Here’s Rob Reid with his final instalment in his “Legends of Fantasy Football” series which Rob has been doing over the summer to celebrate 25 years of playing fantasy football
Rob Reid with his final “Legends of Fantasy Football” instalment
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You can see Rob’s earlier articles with these links
Hi everyone and welcome to the final article in my ‘Legends of Fantasy Football’ series.
If you’ve not followed any of the previous articles, here’s a recap. The end of the 2018-19 season was the end of my 25th season playing fantasy football in one shape or form. To celebrate this, I decided to choose a squad of my favourite players from the past 25 seasons based on the current of FPL template of 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 strikers. You can see who my selections were in the goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards articles and at the end of each article, there was a Reader’s Poll where the Fantasy Football Geek readers got to choose their favourites. Here’s how the 2 squads finished up.
My squad:
Goalkeepers: Petr Cech, Edwin Van Der Sar
Defenders: Leighton Baines, Ashley Cole, Lee Dixon, Ian Harte, John Terry
Midfielders: Eden Hazard, Frank Lampard, Matt Le Tissier, Christiano Ronaldo, Mo Salah
Forwards: Sergio Aguero, Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer
The Readers Poll squad:
Goalkeepers: Petr Cech, Peter Schmeichel
Defenders: Leighton Baines, John Terry, Andrew Robertson, Ian Harte, Nemanja Vidic
Midfielders: Frank Lampard, Mo Salah, Matt Le Tissier, Cristiano Ronaldo, Eden Hazard
Forwards: Sergio Aguero, Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer
A few thoughts
First of all, there weren’t many differences between my squad and the readers squad. None amongst the attacking 8, 1 difference in the goalkeepers and 2 in the defence. It would interesting to run a bigger poll on these where people could vote for more than 1 selection, but I guess the take home message is that in general the stats don’t lie!
Second, as already mentioned the were no differences in the attacking 8 between the 2 squads. I wasn’t too surprised that both midfields matched, but I did wonder when I posted my article if there might be a difference in the forwards. I know Geek voted differently from my 3 and I thought that Harry Kane might have scored a few more votes. The love for Aguero in this section was also very clear – he’s obviously a really popular selection amongst the current crop of fantasy managers.
In terms of favourite players of all time, there have definitely been 3 for me. Frank Lampard was a constant amongst my Fantasy Football teams of the the noughties in particular, solid and dependable for returns. Then there was Thierry Henry – has the Premier League ever known a classier player? But my favourite of all time has to be Matt Le Tissier. I mentioned it in the article, but he really was the player that made Fantasy Football so special for me from the off. He was great to watch as a fan, but a dream to own as a Fantasy Football manager and for me the first real star of Fantasy Football.
Final thoughts
It’s certainly been a lot of fun doing this series and has brought back some great memories of the fun I’ve had playing various formats of Fantasy Football through the years. I guess the purist in me still sometimes pines for the simplicity of the early draft and newspaper games with minimal transfers and rigidly fixed prices. But with technology the game had to evolve and it’s of no doubt that the accessibility offered by the internet to firstly the game interface and then to the wealth of statistics and opinion available has changed the game and heightened the interest level for many.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down memory lane as much as I have. But now, with the prices for 2019-20 released it’s time to refocus on the present. All the best for the coming season folks!
Get additional content in the form of Podcasts, an interactive transfer and points prediction tool, 4 £50 prize leagues for the first 160 joiners and a Slack channel for discussion with members and contributors in our Patreon site. The first $3 monthly payment gets you in the prize leagues and Slack channel for the season.
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By Pavel Soro London – Imported from 500px (archived version) by the Archive Team. (detail page), CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71361780
