Fantasy Lessons

This is my First Fantasy Premier League related post before we move ahead you should know I don't posses a Good track record, its more of like Average as you can see :

Its often the case bad students are best teachers which I don't think i am, though I'm improving a lot and if it wasn't for Smalling Own Goal in last seconds of last season I would have finished around 80k.

Moving ahead to the real question, What should we do to succeed as early as Possible ?

For This You May Take Dimitri Nicolaou as an Example who won the league in his First Season.
You can Read his Interview Here : FPL Champion 15/16 Secret to Success 

As I'm not a deep stats kind of person these words are only experience ,Opinions and new season strategy only

Now Moving Towards the real deal what I think should be done ?

I would at first say RULES of the Game. That's the most important part of any game of course which we often miss like I did even in my 3rd Active season I did not knew you can only save free transfer for 2 consecutive game weeks and eventually losing a free transfer.

The real work begins After creating that initial auto-select team ,which we know everyone does.

Balanced Squad 

It is very very Important that our Game Week 1 team is a balanced one.What most People, like me before,do is select one or two explosive players  and make their team around them eventually sacrificing their budget from either defense or GK.

Now, what are the advantages of selecting a balanced squad for Gw 1 ?

I think the biggest advantage a balanced squad has is its Flexibility in transfers.As it gives more chances of changes later without Wildcard. Also As we move further into the season it starts becoming very clear which small/avg. team is likely to keep clean sheets more often and which bargain buys are best.

Now why we need bargain Buys later in the season ?

Just Consider Sanchez, De Bruyne,Hazard and Mikhitaryan in top form at the same time.You would never wanna miss out on that well served food.

Having two 5.5 m defenders also mean you can scrap 2 m out of em when needed without cashing out on your Wild Card and transfer these defenders with those bargain buys eventually buying one more elite Mid.

The same can be done later on with good GKs Rotation.

Not going further into the Train Engine I hope you understand what I want to say.


First Job

For official Game Week 1 Draft, Analyze fixtures. That's the most Important part at very beginning

Later Create a team which would help you save your Free Transfers for the 1st 2 Game Weeks unless any serious injury to any of your Players .

Formation

Now comes the Question of  which formation to Choose, more often than normal it depends on your Own plans,Team and Transfers policy but for Beginners as well as for Somewhat experienced fpl Managers I would suggest a Formation based on Stats. Fantasy Football Fix  Stats Show 3-4-3 and   3-5-2 as the most used and most successful formation to the date

I personally would suggest a Team made on 3-4-3 with a budget 5th mid who rotates well with your 3rd budget Striker 

Goalkeeper

Last Season I had one Prime and one Budget GK at start it served me well as I managed to get about 20 CS from just my GKs. This Season I'm Going with the same approach and I will Recommend it as well.

There are different approaches as well like 2 Budget Gks it does save 1 m for somewhere else but a headache and you often end up with wrong one starting.

 Defenders 

Choosing Strikers and Mid-Fielders is somewhat easy as compared to Defenders as you have too carefully Analyze the fixtures for best Defensive Rotation.

Choose 2 Elite Defenders who score goals as well as bag Bonus points more often than others. Plus have good fixtures for Max chance of  Clean Sheets.You have to be careful in choosing Elite Defenders as they are expensive and you want the best value for Money. Keeping the over pricing
issue this season in mind I would advise 5.5 m max cost of these elite defenders


Rest of your 3 Defenders should be Budget based not more than 4.5 m in value and who Rotate well with each other for Max CS chance and not to forget you have the options of Budget Defenders who Score as well as provide assists like last season it was Patrick Van Anholt (Sunderland). He scored a free Kick Magnificently in GW 37 

Last Season I had Kolarov and Shaw as elite defenders in my team from the start. And people know how well they served last Season at the beginning.Rest were all 4.5 m Including Gabriel and later on spotted potential returns from bargain buy Targett @ 4.0 m he remained in my team for some time.

In Short Going with the same approach.

So Choose wisely and imo Prefer the ones who have better Attacking returns.How to Choose ? You can read Peter Blake Analysis backed by Maths : Three Rotating Budget Defenders

Note : Scroll directly down to conclusion if you are like me.

Midfielders  

Choosing Mids sounds easy and as compared to defenders I think it is but it may differ for you. But getting the best value for money from your mids is not that easy.

Choose only 2 elite Expensive mids  ranging from  9.0 - 11.0 m . Players like Hazard,De Bruyne,Sanchez,Ozil,Mahrez etc

When You look at the Choices it's very difficult to settle with only 2 but you have to if you want a Balanced Team at start.I have tried to have 3 but then the squad does not looks balanced as Strikers budget was being Cut.

And 1 Mid should be Mid-range, ranging from 7 - 8.5  depending on your Budget and Choices like Fabregas,Ramsey,Xhaka,Depay,Tadic etc

Now Moving towards the 2 budget mids  who should not be more than 6.5 m. like Redmond,lanzini,Feghouli etc

Normally they belong to small or Avg. teams but not always as we saw last season Dele Alli a budget mid from spurs who was fantastic and Mahrez with Leicester who went on to be an Elite mid with lower price tag

In Short you can Spot a differential budget mid early and make no mistake there always is.

Strikers 

Choosing Strikers becomes Headache when you have a lot of choices like Zlatan,Aguero,Costa,Sturridge etc who at some point do well together and you want all of them in your team.

Imo Choose 2 elite and 1 mid-range/budget ST like Wilson,Ighalo,Deeney,Austin etc depending on your remaining budget out of 100 m

Try to get the best value for money as there will be a time when players like Rashford will score more than Aguero but you never know when Aguero will Score 5.

Injuries

Keep a Close eye on Injuries and potential replacement of Injured Players.

Last season when Vertonghen  was injured his replacement was Wimmer costing only 4.5 m and he gave some important spurs CS points on the cheap  as I didn't had Alderweild.

So watch out for  the points, where you can get them easily and cheaply.

For Injuries info and players potential return you Can Consult : Ben Dinnery or Visit His
Website : Premier Injuries

Chips

At first I didn't liked them but then towards the end I managed to do this:

Bench Boost (114pts)

In other words Hold on to Your chips  till GW 33 you will understand it later by Yourself

Transfers,Hits and Captain

Doing a lot of Transfers is fun but it comes at cost of -4 per extra Transfer.

You can use it in your favor if you do good transfers and get a better Net Result.

I would Advise never to take hits on Defenders as they only give 4 points per CS and your net will only come out as playing points (2) unless that defender scores/assist and don't forget he can get carded too. 

Last season my results were a wreck on a wreck because of my Number of transfers (70) and also captain choices ,less than 19 times correct.

In Short patience and captain is the Key

General Tips

In formation Section I said about rotation of 5th budget mid and 3rd budget striker, you can also have a 4.5 m mid who plays 10/10 and can get 3rd elite striker with the remaining budget.I remember Boyd of  Burnley serving well in this regard in 2014/15 season.

Be Patient With Defenders, You cannot expect a CS every GW as there wont be.

Keep an eye on Players Away vs Home form. Last season De Bruyne Home form was mouthwatering but his away form was like Arsenal status,Good but no expectations.

Don't lean towards a player reputation. Hazard proved this fact last season and Rooney is doing that for some time now.

This Goes for Managers like Pep as well, if he kept many CS in Bundesliga it does not mean he will achieve the same in Epl but one thing is Certain you can expect a lot of goals.

Don't take injury prone players like Silva and Carroll in your team unless sure.

Don't Panic if your team starts badly.With time you can get very good results and specially during last 10 gws which give some DGW as well

Be Patient as its not an Olympic Sprint but Qualification

And the Last thing you should know Form > Fixtures. Leicester went on to Prove it by winning the league but I think it is 6:4 respectively.

PS what happened last season may not happen this season. Good Luck.

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