English football’s official fantasy football game, Fantasy Premier League (FPL), has come a long way from the days of old. It’s a craze that has swept several countries, much like the US version of the game for American Football.
From a few hundred thousand playing FPL in the 1990s and early 2000s, to over seven million people registering for this season’s iteration of the game, it’s been quite the journey. Many play for fun, but most enter their FPL teams into cash leagues around the world where every decision is vital. Managing to win some of those competitive tournaments must be quite the thrill and certainly worth it if the prize is significant.
Now, imagine being crowned the winner of the overall FPL competition. Coming out on top against more than seven million other guys and gals is going to take that little something extra.
What Is Needed to Succeed at FPL?
Equip yourself with every resource you can because you can bet your bottom dollar the other players in this game are doing just that! The tools you need are all out there. You just need to know where to look.
Find some football sites that are devoted to FPL or at least have a dedicated FPL section within. Check it out and see how you find it in terms of user-friendliness. Don’t just settle on one, however. Get a few on your list and use them all for every gameweek. Over time, you will see which sites got it right most of the time and which sites seemed to be just winging it.
You want a site that has pages such as the expected lineups in the Premier League for the gameweek. These pages often come with some detailed fixture analysis, allowing you to decide on which players to buy and sell from your FPL lineup.
Sites can also provide you with Premier League player rankings based on how that player is performing and the difficulty of their upcoming match. You can see a rating of how effective any player is expected to be in terms of goalscoring probability, their likelihood of providing an assist, or the probability that his team will keep a clean sheet.
Keeping Track of Premier League Injuries
There is probably nothing more disheartening in the world of FPL than preparing yourself for a big week and then realising one or more of your players are not even playing. Speaking truthfully, this simply should not happen if you want to rank high in the FPL competitions. It’s true that freak accidents can happen after the gameweek deadline has passed. Players can even pick up slight knocks in the warm-up for a game. However, these occurrences are minimal and, as an FPL manager, you have no excuse for not knowing about an injury that was public knowledge. That may sound harsh but if you are looking to show the FPL just what you’re capable of, you’ll need to up your standards.
Anyway, it’s pretty simple to keep on top of things like injury lists. Just make a point of checking in with reliable sites to find out what players are unavailable. Do this before the gameweek deadline and it will help you along the way with the numerous choices you have to make regarding your selection.
Always have your thinking cap on when it comes to injuries too. Take long-term absences for instance. Most experienced football fans will know that players can miss months and, even though it may be reported they are back to full training, it can still take a further few weeks for the player to be match fit. You’re likely to see such players making brief ‘cameo’ appearances first as they get 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there. They won’t be risked in a starting lineup too soon if they have been out for a long time. In short, just because you see that a player is no longer listed as being ‘injured’, you must take into consideration just how long it could be before they’re back in their club’s starting lineup.
The Repercussions of Seeing Red
Another way players miss out on games in the FPL are through suspension. If a player consistently receives yellow and red cards in fixtures, they will be suspended for other games. The best way to watch out for this is by looking at the official FPL site which will have all the news about what players are suspended at any given time.
