After my best ever season in fantasy last year, both in terms of prize money (£7.7k) and ranks (12th in dream team and 1,500th in fpl) my anticipation for the new year was high. I felt well prepared in the weeks leading up to kick-off, I had started listening to a couple of pods for the first time (I usually just read articles, but I’m really enjoying DT tonic and sky’s 3 for 1, I also listened to the big telegraph preview) I had spent plenty of time on my research too, so reflecting after 3 weeks what’s gone wrong.
Looking back to the euro’s I didn’t have a great tournament, I won my local ‘official game’ league by a point, but lost my local dream team league by a couple of points (my first local league defeat for 5 years) I didn’t really challenge in any of the national leagues I entered or fanteam. I know some of the big name fantasy players had a complete break over the summer to recharge, and can see the benefits of this, last season was an intense compacted year, and then with the euro’s we were straight back to it.
The other factor is my teams largely had similar players across the multi formats. I went big on the villa defence, Harvey Barnes and Danny ings, and only had Antonio in 1 out of 22 teams.
So just how bad has my start been, I will review each format below, and know we have a very long way to go. Perhaps it feels worse than it really is because a lot of the big names seem to be doing very well, also maybe it’s because I haven’t got a format where I’m excelling on to compensate for a poor performance elsewhere. Maybe I need to accept I’m playing too many formats and distracting myself. Yet here I am in the international break currently preparing my champions league teams for fanteam and the official game 🙂
On top of the playing, I run 3 local leagues, so it’s the recruiting/admin/ updates from these too. The other factor to accept is I’m usually a slow starter- but the reality is if you want to challenge against the best nationally how much of a lead can you afford to give them.
FPL – rank 714k – I made the call to captain ings last week over bringing in Antonio (costing me 14 points- I’m looking at this as 10 points- as do have 2 transfers in hand now as opposed to needing a -4 in week 4. I’m likely to bring in ronaldo and traore for ings and Bruno. I decided against Antonio and was hoping benrahma could cover him, also because I liked ings fixture (team news then revealed they had 3 players out) the question remains how long can I go without Antonio. I won’t be wildcarding yet. I’m relatively happy elsewhere- white and ayling I still see as good value. I need to monitor veltman, and Barnes will likely become rapinha. Toney will go at some point too. I got abit unlucky with 2 covid cases (white and veltman – leading to my only transfer so far being tsimikas to coady last week to field 3 defenders (or I may have brought in Antonio) I was put off Marcal by his rotation risk. I need to see what happens with the DCL injury too.
Sky- rank 16k and 44k – lesson learnt here don’t go full block defence, and certainly not on both teams, on a team with limited bonus potential. 9 players in both teams were the same with just Antonio/benrahma and Mbeumo/Toney being different. At least I haven’t used any transfers. Here’s where I’m currently at for the overhaul too
Fanteam – 4 teams – best 20k/37k worst 27.5k/37k – again I went ings captain last week over bringing in Antonio. Barnes may need to go. I will hold the WC for now. Ronaldo will come in for ings. I brought in tanganga for tsimikas which is looking a poor choice now.
Dream team -best team 2.5k out of 556k, I would rate this as my best format, and to be honest this is probably the best start I have ever had, and this team is my saving grace so far. Why I’m disappointed here is my other teams aren’t looking great with low budgets to play with- all 9 under 180 with 7 under 144. I changed my tactics this year and went for 8 block defences (Brighton/ Everton/ West Ham/ Liverpool/Man U/ Tottenham/ villa/Leicester) I even had 3 villa defences. Largely influenced by Tottenham’s extra games in Europe (moura) the league cup games (ings and DCL in all 10) and the some of the bigger teams playing each other early doors. I also went with Mahrez in all 10 and Barnes in 9.
Telegraph – awful – best 63k – worst 83k- there can’t be that many more teams playing I would have thought? 39 transfers left (brought in Kane) Really poor picks in defence going for slightly cheaper options (dawson over coufal – now likely to loose his place to zouma) Godfrey covid- will he get back in? Firpo and white both had covid too. So 3 of the back 5 had covid. A poor pick up front too- I didn’t realise Antonio was only 0.6 more than Toney.
So there we have it, not great or maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Thanks for reading- I hope you have had a better start than me. I’m not panicking yet, and will stick with what has worked in the past for me. I will review things in the next international break and hopefully will have made some progress
Keysersoze fantasy football 