Yet another entertaining Premier League season is winding down, as we approach the summer and the promise of the World Cup Finals. As fantastic as this season has been in general, it’s left an air of regret for myself as an #FPL manager. I only started playing fantasy football for the first time last season, and I finished very successfully, at around the 12-13k mark. This season, on the other hand, has been an absolute disaster. With just one gameweek remaining, I’m sat around the 300k mark, a good 100 points off respectability. I didn’t have to think too long to find a number of reasons as to why I’ve been left in such a poor position, and I thought I’d share those now in order to help the newer FPL managers like myself avoid the same errors. Here are my personal DON’T DO’S when it comes to the Fantasy Premier League.
1) DON’T have a bad start. Obviously, we can’t predict which players will deliver points, especially so early on in the season. However, we all have an idea of who has the easy fixtures, who has performed in past seasons, and who plays for the big teams. We also know long before the season starts which players other FPL managers are going to select – the popular choices, so to speak. Combining this information usually gives us a core group of players that allow for a poor first gameweek to go relatively unnoticed, as most other managers will have similar players and won’t make huge gains in our expense. One or two differentials can be good, but playing it safe is certainly a wise decision for gameweek 1, in my opinion. My gameweek 1 wasn’t a disaster by any means, it was just a bit average with my exclusion of Benteke. It was my pick of Coleman that led to my downfall – having such a great first week pick led me to believe most of my decisions were going to come good, just like they did in the previous season starting with my gameweek 1 capture of Michu. I didn’t play it safe and I bit the dust. Start safe, build something to defend, and then work your way up.
2) DON’T get disheartened and lose motivation. Certainly in my case, I completely lost my motivation for FPL around halfway through the season. I still had the obsession, but it was getting hard to look at my team unless it was for 5 minutes on a Friday to make transfers that weren’t exactly well thought out. It was all down to basic frustration over the fact that none of my gambles, no matter how promising they looked, were paying off. Plenty of heavy Friday nights also meant that a fair few deadlines as well as 12.45 kick off’s occurred with my face buried in a pillow, no transfers made and more red arrows. When I finally pulled my head out of the pillow and got to work at getting myself back to relative respectability, my team value was so poor that it was a struggle to get the players I wanted, which didn’t aid my task at all. Clearly, the key is to be logical, make sure you get your transfers done, and keep your squad healthy. This way, the points will roll in and you won’t have a car crash like me.
3) DON’T be too stubborn. My stubbornness cost me not tens, but definitely hundreds, of points this season. There are three main cases that have completely damaged my season. The first was in gameweek 10, when Manchester City beat relegation inevitabilities Norwich 7-0. I made the crucial error of not having Sergio Aguero in my team, at a time where he was hitting form and most teams had not only purchased him, but captained him too. He picked up a goal and 3 assists and I was left to curse my bad decision-making. However, I didn’t learn my lesson, and decided to not bring in Luis Suarez against Norwich in gameweek 14. As explained, my team value was so poor at the time that it would have required me to sell 2 players just to fund the move. I was naïve enough to believe that Suarez wouldn’t run riot, which he unfortunately did (4 goals and 1 assist); these were easy decisions that I neglected to make. The worst of the bunch, however, was the absence of Yaya Toure from my team for the entire season bar DGW37 and 38. His record was so phenomenal that it looked too good to be true. Plenty of his goals were coming from free-kicks and penalties, and I was sure they’d eventually slow down. My differential in his place, David Silva, picked up a decent enough total of points for me to not feel Yaya’s absence later on in the season, but it was all a bit too late by then. Sometimes you’ve got to swallow your pride and jump on the bandwagon.
4) DON’T take too many hits. This point is mainly aimed at double gameweeks. There’s nothing like having a team full of players who play twice in just a week, and so it’s the norm that most managers take at least a -4, if not a -8. Even after planning weeks in advance, it’s hard not to make that last risky -4 before Saturday’s games commence. With my demotivation, lack of planning and chasing of serious green arrows, I began to make the -12 point hit gambles that can go brilliantly or horribly wrong. Most appeared well calculated, but the vast majority of fantasy managers will testify that double gameweeks simply haven’t delivered the points they looked sure to this season. I made early moves for Rooney, Mata, Yaya and Wickham for DGW37, selling Suarez, Lambert, Nasri and Gerrard in the process. Only a late flourish from Captain Yaya spared my blushes, with Suarez and Lambert scoring 1 each, and Nasri and Gerrard assisting 2 each. Sometimes it’s best to keep those with a single game and remember why you had them in the first place.
5) DON’T forget that it’s just a game. This is my final point, and though it is meant to be light-hearted, it’s a serious point! FPL can really consume you, to the point where you’re yelling at your screen because your rival’s goalkeeper has picked up a penalty save after a torrid match or because your captain’s sliced his points tally by picking up a stupid yellow card at the 90 minute mark. The entertainment of the sport we love is the reason we all play this game, and so it’s important to remember that we shouldn’t enjoy a 4-4 any less because we’ve doubled up on one of those team’s defenders or pray to spend 90 minutes watching a 0-0 for that very same reason. I point this out because it really did start to irritate me a little too much when things weren’t going my way. Everything’s much better when you’re enjoying it in the process.
I hope you enjoyed this article, had a great fantasy football season and enjoy the last gameweek of the season. Here’s to a great group of followers.
@FPLWorkshop
1) DON’T have a bad start. Obviously, we can’t predict which players will deliver points, especially so early on in the season. However, we all have an idea of who has the easy fixtures, who has performed in past seasons, and who plays for the big teams. We also know long before the season starts which players other FPL managers are going to select – the popular choices, so to speak. Combining this information usually gives us a core group of players that allow for a poor first gameweek to go relatively unnoticed, as most other managers will have similar players and won’t make huge gains in our expense. One or two differentials can be good, but playing it safe is certainly a wise decision for gameweek 1, in my opinion. My gameweek 1 wasn’t a disaster by any means, it was just a bit average with my exclusion of Benteke. It was my pick of Coleman that led to my downfall – having such a great first week pick led me to believe most of my decisions were going to come good, just like they did in the previous season starting with my gameweek 1 capture of Michu. I didn’t play it safe and I bit the dust. Start safe, build something to defend, and then work your way up.
2) DON’T get disheartened and lose motivation. Certainly in my case, I completely lost my motivation for FPL around halfway through the season. I still had the obsession, but it was getting hard to look at my team unless it was for 5 minutes on a Friday to make transfers that weren’t exactly well thought out. It was all down to basic frustration over the fact that none of my gambles, no matter how promising they looked, were paying off. Plenty of heavy Friday nights also meant that a fair few deadlines as well as 12.45 kick off’s occurred with my face buried in a pillow, no transfers made and more red arrows. When I finally pulled my head out of the pillow and got to work at getting myself back to relative respectability, my team value was so poor that it was a struggle to get the players I wanted, which didn’t aid my task at all. Clearly, the key is to be logical, make sure you get your transfers done, and keep your squad healthy. This way, the points will roll in and you won’t have a car crash like me.
3) DON’T be too stubborn. My stubbornness cost me not tens, but definitely hundreds, of points this season. There are three main cases that have completely damaged my season. The first was in gameweek 10, when Manchester City beat relegation inevitabilities Norwich 7-0. I made the crucial error of not having Sergio Aguero in my team, at a time where he was hitting form and most teams had not only purchased him, but captained him too. He picked up a goal and 3 assists and I was left to curse my bad decision-making. However, I didn’t learn my lesson, and decided to not bring in Luis Suarez against Norwich in gameweek 14. As explained, my team value was so poor at the time that it would have required me to sell 2 players just to fund the move. I was naïve enough to believe that Suarez wouldn’t run riot, which he unfortunately did (4 goals and 1 assist); these were easy decisions that I neglected to make. The worst of the bunch, however, was the absence of Yaya Toure from my team for the entire season bar DGW37 and 38. His record was so phenomenal that it looked too good to be true. Plenty of his goals were coming from free-kicks and penalties, and I was sure they’d eventually slow down. My differential in his place, David Silva, picked up a decent enough total of points for me to not feel Yaya’s absence later on in the season, but it was all a bit too late by then. Sometimes you’ve got to swallow your pride and jump on the bandwagon.
4) DON’T take too many hits. This point is mainly aimed at double gameweeks. There’s nothing like having a team full of players who play twice in just a week, and so it’s the norm that most managers take at least a -4, if not a -8. Even after planning weeks in advance, it’s hard not to make that last risky -4 before Saturday’s games commence. With my demotivation, lack of planning and chasing of serious green arrows, I began to make the -12 point hit gambles that can go brilliantly or horribly wrong. Most appeared well calculated, but the vast majority of fantasy managers will testify that double gameweeks simply haven’t delivered the points they looked sure to this season. I made early moves for Rooney, Mata, Yaya and Wickham for DGW37, selling Suarez, Lambert, Nasri and Gerrard in the process. Only a late flourish from Captain Yaya spared my blushes, with Suarez and Lambert scoring 1 each, and Nasri and Gerrard assisting 2 each. Sometimes it’s best to keep those with a single game and remember why you had them in the first place.
5) DON’T forget that it’s just a game. This is my final point, and though it is meant to be light-hearted, it’s a serious point! FPL can really consume you, to the point where you’re yelling at your screen because your rival’s goalkeeper has picked up a penalty save after a torrid match or because your captain’s sliced his points tally by picking up a stupid yellow card at the 90 minute mark. The entertainment of the sport we love is the reason we all play this game, and so it’s important to remember that we shouldn’t enjoy a 4-4 any less because we’ve doubled up on one of those team’s defenders or pray to spend 90 minutes watching a 0-0 for that very same reason. I point this out because it really did start to irritate me a little too much when things weren’t going my way. Everything’s much better when you’re enjoying it in the process.
I hope you enjoyed this article, had a great fantasy football season and enjoy the last gameweek of the season. Here’s to a great group of followers.
@FPLWorkshop