospects this season following his move in January as he should now have fully settled in at the club. Other options for this position include Ramsey, Richarlison and Pedro among multiple others.
There is some rotation risk in my side, mostly due to the 3 city players which means I would like some strength on the bench. That’s led to my preference of spending 5.0mil on my 5th midfielder as opposed to the usual 4.5mil. Helder Costa has been coming in rather under the radar at Wolves, but I believe that 5.0mil is a lovely price for a man who was comfortably his side’s best player only 2 seasons ago.
Forwards
My 3rd striker will be bench fodder costing 4.5mil and Kamara at Fulham seems the most likely to register some minutes so he’s in.
Here’s how it looks at the moment:
Summary
I like the structure that I have in place as I feel that it gives me the opportunity to quickly jump on any player who starts the season particularly well. I do worry that there is too much cash in defence, but I still believe there is good value there and it will provide a good opportunity to raise funds if required by replacing a premium asset with a cheapie. I will finalising my decisions this week on the remaining players ahead of the Friday deadline and I’m sure that there will be multiple drafts over the next few days!
Hope all your final planning is going well!
You can also see other new contributors teams
17th overall finisher Prakhar Patels team
top 1k finisher Andrew Ferguson’s team and thoughts
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