- The new Premier League season is here and every football lover is eager for the first match of the season
- With the new PL season, comes a new season of the Fantasy Premier League, played by millions of people across the world
- Here are five tips to all Fantasy Premier League managers ahead of the new FPL season
1) Team structure
While a 38 game week season provides plenty of time to recover from a bad start, it’s certainly best to start strong. Getting your team structure right in Gameweek 1 can be pivotal to early season success.
Clinching premium attackers from each of Manchester City, Liverpool and Spurs will be tempting in Gameweek 1, but could upset the balance of your squad in the long run. The extra wildcard this season could allow fantasy managers to take some more calculated risks at the start of the season though.
2) New & promoted players
It’s always tempting to start the new season by selecting all the hot new Premier League acquisitions, who have been hyped up in the media for their potential prospects.
However, we’ve seen on countless occasions that it takes time for players to adjust to the demands of the Premier League and only a rare few start strong.
A world-class player like Erling Haland (£11.5m) could be the exception, but don’t take the risk on more than one player who is new to the Premier League.
Erling Haaland is a new signing for Manchester City and can be a pivotal striker in your Fantasy Premier League (FPL) team. | PHOTO: Manchester City |
3) Form vs fixtures
Talking of the World Cup, we need to have an eye on the fixture ticker and the overall fixture calendar when setting up our FPL teams.
This is the first time we’ve had a Winter World Cup splitting the season in two and it’s difficult to predict the impact it will have.
The schedule is more congested though, particularly for the top six who won’t have a free midweek from Game week 4 through to the break in Gameweek 16, except for the international break.
We’ve also got to bear in mind that some high profile fantasy assets won’t be in Qatar including Mohamed Salah (£13.0m), Erling Haaland (£11.5m), Riyad Mahrez (£8.0m), Jamie Vardy (£9.5m), Luis Diaz (£8.0m) and Andrew Robertson (£7.0m).
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah will not participate in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. | PHOTO: Getty Images |
4) Respect the template
As fantasy advice becomes mainstream, with more and more managers seeking specialist advice from websites such as Fantasy Football Hub, the early season template becomes stronger.
This is often perceived to be a bad thing, but the template is a template for a reason – because the players are good options on paper, having analysed them using all of the tools we have available to us.
While the fringes of our squads will have differences, there will be lots of similarities in Game week 1 drafts and there’s no need to be different just for the sake of it. Likewise, while it’s easy to make plans for future game weeks, the world of fantasy can change very quickly with injuries and the transfer window remaining open, so it is also important to be flexible in your planning and thinking.
5) Captain Sensible
Love it or loathe it, captaincy is a huge part of FPL and gives the biggest shake up in both weekly scores and across the season as a whole.
We had to learn the hard way in 2021/22 that the captain’s armband should almost always be reserved for premium players from the top end of the Premier League table. Even when a lower rated team has a Double Game week, it’s the traditional captain picks who usually win out.
One good way of preparing for a new season is by making a captaincy matrix, using the fixtures to pinpoint key premium players to own and captain over the opening game weeks.
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