What a perfectly brilliant time to start a blog about a Premier League fantasy football team. Week 21. Half way through the season. Not only is half the half way stage of the season, there’s a weekend of third round FA Cup fixtures this weekend. Not one Premier League game.
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Here we can talk pointless opinions. Unless your team is right up there in the overall league, and you're in a chance of winning the prize, fantasy football is pretty pointless. But it's great to do as a challenge and a talking point. (What even is the prize for winning Premier League fantasy football. Is there only a prize or finishing first, or do second and third get something too? Someone should check on that)
My fantasy team started off bang average. I feel the first 10 weeks are so hard to scope and you have to get very lucky if you get a decent 11-15 players that get you loads of points to start with. I am involved in 5 different leagues. After the first few game weeks my team was bottom half of each league. Around 10th out of 15-18 teams. It was nice to know my team was sh*t, but not the sh*test.
My first feeling was getting Erling Haaland in the team and still being able to field 14 more decent players. With Haaland being about 15M means that if you pick him he has to deliver bags of points. I started with him and even though at the start he was scoring, the points return didn't justify the price tag. After the points weren't rolling in from him alone, I quickly realised selling him and being able to use the cash on upgrading 3-4 other players was a much better plan.
Haaland was out and at the time Mohammed Salah was a million or two cheaper. I also brought in Bukayo Saka, giving me a Midfield 5 of Mohammed Salah, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer, Brian Mbuemo at Brentford and Morgan Rodgers of Aston Villa. Not too shabby. Since having these 5 in the heart of the team my team has risen through all 5 leagues I am involved in.
Even though I don't think right now I am in much of a position to give advice, I'm going to anyway. Having a strong midfield to build around is the way to go in my opinion. What else in your team would you really build around. It's almost like the spine of the team, only this is horizontal on the team sheet and not vertical as the normal spine of the team is.
As I've just said, I think the most important element to building a decent point scoring team is the midfield. After that I think having a settled back 3 or 4 in defence is the next thing to decide. In my opinion selecting wing backs; left or right; is the way to go. Obviously, all defenders will pick up points for a clean sheet, yet wing backs are obviously more likely to pick up extra points for a goal or assist. Yes centre backs can score goals and get assist but it is a lot less likely. Apart from corners or advanced wide free kicks, when else to centre backs score goals. So why would you pick a centre back over a wing back. The 4 decent defenders I have right now are Julian Timber, Antonee Robinson, Aina from Nottingham Forest and the youngster Lewis Hall from Newcastle.
My fifth defender is Ben Johnson from Ipswich. Literally because how often does your third substitute get involved. So why spend more than the minimum amount on that player who plays regularly.
To be honest, I'll admit a mistake I made with Aina. Probably like most football fans, I've been expecting Nottingham Forest to drop off at any point. I thought it would happen about 5/6 game weeks ago. So I transferred him for Pervis Estupinan at Brighton. They had a very easy run of games at the time. All level 2 difficulty games. He did nothing for me so I had to bite the bullet at swap them back. Probably cost me something like £0.3 as Aina's price tag had improved over time.
Up top, I think you've just got to go with the flow. Which forwards are in form? Who is scoring goals at that time? I would probably look at the top forward you can afford and see if they are likely to score goals and get assists that month. As I said earlier, I started with Erling Haaland. I think most people did as I looked at the percentage owned stats and I'm sure at one point it was 75%+. Of late it has lowered and lowered over time due to Manchester City's lack of form. I'm sure it will be back some time in the near future. Class is permanent and all that.
Concentrating on the other forwards I started the season with. I actually had Joao Pedro and Kai Havertz. I thought and still think for his game value Joao Pedro is a fantastic steal. He can be a back up on the bench and can also start and bring in valuable points. As he got injured for a few weeks earlier in the season I sold him and I have very recently bought him back. His replacement at the time was Liam Delap at Ipswich. Again, a cheap striker that every now and again chips in with a goal or assist. At the time Ipswich were still on their high of promotion. They may not have won a tonne of games yet showed some solid performances to justify their back to back promotions. Raul Jiminez from Fulham made it into my team for a few weeks. He had scored a few goals for his club on consecutive weeks, and as soon as I brought him into my team his goal scoring streak dried up. Typical.
Again, sometimes you can look at a clubs up coming fixtures and see they are all level 2 difficulty. Doing this lead me to buying Nicolas Jackson. What a massive waste of time and bad decision that turned out to be. Did nothing for me and he was out. In came Alexander Isak and a few weeks earlier after Jiminez also failed me, the kiwi Chris Wood. I haven't looked back since. A front three of Wood, Isak and Joao Pedro seems to be the way to go at the minute. Since I've had my fantastic midfield and these three in the forward positions, I have shot up all 5 of my leagues. I'm in third place in 4 of them and second in the fifth. Things are looking up.
Last but not least, the goal keepers. There’s only two of them. A decision to make is whether I was going to spread money on both or put more money into one of the GKs and only spend the least amount possible on a keeper who plays. I’ve never thought of having one of the most expensive goal keepers in the game. For example, David Raya, Alisson or Ederson. It seems too much money for a position that never really produces much more than 6 points and also relies too much on clean sheets in a time when clean sheets seem so hard to predict.
I started with Dean Henderson as my starting number 1 with Lukasz Fabianski as sub. The West Ham cat has been a constant in my team all season long. He’s cheap, plays most games now and is a decent back up. I quickly changed my mind on my starting goal keeper to Matz Sels. Nottingham Forest have stunned me this season. I’m still shocked they haven’t dropped off so he will stay as my starting number 1 spot until they start losing. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.
This is all opinion and in the grand scheme of things is pretty pointless unless your team is doing extremely well in the overall league. There’s no right or wrong answers for team line ups and if any Premier League fantasy football content creator says they know the answers they’re lying.
This is all about creating conversation and sharing opinions. If you have any opinions on how good or/and bad my ideas are let me know in the comments. Also, don’t be scared to share your ideas and your teams.
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