Fantasy Premier League: Xmas Assessment

I've reached a point where I'm starting to reassess my season. Last season was my first playing FPL and despite not having a clue what the rules were for the first few months I actually achieved a pretty decent finish (109,229). In fact, I remember using my freehit chip purely out of boredom in the first few months, completely unaware what double-gameweeks were, let alone thinking of saving chips for them. Likewise I had no idea there was a whole community online on YouTube, Twitter and elsewhere discussing FPL. So I was purely playing in my own little world, only really concerned with the other players in my works league.

(What would Pep do?)

Anyway, after being bitten by the FPL bug last season I started this one with a serious head on. In anticipation of the season I also started half-heartedly watching some of the FPL YouTubers, gradually getting sucked more and more into the world of FPL experts and pundits.

Having had such a decent season last year I started this one very confidently. If I could finish 109K last season as a newbie, how high could I finish this season? I said my aim was to beat last season's rank, but secretly deep down I felt I could aim higher. Top 10K, top 1K, top 100! Maybe I could even win it! Top 100K should be easy. It was the minimum I was aiming for.

However, 16 weeks into the season I'm starting to realise that I'm perhaps not as smart as I thought I was, and that perhaps I was very lucky with last year's finish. Having Salah captain week-in, week-out probably helped too.

This week in particular has highlighted some of my naivety, and that maybe my crude methods aren't quite as good as the methods used by the top FPL managers. Doherty, Digne and Richarlison all scored this past weekend. These are all players that feature in the current template team*, and they're all players that I've overlooked. They're part of a long list of value template players I've chose not to select at all this season.

It's a long list;

• Doherty - in fact, I haven't had a single Wolves defender all season. Not even the cut-price Bennett.
• I ignored Leicester's Maddison who's continued to score.
• I ignored Richarlison. Who has been superb value.
• Digne likewise.
• Wan-Bissaka - though to be fair I had Tomkins from GW1 so it would've been a little pointless wasting a transfer to make that change.
• I haven't owned a single Bournemouth player! No Wilson, no Fraser, no Brooks.
• I've also completely ignored Mitrovic and Arnautovic.

Basically, if a player is in the template team and isn't playing for a top six side I won't have owned him ..and I think this brings me to how my style of play tends to differ from that of the expert community. I tend to have a view that reflects this crude idea;

The top 6 teams tend to beat the bottom 14 teams in the Premier League. Therefore it's better to own a decent player in a top six team than a good player in a lower team, as statistically they're more likely to be on the winning or scoring side.

However, the more successful FPL managers tend to have a more sophisticated view, where they're able to isolate the players in the lower teams that are especially good and that are highly likely to score points. Players like Doherty and Digne. Leading them to be able to have some cracking "value" players, and also freeing up more money so they can then get the very best of the expensive players.

I tend to have more of a spread of top five/top six players. Even now I'm looking at replacing Shaw with Alderweireld this week, whereas every other serious player in my situation would stick in a Digne or a Doherty - my thinking being;

Even though Alderweireld isn't a likely goalscorer, surely playing for Spurs he'll get more clean sheet points than an Everton or a Wolves defender. So therefore he's a better asset, even taking into account his higher price.

So far this attitude of mine hasn't been working though. I'm doing okay, but I'm not doing as good as some of the more experienced and more canny pro-managers. I've been really missing out by not having some of these great value players like Doherty ..and the managers with these template players have been much more shrewd and successful so far than me.

I tend to focus on the eye-test method - i.e. I watch games and I pick the players that I think look good. I don't really pay too much attention to statistics. However, I'm starting to realise that one flaw with this method is that you tend to miss players that play for the lesser teams.

If a player plays for, say, Liverpool, you'll watch a lot of their games and quickly get familiar with who that player is and how they play. However, with the lower down teams you generally see them play less frequently, and when you do you tend not to spend the entire game focusing on how well an obscure full back or centre half is playing. So it takes much longer to gain a familiarity. With this in mind it seems the stats are much better at drawing your attention to these players than their performances on the pitch - most of which you're either not watching, or not paying attention to when you are.

So what do I do going forward? Do I keep doing what I'm doing and hope that it pays off - after all it is only GW17 we're up to. Or do I start paying more attention to what other people are saying, adapt my playing style and start following the template more?

It's an interesting question. I think for the time being I'll probably continue with my own plan, see what happens, and then try to take a different tack next season when I can have a fresh look. Then again, perhaps I'm already adapting in someway now - purely by osmosis. Simply soaking up all the various opinions and information put out there by other people, without even realising the effect it's having on the way I'm playing the game. It's really quite hard to tell.

Also of course, the "fun" aspect needs to be considered. Would I enjoy playing if I was just following advice rather than arrogantly thinking I know better than everyone else :) Maybe the fun comes with doing things slightly differently and seeing if they work.

Perhaps the low-owned players I have (or will have) like Alderweireld and Gündogan may be the assets that give me an edge on people over the coming weeks. I can at least hope 🙏


Merry Christmas ... and good luck in the coming gameweek  🎅🎅🎅

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*The template team is the generic standard team that most FPL managers, or at least most of the serious FPL managers, tend to conform to. It's basically an amalgam average team. Reflecting the wisdom-of-the-crowd thoughts of the FPL community.