Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
It is fair to say that Fantasy Premier League (FPL) has expanded rapidly across Europe and Asia in the last several years. With more than eight million active players in a single season, FPL brings so much drama and entertainment. Although the game is generally free to play, some players create their mini-leagues with friends/acquaintances and they involve money into these.
‘Of course, apart from money, every single FPL player dreams of the top 100 finish and a chance to win it all’ said John Pentin from sports picks site NewJerseysafeBetting.com. The feeling can be compared to similar branches (i.e. sports betting or poker), but it feels even more special if you know that you’ve beaten eight million other players at something. Now, if you are new to the whole fantasy football world, we are here to help you get going with some professional tips that will certainly take you close to the 1% finish in the world.
1 – No stress or emotions
You may have thought that we were going to discuss strategy at the start, but this is probably even more important advice to all beginners. As soon as you decide to play the game, you need to be aware of stressful situations it will inevitably cause to you sooner or later. How you deal with these situations can make a massive difference, not only to your psychological state but to the question of winning and losing. As soon as players are on tilt (and they will always be, inevitably), they will make poor kneejerk decisions. You want to exclude emotions from your decision making. This is honestly the most important advice you should always have in mind.
Speaking of emotions, we have to mention the bias factor. Let’s say that you are a Manchester United fan. You know that your beloved team are playing badly, but you still want to have at least some of their coverage in your FPL team. This is one of the most common beginner mistakes. You should thus never let the team you root for affect your decision making in FPL whatsoever.
2 – Always think of future moves and be flexible to adjust to given circumstances
FPL is all about planning. While beginners think it is a rather straightforward game where you have one transfer per week, the reality is completely different. There is so much to think about when it comes to your FPL team. You can always find a way to improve it, but how you do it is the key to success. We will discuss some good and reliable sources below in the article, but here we want to underline the significance of planning. You should always know how much money you have in the bank, you should always have at least three or four main players to target, you should constantly follow their price changes and try and build the team value in the process, and so on.
The second part of this paragraph is bound to adjustments. We all have an ego that prevents us from doing so many fun and good things in life in general, not only in FPL. But let’s say that you have not planned to bring in a Manchester City player to your team at all in a particular season because of frequent rotations. However, certain Ilkay Gundogan pops up scoring goals in successive matches. This is the moment when you need to step up and react to change your plans and get him in. Do not let your ego stop you from getting these points if Gundogan keeps finding himself in good positions to score points.
3 – Combine different sources
Finally, you all likely want to find out where to get info about certain players. Several online websites provide excellent coverage for all sorts of the team and individual statistics. The most significant of all metrics (in our opinion) is the non-penalty expected goal involvement per 90 minutes. This parameter gives you the most accurate information about the chances of a certain player getting you fantasy points in a given match. Of course, you should have profound knowledge about that player and the team he plays for (this should not be an issue for anyone who watches football, though). You need to know whether a player is nailed for 90 minutes or he has just played two games in a season.
Of course, on top of these statistics, you actually do need to watch the games. The eye test can only bring you good things in terms of the FPL. Last but not least, we would advise you to check the betting odds because the bookmakers can help you with the probability of a certain player scoring/assisting, or a certain team keeping a clean sheet.
