BETTER THINGS to aim at

I mentioned this morning that I grow extremely weary of the tiresome and misguided obsession among so many FPL managers with RANK. It really tells you nothing useful about how good your decision-making in the game is, only.... how much luckier than you a certain number of people have been. (Not everyone who's above you is only there because of luck, of course. But the sorry truth - a cold, cruel statistical inevitability - is that the higher you are in the overall ranking, the greater the percentage is likely to be of the people above you who have simply been luckier than you. If you don't want to feel abused by luck, you should aim for the lower end of the rankings....!)

So, what can you focus on instead, to give you some sense of your achievement or progress in the game?

Well, I already touched on this point in a couple of very early posts on this blog. 

First, I outlined here what various points thresholds indicate about your relative ability. (Points totals are slightly more reliable as a measure of progress for individuals because, for most of us [though not, by any means, everyone!], 'luck' more or less balances out over the course of a season. Final rank position, however, can still vary enormously, because the number of total players may be more or less from one year to another, the scope for luck to have a distorting impact may be more in one year than another [there was a HUGE, unprecedented number of injuries last year, for instance; and there have been some particularly bad refereeing decisions this season, as well as a somewhat 'unexpected' meltdown for the champions, City...; things like this can make a big difference, but much more so in some years than others]; and there may, for undiscernible reasons, just be far more hugely lucky people in one year than another - so, your overall rank may differ considerably from one year to another, even though your points tally is remarkably similar.)

Second, I suggested that in addition to tracking your progress against points 'milestones' (or just seeking to regularly beat the global average), it is better to focus on small mini-leagues against people you know, or at least on more modest-sized 'public leagues' where you can develop some sense of familiarity with your closest rivals (studying their selections and performance over time, such that you start to build up an awareness of the quirks and preferences in their approach to the game, their strengths and weaknesses). Pitting yourself against familiar opponents gives you a fuller sense of how you are performing - and a deeper satisfaction if you are indeed doing well. But, ideally, it should also help you to become less self-obsessed about the game - able to applaud a rival's success when they do better than you, able to recognise why it has happened. (If they really have made better choices than you, that is. And if they appear to have just been very lucky, learn to laugh it off. That should mean that next year, if you really are the better player, you will prevail.)  [My principal rivalry within the game is against an old college buddy. He's not actually very good at it. And so it can be rather galling when he does much better than me in his weekly points tallies. He has - once - even managed to beat me over a season... more by luck than anything else. But I am genuinely happy for him when he achieves these successes, whether they're fully deserved or not. My chief aim in competing against him is to encourage and goad and cajole him into paying more attention, so that he can gradually improve in the game... and eventually triumph in his small work league (which will be no mean achievement, because it does include a couple of rather impressive managers).]

A corollary to this latter point is that you might also try to focus more on 'head-to-head' battles with particular rivals, rather than overall points. I've never been bothered to enter any head-to-head leagues myself; but I do in practice keep a tally of my week-by-week performance against a few key rivals. And that, I think, is a more accurate measure of your overall ability than your relative points totals might be. (That college buddy of mine who managed to beat me a season or two back on the points totals was still well behind on the weekly head-to-head...)  A few stupendously lucky weeks where someone achieves a massive points advantage over you can effectively decide the whole season. (I noted in another early post that the quest to be a global No. 1 at season's end, or even in the top 10,000 or so, is pretty much over after the first few weeks, if you don't get off to a flying start... A genuine flying start, that is; not just faking it by blowing all your chips in the first few weeks!)

I have also ventured the - somewhat 'controversial' - view that your growth in squad value is actually a very reliable measure of your basic competence in the game. The danger with it is, of course, that you can try to focus solely on growing squad value - and that will probably be to the detriment of your points total or your head-to-head successes. But as an organic by-product of how you play the game from week-to-week, I think a healthy and consistent growth in squad value each year can be a very telling marker of your ability in the game. [Well, I used to think that. My confidence in the idea has been slightly shaken this season and last by the increasing volatility in the transfer market, by the sudden price drops being initiated by the sheep losing confidence and starting to bale on a good player after just two or three blank weeks....]

In a busy spell of early posting around the beginning of this 2024-2025 season, I also suggested some tips for gauging how good your initial squad selection is; and you can apply these same principles on an ongoing basis throughout the season to check if you've been keeping your squad in the best possible shape.

And finally, I produced a list of recommendations for how to get better at the game. I would suggest that if you examine your thought process around selection decisions etc. each week in reference to each of these categories.... you will develop a sense of whether you're getting better at the game, and why... regardless of what's going on with your points total or your ranking!

Yes, sorry, this post has ended up being just a 'greatest hits' compilation of links to earlier posts. I may at some point try to distil these observations - and perhaps a few novel ones too - into a simpler and more useful list. 

But I do earnestly believe that all of these things I've touched on above are more important than points or rank. Yes, really. 

This is the beginning of 'enlightenment': play the game not to reach arbitrary external goals, but for the innate sense of satisfaction to be derived from it, from the expense of thought and effort, from the grappling with the challenge, from the constant striving to be better.