RADIO
One of the fastest growing fantasy games is the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) - a season-long version of fantasy soccer for the English Premier League (EPL). With millions of players each year, the FPL game is becoming a fixture for soccer enthusiasts across the globe.
Having played the game for the last twelve seasons and largely languished in mediocrity (apart from a top 30K finish in 2009/10), I was ready to finally put my largely wasted knowledge of football statistics to use and strive to become one of the game's elite players. Last season, I finished around the 250K mark and in the process won my family league - but that is not enough for me.
Tired of wasting my time with meaningless, emotion-fueled transfers, I have decided to make a concerted effort to not only destroy my fantasy league this year, but improve on last year's finish and - hopefully - have a good amount of fun in the process. Thanks for joining me on my journey through EPL's Fantasy Premier League. I hope you enjoy the embarrassment that is about to unfold and, just maybe, pick up a piece of advice from a self-described non-expert on the game.
EPL Diaries - Fantasy Premier League
The Squad:
GK: Joe Hart (4.5M), Maarten Stekelenburg (4M)
DF: Marcos Alonso (6.8M), Benjamin Mendy (6.4M), Andrew Robertson (6.1M), Aymeric Laporte (5.5M), Ryan Bennett (4M)
MF: Eden Hazard (10.7M), Sadio Mane (10M), Christian Eriksen (9.4M), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (7.2M), Pedro (6.8M)
FW: Romelu Lukaku (11M) , Aboubakar Kamara (4.5M), Isaac Success (4.5M)
Analysis:
Lads, I finally did it. My first gameweek that wasn't completely terrible. It seemed as though everything finally paid off (No Salah, No Aguero, No Kane), as I was able to finish GW4 with 80 points, placing me at 6,272 for the week. My overall ranking jumped from just above the 2 million mark to around 500K, putting me in a good spot to continue with my forward momentum over the coming weeks. Let's see how the team was able to put together such a comprehensive performance.
Despite conceding twice, Joe Hart was able to save a penalty and make seven saves in total on the night, giving him ten points for the evening - which is not too bad considering he played a Manchester United side in desperate need of a comprehensive victory. Out of the back, the Holy Trinity once again came to my aid, with nineteen points between the trio. Finally, Laporte wasn't able to repeat his heroics and could only muster two points. Still though, not too shabby from the back five.
Captaining Hazard over Aubameyang proved to be the right decision, as the Chelsea winger was able to finish the week with 22 points. Pairing him up with ten points from Mane and six from Pedro (both goal-scorers in their matches, my midfield performed admirably. The only two dark spots on the team were Eriksen and Mkhitaryan; with the Danish midfielder, having him as a staple in my fantasy teams for the last few years has always paid off, so I will continue to stick with him. However, GW4 saw the Armenian winger finally get rotated, which is a worrying sign given my lack of depth on the bench.
Up top, Aubameyang finally was able to break out and score, which was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise drab opening to the year from the Arsenal frontman. However, Lacazette's involvement as the team's main forward certainly gave me pause, as Aubameyang - although his goal was spectacular - seemed a bit less deadly from out wide.
Recognizing that there will be almost no other week where Salah, Kane, and Aguero do not perform, my "contrarian" team will have to keep on producing in order to stay at the upper level of the fantasy leaderboards. That is why I have decided to transfer out Aubameyang for Romelu Lukaku, a forward who looks to be hitting a purple patch and who has absolutely no competition for minutes in a Manchester United side that desperately need to get their act together. Additionally, over the next few weeks, I want to transition to having more options up front rather than in the middle of the field. I will start by replacing Mkhitaryan and Kamara for Schneiderlin and Mitrovic. I should never have let the big Serbian go in the first place - he simply creates too many chances to be ignored. I'm going to wait two weeks to have a double transfer in order to make this switch. Two weeks after that, my plan is to take out Pedro and Success and bring in Ghezzal and Wilson. With these four moves, I hope to improve my bench depth (Ghezzal and Schneiderlin) and have some reliable, cheap forwards who each have the chance to over-perform this season.
Of course, these four transfers are all hypothetical. If Pedro continues to be an impactful player, it will be hard to justify replacing him and bringing in other players. However, I am fairly confident that Mitrovic will be a better provider than Mkhiki for this season, justifying my switch in a few weeks to the target man.
With decent matchups across the backline (except for Robertson against Spurs), I hope that my goalkeeper and defense can continue to provide big returns for me as we continue through the season. In the midfield, I have decided to once again captain Hazard against a weak Cardiff side in the hopes that he continues to play at a top level and outperforms players like Salah, however unlikely that may seem. If Eriksen can finally break out against Liverpool, I will take a high scoring game where both the Dane and Mane contribute - even if it means sacrificing clean sheet points from Robertson. Finally, hopefully Mkhitaryan can get the start again for the Gunners and produce something before I decide to let him go. Up top, Lukaku will have to continue his run of form against Watford in order to justify my transfer. I'm not expecting a repeat performance from last week, but a better outing than the first three weeks would certainly be appreciated.
That's all for this week - good luck gents!
