The Adar guide to team selection
Philosophy
Fantasy premier league is about earning points, not creating the best team in the league. This mean that deep lying midfielders like Luka Modric or defensive centerbacks like Coloccini are far less interesting prospects than in real life. It also means that it rarely is a good idea to recruit the maximum amount of players from your favorite team (Newcastle or Swansea were notable exceptions to this last year).
Instead it is all about looking for value in the form of points per cost this mean that a 4.5 M£ player earning 3 pts per game is a bargain while a 7 M£ is a disaster. When I make my team I strive to have 8-9 really high scoring players while the remaining 5-6 players are solid starters in weaker teams. This way I can have 8-9 assured starters and then rotate the last positions between players with favorable fixtures.
Team selection
I always start out by filling my team with "bargain players" and two "captains". The captain scores double points so it is necessary to have two or three reliable high scorers in the team. Then I try to load up on bargain players which tend to be the stars of minor teams. Mark Noble, Danny Guthrie and Steven Taylor are good examples of this category of players which provide room for maximising your number of heavy hitters while still earning a solid points each game.
This mean that you should have a lot of budget room to recruit the true heavy hitters that will earn you the majority of points throughout the season. Personally I find it very hard to find good star backs so my back line tend to be weak to maximise value in the front areas.
Player types to look for
Goal keepers
There are essentially two ways to set up the goalkeeper position. High/low or low/low, high priced goalkeepers like De Gea or Hart usually score well and end up at the top of the scoring but they are also more expensive to buy. In previous seasons it have therefore been a good investment to buy two cheap (4.5M£) goalkeepers who can rotate instead. This year the low/low strategy has become harder to pull off as all solid starters are costed at least 4.5M£ and good defensive teams got their goalkeepers at 5M£. Getting two decent goalkeepers is therefore likely to cost you 9.5-10M£. I would however not recommend a star keeper and a non-starter combination as that 0.5 M£ very well force you into emergency trades if a goalkeeper suffer a short term injury or rotation due to champions league.
This season the BPS system have also changed to benefit goalkeepers who make a lot of saves which will benefit teams who concede a lot of shots but got a good shot stopping goalkeeper (which is usually the weaker teams).
Defenders
There are essentially three kinds of defenders worth buying.
Weakest link players: The worst defenders are also the ones priced the lowest. Getting clean sheets is a team effort so paying premium for the best defender in the team is not worth much unless the player also is good at scoring, passing or getting bonus points. Just make sure that you make these buys in settled squads and keep an eye out for any break outs where new players are given the chance.
Attacking defenders: Some players are better than other at scoring offensive points. Out of position defenders are worth their weight in gold as they score 6 pts per goal and also tend to get very high EPI scores. But strong attacking players such as Leighton Baines, Branislav Ivanovic and John Terry can also make worth of their premium valuations thanks to their scoring ability.
Solid defenders: Some teams rotate their defenders more than other. Trading players can be costly so saving 0.5 M£ is not always the bargain it seems.
This year the bonus for good passing has been reduced while successful tackling and blocks receive higher rewards for the BPS which is good to know.
Midfielders
Selecting midfielders is a rather straightforward affair as a defensive player or deep lying midfielder almost never score enough points. Leon Britton who had a huge season for Swansea and played every game for the team only scored a measly 81 pts last season. So when looking at rotating midfielders it is a good idea to look at the most offensive 4.5M£ midfielders you can find.
The midfield section is also the category of players most likely to create huge bargains where 5.0-6.0 M£ turn into top scorers (like Jordan Henderson last year).
Forwards
Are always a bit of a headache for me as the game managers tend to put a high price on any quality attacker. Therefore I tend to put my two expensive "captain choices" in the forwards category (Giroud and Aguero last year) and then a third quality striker to support them. Last year Harry Kane had a huge breakout season so the third quality strike ended up surprisingly cheap.
Team management
Overmanaging the team is one of the biggest threats to a coach. Knee jerk reactions to band wagons tend to cost a lot of points (selling price only increase by 0.1 pts for every 0.2 pts the buyer price increase since you bought him) so a well thought out team should not be changed too quickly. My favorite tactic on deciding to sell a "cold" player and buy a "hot" is to look at the EPI index. A player who have a 3 game points drought but retain a high EPI score is likely to hit his form again while a drop in the EPI score tend to correspond to new team tactics or poor player form.
Saving the wild card for April is also often a good idea as rescheduled fixtures and injuries can disrupt even the most solid team. This year they have also introduced three "chips" that we can play during the season, you can read more
here.
Fantasy Football League 2015/16 (kicks off 8/8/15)
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Originally Posted by Adar
