The English Premier League season 18 / 19 is soon upon us. Finally, the void after world cup can be filled with something meaningful!

This also means the start of the new Fantasy Premier league season game (insert link to preferred tournament), and in this regard we decided to give you some useful tips & advice that we think will improve your chances! So, if you want to get a head start against your friends & foes keep reading!

Plan beyond the upcoming round

The most common mistake in a season tournament is to have too much focus on the upcoming round. If your team is built with “next round” focus, you will often end up having to do extra transfers to get your team in shape for the rounds to come, and the negative points from these transfers will end up costly in the long run.

If you want to be a successful manager in the season game, a key tool is to look at fixtures a few weeks ahead. Your objective here is simply to identify easy and difficult periods for the teams you are considering players from. Goes without saying that it`s harder for any striker to score a goal away against Manchester United, compared to a home fixture against one of the newly promoted teams as an example.

Easy fixtures example: Everton starts the 2018/2019 season with three home fixtures during the opening five rounds. They don’t meet any of the top six teams in this period and face Southampton, Huddersfield and West Ham at home.

Hard fixtures example: Tottenham plays against Manchester United and Liverpool during the opening five fixtures. They also start the season away to Newcastle with half of the squad still not recovered from the World Cup.

As these quick examples show, one might reconsider the reasons why & who one would go by selecting players from these teams in the opening rounds.

Use rotation with cheap players

It’s never easy to pick players from weaker teams, which would be useful for in several rounds in a row, but this is where your bench and rotation opportunities comes in to play!

Let’s say you need two cheap defenders to your team. Try to identify one team with suitable fixtures at game weeks 1, 3 and 5. After that find a cheap defender with potential fixtures at rounds 2, 4 and 6. This way you’ll have a cheap and useful defender every round!

A schedule will probably never be “easy” for a team like Fulham or Brighton, but the main idea is to find periods where it gets easier than on average.

Example: Southampton have home fixtures against Burnley, Leicester and Brighton at game weeks 1,3 and 5. Everton and West Ham have nice home fixtures at gameweek 2 and 4. Burnley have also very potential home fixtures at gameweek 2 and 6.

If you want success in a season game, you must be able to plan your transfers well, and this can only be achieved by looking a bit further than the next round.

 

 

Don’t get tempted by the one match wonders.

One-game wonders are difficult players to judge in the early rounds. These are typically summer transfers, where a player is bought from a club outside the Premier League. A good example would be Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who was signed by Brighton. He scored 21 goals in the Eredivisie last season, but nobody can tell if his PL season will be successful or not.

If a player like Jahanbakhsh scores two goals in the opening round and ends up being the man-of-the-match, he’ll be at the top of the transfer list one week later.

These kinds of rushed transfers seldom pan out the way one hopes, and you`ll end up disappointed more often than not. These transfers also go against the plans you already made for your team and end up costing points with extra transfers to get back on track.

Patience and faith are key here, and it might be helpful to make a shortlist of interesting players as well as paying attention to how the new signings performed during the pre-season.

Be careful with World Cup stars in the start of the season

England, Croatia, France and Belgium all have a lot of Premier League players in their ranks, and after a long and exhausting World Cup tournament, players like Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku are yet to feature in pre-season games.

Many of the World Cup stars have been given extra vacations and are just now starting to get back to training with their clubs. Teams like Tottenham, Manchester City and Manchester United have long lists of uncertain players right now, so this should definitely be taken in to consideration during your selection!

In the last friendlies before the season starts, managers often use the best possible XI that is available, and this will give you a good indication of players that are expected to be part of the opening games.

One might even consider a gamble in the start of the season this year, and it might pay out well in a season with a lot of star players are tired and uncertain for the start.

By using fresh and well rested players in the opening 3-4 rounds, one might be able to cash in a lot of points, and as the star players return, you put your wildcard in to play. This way you can change your entire team without any point deduction, and get the best out of the situation!

Players with high selection percentage

One object to solve that many managers are puzzling with, is how to deal with players that has a high ownership percentage.

Let’s say you want to have either Azpilicueta or Alonso from the Chelsea defence. Both players cost 6,5M and you estimate their expected fantasy points to be about the same as well. What if Azpilicueta is selected by 5% of the managers and Alonso by 35%?

This happens all the time and it is usually due to “one-match wonder” -situations. Managers are a bit too keen on one player over the other due to their recent performance.

The answer to this problem comes from your overall situation in the game, because there are good reasons to pick either one of them.

If you are doing well, you want to maintain your position. In this case it’s smart to select many players your competitors have as well. This way you limit their chances of climbing above you in overall standings.

If you are not doing well, this choice doesn’t make any sense. You’ll never climb higher by picking the same players everyone else. In such case you should find players with a low selection percentage and go for these “differentials”.

A good season game team is well-balanced. A team with too many differentials or too many “public favourites” won’t be successful.

Remember to check the rules and don’t be late to the party!

This might sound obvious, but you’d read the game rules before playing. Many managers make expensive mistakes by assuming that rules between different season games are the same, if they look similar.

Every season fantasy game has some special rules others don’t have. Make sure you go through the details before building your team. If you are not 100% sure of something, contact the support before the season starts.

There’s also one final advice, which is very important. Make sure you have fun and make your own decisions along the way! After all, it`s a new season, and anything can happen!

Good luck and let us know if you have any questions!

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