What counts as A GOOD SCORE?

Season high scores from the global frontrunners can swing up and down a fair amount - so you might have to adjust your expectations according to the average returns in a given year..

Weekly high scores can vary HUGELY, and unpredictably - so, setting one arbitrary target there is pretty meaningless. 

I hope to be 10-15 points better than the global average every week.

And when I launched this blog, I stated that my ultimate goal is always to reach 2,500 points for the season.

Now, these days, you're probably going to need well over 2,600, or even 2,700 points - some years, perhaps, even above 2,800 points - to have a chance of being the Global Champion. But that's pie-in-the-sky stuff - not worth thinking about.

2,500 points usually represents the top 1% or so of participants, and is a massive pinnacle to climb!

2,300 points is a very, very good score - and if you can consistently achieve above that for a number of years... I would say you've arrived as a more-than-competent FPL manager.

2,100 points is fairly respectable - and would in fact be an outstanding debut season score for someone new to the game.

If you are a complete newbie, you should be reasonably happy with 1,800 or 1,900 points in your first season - that should put you at least a little above the global average.

Always striving to be better-than-the-average is a very good place to start in this game. Then, as you get better, you can gradually ramp up your expectations of how much better-than-the-average you can be!

Pounds EQUAL Points

[This coin, worth approx. 4 million USD, was  stolen from a museum 

in Germany in 2017.]

It's a very simple and obvious equivalence - but, somehow, many FPL managers seem to overlook it.

Some of the most important implications of this are:

1)  It is wasteful to leave any budget unspent (especially at the start of the season)

You may sometimes want to keep just a little in hand (half a million or a million, say) to facilitate a planned transfer in a week or two. But you need to be careful not to do that too often - because it is potentially costing you points. 1 million pounds should be worth about 0.75 points per week. [I'll get to that calculation a little later...down at the botom of the post.]

2)  Leaving premium-price players on your bench can be very costly

If someone just has a slight knock (or a - hopefully! - brief dip in form, or a suspension), you might not want to waste transfers moving them out of your squad and then back in again within a short timeframe. But leaving a high-price player unused, for more than a week or two, can damage your points return. Leaving Haaland, for example, on the bench for a month because of injury, or Salah because of AFCON (every other year) is a big risk. 

Based on the above ideal points-per-pound value, you might theoretically be bleeding 8 or 10 pts per week if you do that. In fact, it's not quite that bad, because at least some of your bench places are redundnant; you can afford to leave one or two slots empty because you'll hardly ever use them - and thus they have no direct value. In fact, you're only measuring the difference in price between your unused premium player on the bench and the player you're replacing him with in the starting eleven. (And because premium-price players tend to have low points-per-pound returns anyway, the drop in points might not be as bad as all that.)

You may well have what you think is reasonable back-up for your missing 'star' - maybe even the best available alternative - without needing to spend money and use a transfer (so, you might not be suffering any avoidable points loss at all; but it is a danger you should be wary of). And transfers themselves have a value, which you don't want to 'spend' unless you have to.... 

3)  Transfers also have a points value (and hence a pounds-equivalent value)

The FPL gnomes price additional transfers at 4 points each. And they're pretty shrewd about the game's dynamics: they want to make you think twice about paying points for an extra transfer. (Although, you hope to get at least 5 or 6 points per game - on average - from all of your starting players; so, actually a transfer should be worth rather more than that.)

Hence, it is reasonable to apply that same points-value to your Free Transfers. The FTs are extremely useful: they can strengthen your squad and increase your points return. And you really don't want to be caught without one (or two - or even more this year, since we're now allowed to hoard up to 5 at one time) when a sudden need arises to replace someone. So, keep in mind that nominal points value - and don't use them frivolously. 

And if you can get 6 points in the next game from a player you've transferred in, that is equivalent to an optimum use of 8 million of your budget (as against a zero use, if you're replacing someone who's out injured).

4)  The points-per-pound return from your squad is of paramount importance (but it's not everything)

Now, in theory, you should be able to assemble an optimally successful squad by picking all the players with the highest 'Value (season)' figures on the FPL stats page. (Keep in mind that at the start of the new football year, this stat is using last season's points returns divided by this season's prices. So, it's useful for assessing a player's likely value this year, but doesn't show how good they were on this metric last year.)

In practice, it's not quite that simple because... for one thing, that probably wouldn't use up all your budget! You also need to make sure you're getting the highest overall points-scorers (with the best points-per-pound returns) that you can afford.  

But then there's a further complication. The size of a player's overall points haul, their differential advantage (their excess of points over the next best player, and over the average 'good score' for their position and/or price category), their reliability of returns (how confident can you be that they will again return somewhere near their theoretical best?), and their consistency over the season (how many blank spells might you have to suffer with them?) are all factors which can justify spending a huge sum on a Haaland or a Salah.... even though their points-per-pound returns are very poor.

An effective squad usually contains a number of the highest total points-scorers (even if some of them represent very poor points-per-pound value), balanced with several cheaper players who offer excellent points-per-pound.

5)  You need to pay attention to boosting, or at least maintaining squad value

A lot of people dismiss squad value as an 'irrelevance', and disdain to take any notice of it. It's perhaps got a bad reputation in the FPL community because there is a bizarre side-game where a small minority of players focus all their attention on transfer trading, trying to grow squad value rather than earn points.

However, squad value is important because it translates directly into your points potential. If you can grow your squad value by 4 or 5 million over the opening months of the season, you give yourself the opportunity to bring in one or two more premium players that you couldn't initially afford, and that should boost your points returns.

It may be getting harder now to achieve these sorts of profits. (I believe the algorthms have been heavily tweaked over the last year or two, and price change thresholds seem to be reached very rarely now, compared to a few years back. Almost all of my overall gain in squad value last year came from Cole Palmer - who remained a strictly paper 'profit', since I didn't want to cash him in to try to upgrade other positions!)  But you should still be wary of shrinking squad value. Players who pick up a serious injury, or fall out of favour with their gaffer, or suffer a serious slump in form.... need to be jettisoned very promptly (before a general sell-off triggers a price dip).

And finally....  THE FUNDAMENTAL CALCULATION:

You get a 100-million pound budget at the start of the season. You have to spend at least 17 million on your bench (some might spend a little more). 

You might grow your squad value by 5 million pounds or more over the season. But then again, you might not (as I just noted above, the game dynamics seem to have shifted recently towards making it much more difficult to generate any significant profit on transfer trading). And most of that growth in value might be spent on bolstering an initially weak or half-empty bench, or simply tied up in a player you don't want to sell. There's unlikely to be a major change in the effective value of your starting eleven over the season, probably not more than a few million, at best.

Hence, it's reasonable to suppose that  the value of your starting eleven across most of the season is a little over 80 million.

In recent years, the global leaders have regularly been getting over 2.600 points, and occasionally 2,700+ or even 2,800+. And it is widely accepted that 2,500 points is an excellent score that we should all strive for....

Sure, you can in theory get double points for one of your best players through judicious use of captaincy picks - but, in practice, you have to be very lucky to get more than about a 10% boost on your basic team score from that; and usually it's a lot less than 10%.

That means you really want to be earning very nearly 30 points across the season for every million pounds invested in that starting eleven.

And that translates to a little over 0.75 points per million per week...  It really is worth keeping that in mind. (Although, in practice, you should settle for a little bit less than that - because those sorts of numbers would get you up around the very top of the global rankings, an unreasonable thing to aim at.)

[Momentous revelation: Almost NO PLAYER ever breaches that 30-points-per-million-of-cost number, and only a handful get anywhere near it. You cannot achieve a top-of-the-rankings score with a stable squad; you have to be constantly rotating the most in-form players in and out to try to maximise your returns.... so that the average returns for each slot in your squad are greater than the average returns produced by any one player over the season.]

How to get BETTER at FPL

Yes - a lot of these points are going to be basically the opposite of what I said last week in my post about the most common reasons 'Why people are BAD at FPL'. But I'll try to put a bit of a different spin on some things. And I hope this will still prove useful.

1)  Watch more football

There really is no substitute for it. Watch as many full games as you can (including other competitions, like the European games and domestic Cup rounds); watch good round-up shows with some solid punditry (BBC's Match of the Day is my oxygen....).  Learn what you can from the games themselves - before you start thinking about looking for advice or stats or whatever; all those other possible inputs should only ever be supplements to your own understanding of how the season is unfolding.

2)  Watch some tactical analysis

However shrewd you are at observing the finer details of the game, there are always going to be things you miss because of the limitations of TV coverage (limited view, limited replays,.. often inept, distracting commentary...) - especially if you're only able to watch brief highlights. I think it's incredibly useful to try to gain additional insights from experts in football - rather than 'experts' in FPL (see my third point, below).

There are some excellent tactical analysts on Youtube now. My favourite is Adam Clery of the FourFourTwo channel (only a year old, but it rapidly established itself as essential viewing for me during the past season) [in April 2025 he branched out to launch his own channel]. I also really like JJ Bull of The Athletic, Football Meta, and Football Made Simple. But Adam is The King - accessible, breezy, funny, but very, very perceptive in his breakdowns of team set-up and performance.

3)  Don't pay any attention to so-called FPL 'experts'

There are so many self-promoted, self-important would-be 'gurus' out there - the best of whom are no more insightful or persuasive than any of the rest of us who've been taking the game fairly seriously for a number of years; the worst of them are just idiots. Anyhow, you should always....

4)  Trust your own judgement

This is not a game you should play in pursuit of glorious prizes (because, with so many millions of players, your chances of ever winning anything are almost zero; and the prizes are SHIT, anyway....); nor for achieving a 'high ranking' (because - shock, horror! - finishing in the top 100,000 requires more luck than skill, and isn't much evidence of anything). 

You should only play to see how well you can do, to test yourself against self-set targets.... and to see how good a judge of a player you really are.

Relying on the recommendations of 'FPL experts', or asking online for help with your team.... is just cheating, really. And it's self-harming. Most of these guys don't know any better than you. And you'll never get any better if you don't make the effort to make your own choices.

5)  Learn how to use stats

Above all, be a bit more careful and thorough about how you use them. I see so many people on the online forums who grasp at one or two metrics to try to justify a pick, and convince themselves that these figures represent an unassailable argument in their favour; and oh so often, these stats are the wrong ones, or their 'positive' indication crumbles to nothing when compared with other, more relevant figures.

If you're not mathematically inclined, stats can just be bewildering and confusing, and it might be better to steer away from them altogether. I don't think they're nearly as helpful as paying close attention to the actual game action each week. But they can be very useful, if you use them appropriately: DON'T assume that they provide any easy or clear-cut answers - they do not.

6)  Be self-critical, and open to change

One of the biggest faults in all FPL managers (because it's a universal and deep-seated human fault) is a need to believe that we are right, and a consequent reluctance to acknowledge when we might have been wrong.

Even before you make a pick, you should take a break - for an hour, or a day - to pause and reflect on it; to try to think of other possible perspectives on the decision, to explore reasons why you might be wrong to want this player.

And every week, you should be asking yourself very carefully what isn't working out in your squad, and why. 

There are some players you get very fond of; some players that you are absolutely convinced are going to turn their form around at any moment and start producing big points in the next game. Those players you feel most confident in.... are probably the ones you need to think hardest about letting go.

That's more than enough for one post.  I daresay some other 'tips' may occur to me in the future; but I think this is a pretty solid starting point.

GOOD LUCK FOR THE NEW SEASON, EVERYONE!!!

[And by the way... I've said this already on the blog, and no doubt I'll say it again - often - but I do not claim to be any sort of FPL 'expert' myself. I am a smart guy with a lot of football knowledge and a lot of experience of FPL; so, I think my observations and insights are probably worth something. But I do not pretend that they are at all 'authoritative' - or necessarily and invariably 'correct'. They are just ideas that I hope people may find it interesting to ponder... even if they then decide that they don't agree with them.

And, while I might sometimes give examples of players I think are worth considering - or avoiding - I won't ever share my whole team, and I'll generally avoid making any specific player recommendations.

My aim with all my commentary on Fantasy Premier League - whether here on the blog, or on various forums where I sometimes contribute - is to try to show people not who to pick, but how to make picks.]

Why people are BAD at FPL....

Forgive me if I may sometimes use the second person - you - in the following remarks. I don't want readers to feel that my tone is accusatory, that they are perhaps being individually exposed to censure. I think what I'm about to say applies to all of us. It is only human nature to be prone to these foibles. All of us are vulnerable to them, all of us have fallen prey to these errors at some point... and most of us continue to do so from time to time. Even the most successful FPL managers are not immune to the occasional lapse. There is a need for constant self-vigilance in order to steer clear of these faults.

1)  Personal loyalties (and enmities) towards particular clubs

You have to check your emotions at the door when you play FPL. If you start favouring picks from clubs you like, and avoiding clubs you dislike (such as the main traditional rivals of the team you support), you're shooting yourself in the foot.

I have a friend who is such a rabid Spurs fan that he automatically picks the maximum three players from them, regardless of merit. And that's not enough for him; frustrated by the club limit of three picks, he also usually goes for as many ex-Spurs players as he can find (Walker, Trippier, Walker-Peters... Doherty?). And of course, he absolutely refuses to consider ever taking any players from Arsenal. Or Liverpool - he particularly hates them too! Heck, it's only recently that I've been able to cajole him into occasionally taking a player from City or Chelsea or Man Utd.  He doesn't do very well at this game...

Of course, that's an extreme example - but you get the idea.

2)  Personal affection for (or aversion to) individual players

In addition to prejudices for or against certain clubs, many of us also have strong feelings about certain players. It might be because of the way they play, or their personality or public persona; or it might be specifically because of the way they've performed for you in FPL in the past.  You can't afford to dismiss a player from consideration for FPL just because you have formed a strong negative opinion that they are 'dirty' or 'lucky' or 'inconsistent' or 'overrated' or whatever (or because you disapprove of their private life...),  nor let yourself be swayed into automatically picking them because your fundamental opinion of them is highly positive.

Moreover, a player's value - or lack of it - in FPL isn't only dependent on his basic form or ability, but on the global context of all the other players you're comparing him against in the current season. Whether he did well or badly last season is only a small part of that. It is not a good idea to pick, e.g., Salah, just because he's always done well for you in FPL in the past, or because you think he is in general terms 'a great player'; you need a stronger rationale for the selection than that. (He is a great player: but how do you justify choosing him at his price-point this year, in comparison to Haaland or Watkins, or Palmer or Foden, etc.? That's what you have to think about; and the context for a selection like this is different every year.)  Similarly, you can't afford to write a player off just because he's 'let you down' in the past.

You have to start afresh each season, and give everyone fair consideration.

3)  Not watching enough (or any?!) football

I am amazed - and appalled - by how many people I see on FPL forums who clearly don't watch very much of the actual Premier League, if any at all. They must approach FPL as a form of pure gambling. (It seems insane to me. I likened it recently to 'driving on the highway blindfolded...')

There really is no substitute for watching the games. Following gurus, seeking tips from other fans, scanning pages of stats - that may all help, but it's barely scratching the surface; and without the context of some personal knowledge of what's going on in which to ground it, it's really not very likely to do you all that much good.

You need to watch as much football coverage each week as possible (including cup ties and European games): ideally, as many full games as possible - live, and with good commentary and post-match analysis in your native language. [This is my principal handicap in the game: living in SE Asia, I often struggle to catch many full games; and when I do, it's almost always with Thai or Vietnamese commentary, which is incomprehensible to me.]

4)  Not understanding stats

People who think they understand stats, and gleefully pounce on one or two metrics to justify a decision they already wanted to make anyway, are usually worse off than those who don't bother with stats at all. You need to know which stats to look at, and understand what they're telling you.

I recall someone on a forum once insisting that a player in a major points drought had 'good underlying numbers' because he was still getting a lot of shots on goal. I had to point out that he was getting a lot fewer shots on goal than at the same stage the previous season, and that his shot conversion rate had fallen almost to zero - which didn't look like very good 'underlying numbers' to me. (When you hear someone drop the phrase 'good underlying numbers' to justify a recommendation, be on your guard; it's generally a sign that they're talking out of their arse.)

I don't use stats a great deal myself, as I think they're a poor substitute for watching game action closely (there are always some details of a player's or a team's performance that stats are going to fail to capture). The ones I chiefly recommend paying attention to when you're considering a new pick are the 'expected' number for goals, assists, or goals conceded, and how they compare to the player's actual performance. Also, although I have all sorts of gripes about its transparency and fairness, the game's BPS ratings are a pretty good guide to general form (not the bonus points allocations themselves, but the credits for various individual game actions which are used to calculate who should receive the bonuses in each game; you can find this number in the 'Player Info' charts).

And you need to consider the returns-per-game (whether that's points, saves, goals, or whatever), as well as - in preference to! - the returns over the whole season (you might have to work this out for yourself - ugh, maths.!)... because a lot of players didn't play the whole of last season.

5)  Being lazy in how you use information to choose picks

A lot of FPL managers make quick, impulsive selections, without giving the matter sufficient thought. But then - even worse - they often look at just one piece of information to justify a selection, and convince themselves that this makes the choice incontrovertibly right.

I mentioned the other day how many managers were picking Turner as a back-up goalkeeper this year probably only because he's first on the list of keepers in the 4.0 price category (he started some games last year; he won't this year). Similarly, a lot have gone for Flekken as their starter - because he's top of the list of 4.5 keepers (but only because he's the only one who didn't miss any games last season). If you make picks for such superficial reasons, you must expect to get punished for them.

6)  Superstition

Related to the earlier points about allowing emotions about a player or a club to affect your picks, many of us also get traumatised by past bad experiences (or unduly elated by good ones), whether in following a favourite team in the real EPL, or in our FPL efforts. If particular players, or particular game strategies ('Always use WildCard in GW8...  Always use Triple Captain in a Double Gameweek.... Always use Bench Boost in GW34.... etc., etc., etc.), have worked out particularly well, or badly for you, it's easy to become convinced that they must inevitably always work out the same way in the future. It ain't so: you have to try to rid yourself of that kind of mystical thinking.

7)  Being too 'reactive'

A lot of FPL managers - especially, but not only the less experienced ones - fall prey to the 'emotional rollercoaster' of immediate responses to the Gameweek's events, making impulsive choices to move a player out because of one bad performance,.... or move a player in because of one good one. Now, sometimes, of course, that will be a valid response to a situation. But you always have to look for an underlying trend - is there a reason why this player's 'form' suddenly appeared to change, and is that likely to continue, or might it just be a very short-term phenomenon or a one-off aberration?

This kind of hyper-reactvity plays into the next point as well....

8)  Falling in with the flock

Unfortunately, far too many FPL managers spend a lot of time exchanging their anxieties on online forums, or following the dubious advice of self-styled 'influencers', or.... treating the vapid content churned out by FPL's The Scout seriously....  And this tends to engender a 'collective mindset' - it can create a huge momentum towards buying certain players (and ditching others). All too often, alas, this is not a collective wisdom but a collective stupidity. (And even if the choices might be justified, their value is diminished by so many people going for them at once...)

Now, I will often counsel that you shouldn;t avoid a pick just because it has become very popular; but you certainly should not choose any player just because they're a popular pick.  It's fine to go along with the sheep so long as you've thought about the decision carefully for yourself and are confident there's a good reason for it - rather than just lazily assuming that the majority must know what they're doing (oh, dear me - NO!) or timorously seeking comfort in the idea of 'safety in numbers'. 

9)  Stubbornness

We all prefer being 'right' to being 'wrong'; we all like to think we're right all the time. And it can be very, very difficult to acknowledge the hard truth that this isn't so - to accept that we've made a mistake and need to backtrack on it.

Possibly the No. 1 most damaging mistake that FPL managers fall prey to is not making a very bad pick, but obstinately refusing to change that bad pick even when it's become very apparent how bad it is.

Though perhaps even more difficult is letting go of a good pick when it ceases to be a good pick....

There are probably a few more I could write on another time, but I think these are the main ones. I hope we can all avoid them as far as possible this season.  GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE!

How should you judge if your squad is any GOOD?

A little while ago, I took a moment to diss an online gizmo that claims to be using some sort of 'AI algorithm' to evaluate people's FPL squads. (It is - unsurprisingly - utter nonsense: not even bad, just fake.)

One of my main gripes was that it does not divulge any hint of the criteria on which it supposedly bases its ratings.

So... that got me to thinking, on what sort of factors should we try to assess how good our squad is looking for the start of the season?

I would suggest the following:

1)  Is the squad balanced for budget?

Do you have a good spread of player prices, some shrewd picks in all positions and across the low, middle and upper portions of the price spectrum? Having too many players from any one of those strata is probably not going to work.

2) Have you maximised your value-for-money?

As I said the other day in my post on picking a squad [link again below], you are not so constrained by budget for your top-end picks; but the further down the roster you go - money running very short as you approach the last half dozen or so selections - making sure you have good points-per-pound potential from every player is vital.

A related point I think I omitted then (which probably deserves its own post sometime) is that it's also worth considering overall price differential patterns - asking yourself not just 'Have I got a player with an excellent points-per-pound potential?' but 'Have I got the best points-per-pound player for the money I have left to spend here?'  This isn't entirely straightforward, because you find that the distribution of points return is uneven between different position categories and across different segments of the price spectrum: sometimes a particular price increment makes very little difference to the points returns available in a particular position category; elsewhere, you may find that the same price increment can make a substantial difference. You may well be surprised to discover on closer examination that it's a mid-priced midfielder or a semi-premium defender who will actually give you the biggest lift in points for an extra half-million or million pounds spent.

3)  Have you avoided 'false economies'?

I warned in my long post last week on 'How to pick the initial squad' that going for 'enablers' just because they're super-cheap tends to be a destructive strategy: players who never actually get on the pitch - or are terrible when they do - will soon disillusion their original ownership, and drop in price as a sell-off begins, leaching away your precious squad value  Even at the lowest price-points, there are some players who are nevertheless likely to start, occasionally even some who are quite good; and even if they're not yet starters, they might have a good prospect of getting at least a few first-team games fairly soon. Make sure your low-budget picks are players like this, not perpetual reserves.

(And if you take a chance on going with a non-starting back-up goalkeeper - which I wouldn't recommend! - make sure you get the best one possible, and one who is definitely first-in-line to take over if his starter should get injured or dropped.)

4)  Do you have some favourable rotation prospects for goalkeeper and defence?

Again, in the big 'How to....' post, I pointed out that keepers and defenders are best avoided in games where they might concede heavily; while, of course, there will also be games when they look likely to have much better prospects of a coveted clean sheet (and perhaps even an attacking contribution of some sort from the more progressive defenders); and in general, defending teams tend to do much better at home.  It is therefore very valuable to have a pair of keepers who largely alternate their home and away fixtures with each other.

And, since you'll generally only be starting 3 or 4 defenders, you have the option on your bench to rotate some of the defenders as well as your two keepers, trying to have the chance of optimising the fixtures of your starters each week. So, effectively spreading your defensive picks across clubs according to their pattern of home and away fixtures (and, if possible, their harder and easier fixtures as well) is a strong sign of a really well-chosen squad.

5)  Have you paid close attention to other possible implications of the fixtures?

Some clubs - even the leading ones - may have a dauntingly tough run of fixtures near the start of the season. Some are plunging into European competition after only a month, raising the prospect of fatigue and possible rotation for key players. Other clubs have particularly inviting fixture lists for the start of the season (Chelsea and Liverpool seem to have been particularly blessed this year!). So, while it's especially important to be able to steer your goalkeeeper and defenders away from particularly rough fixtures - and towards the ones where they may have a better chance of clean sheets - keeping an eye on the possible impact of shifting fixture difficulty is important across the whole team, and the whole squad.

6)  Have you spread risk?

Doubling or trebling up on teams, particularly in one area of the pitch, can be hugely risky, and is usually better avoided - at least at the start of the season, where there are so many uncertainties about what line-ups and tactics may be adopted, and what individual and team form is going to look like coming out of the summer break. So, it's better not to have too many players from one team - and definitely no more than one in the same position on the field.

And although promoted teams may offer some promising selections, particularly at the more budget end, most of us aren't really able to follow Championship football very much - so, we don't have a clear idea of what these players might be like until they've played their first few matches of this Premier League season. Moreover - sad as it is to say - in recent years most of the promoted sides have suffered from the huge gulf in class between the two leagues, haven't been able to adapt to the elevated intensity of the top flight, and have just served as punchbags for most of the established teams. So, again, it's probably best to steer clear of anyone from the promoted sides until we've seen some form from them - until they've reassured us that they're not going to be spanked every week and go straight back down.

Backing players from teams with new managers is also a big gamble, and one probably best avoided, as far as possible. It is likely that it may take Liverpool, Chelsea, Brighton, West Ham, and Leicester a month or two to find their feet this season.

7)  Have you taken some smart, carefully calculated gambles?

Although you generally want to avoid making too many big bets on unknown quantities (like whether Salah will immediately thrive again under Arne Slot, or whether Calafiori will be instantly integrated into the Arsenal back-four), it is worth taking a few calculated risks here and there. In particular, it's usually worth going for one or two players who might not look like surefire sensations - or perhaps not even guaranteed starters (although you really don't want to have more than one or two players who are at any risk of not being a regular first-pick) - but who offer a huge upside if they hit form (do they have the fixtures that will help with that??).

In addition to one or two such prospects in your main 11 - slightly less-fancied players, perhaps, that you have faith in to produce - you should also try to look out for one or two outright 'investment picks': players at the cheaper end of the scale who are only just emerging as prospects, and appear to be currently under-valued in the FPL pricing because they're not expected to get a regular start. If you believe that they are good enough to deserve some decent game time, even if it isn't a full 90 minutes every week, or, better, you can see that form and injury issues at their club make it very likely that they will soon get a run of starts, buy them - and enjoy watching their price go up as lots of other FPL managers come a little late to the party.

8)  Have you avoided obvious foot-shootings??

We all far too easily make some of our selection decisions... hastily, impulsively, without due thought or research... perhaps allowing ourselves to be influenced by peer pressure, the tide of modern social media, the 'sheep instinct' - if we see a lot of people making the same pick, we may assume they must be on to something and get tempted to follow along. That's almost always a bad idea.

Just to give one quick example, there has been a rush of Fantasy managers recently plumping for Brentford's Mark Flekken as their first-choice keeper. And that is kind of baffling - because there is nothing in his team's or his own form last year or in his stats to justify that choice; and he has the worst run of opening fixtures of any keeper this year. [I think I'll write one or two quick posts on classic examples of Bad Picks over the next week or so.]

There are a fair few more picks I see commonly on the forums at the moment that are obviously - or sometimes, not so obviously - BAD. If you're confident you've dodged any of those.... you're good to go.

In fact, if you've pondered all of the above considerations, and you can honestly say that you've ticked all the boxes - then, congratulations.  You probably do have a pretty damn good squad!

But you shouldn't have one YET (this first posted on... 3rd August, two weeks before the season gets underway), it's way too soon.  Remember what I said yesterday about the wisdom of keeping away from FPL, not giving it any thought.... until just before the Big Kick-Off.

DON'T jump the gun!

The Fantasy Premier League official website (and accompanying Facebook page) started getting active again even while EURO 2024 was still in progress, gradually teasing selected new player pricings during the last few days of the tournament... and then relaunching the game for the new season only two or three days after Spain's triumph in the Final.

And immediately the FPL forums were flooded with people anxiously obsessing over every little snippet of leaked information... AND sharing endless variations of DRAFT SQUADS. More than FOUR WEEKS before the season kicks off!!!  [The opening game this year is an evening kick-off between Manchester United and Fulham on Friday 16th August; the main programme gets under way on Saturday 17th.]

I know I'm not exactly modelling the best example here, with the amount of time I've spent writing for this blog over the last week, but.... there is such a thing as an  FPL/Life Balance, people! And spending hours and hours fretting about the game in pre-season is not conducive to maintaining that.

So much might yet happen before the Big Kick-Off - valuable hints about form and tactics and likely team selections  (not many, perhaps, but some...) emerging in the pre-season friendlies, players arriving or leaving in the summer transfer window, and, unfortunately, INJURIES. There really is no point in trying to select a squad - even provisionally - when we really have no idea who's going to be playing (and for which team!) on the GW1 weekend in mid-August. There is no point in even thinking about it.

It's not just a WASTE OF TIME - it's positively a BAD IDEA, something that will almost certainly lead to you making WORSE DECISONS about your selections.

Because of the way the human brain works... if you start looking at the player options, and allowing yourself to think, even vaguely, about possible squads, you will inevitably start making some decisions about your likely squad: decisions based on inadequate, incomplete, soon-to-be-outdated information; hence, in many cases at least, WRONG decisions. You probably won't be very self-aware about this; well, if you're even a little aware of it at the time, you'll almost certainly forget about it very quickly. But these proto-decisions - not always outright selections, but foundatioinal preferences and prejudices and assumuptions that will have a massive influence on selections - are mostly forming deep in your subconscious; and once they're there, they're very difficult to displace. The deep-rooted cognitive bias in favour of self-consistency means that once you've made a choice like this, it's very, very difficult for you to change your mind about it (especially if you don't realise you've made that choice, and/or don't know why you've made it!). There's a similar, very dangerous phenomenon called the 'anchoring bias' - which means you're very likely to make decisions based on the first one or two pieces of information you look at.

Anyone who's picked a squad two or three or four weeks out from the start of the season is VERY unlikely to have picked a good one. And they're also much less likely to be able to pick a good one later on... than someone who only starts pondering the options after the Community Shield.  [This year, the season's traditional curtain-raiser is being played between Manchester City and Manchester United on Saturday 10th August.]

I know I put out a BIG POST about 'How to pick the initial squad' just a few days ago...  I'm SORRY: I just wanted to get it out there in plenty of time before the start of the season, to give people a chance to discover it. I did not mean to encourage anyone to start trying to pick their squad straight away. (Bookmark that link, and come back to it in a week or two!)

The best time - the ONLY sensible time - to pick a squad for the new FPL season is.... on the afternoon of Friday 16th August.

Really, that is absolutely a TOP TIP!!  Try it next year.

How to choose the INITIAL SQUAD

I already dropped a couple of short preliminary posts on this topic of choosing the initial squad yesterday: one on the constraints of the budget, and one on the need to abandon any thought of trying to pick a team that would be balanced and workable in real life (all left-footers, all wide players, all short and cross-eyed.... it's all good: the only thing you're interested in is their Fantasy points return, not how thay might gel together on the pitch in reality).

Now, here's the complete 'How to....'.    (Well, as near as I can manage. I'll try to be concise!)

[Sorry - it did get a bit LONG....  Pace yourselves!  I put in bolded headings to make it easier for you to find the topics that might be particularly interesting to you.]

Some basic principles....

Focus on midfield

Midifielders get a point more than 'forwards' (5, rather than 4) for every goal scored. They also tend to be rather more likely than most of the game's 'forwards' to register assists.... and pick up bonus points. And, unlike 'forwards', they get free extra points for clean-sheet bonuses (only 1 per game; but that can add up nicely over the season, especially in teams with stronger defences). And, outside of the top handful of high-priced players, they tend to be rather cheaper than the 'forwards', sometimes quite a lot cheaper. So, attacking midfielders with exactly the same number of attacking contributions as the leading 'forwards' tend to get 20 or 30 or 40 pts per season more! The best midfield options in the game usually offer you more total points, and certainly more points-per-pound, than 'forwards'. (There are rarely more than 3 forwards in the top 10 or 12 overall FPL points scorers; often, only 1....)

And the formation rules only allow you to play a maximum of 7 midfielders and forwards. So... you really want to play 5 goalscoring midfielders as often as you can (and thus only 2 forwards; sometimes only 1 forward!).

The game generously classifies a lot of outright forwards as 'midfielders' (they claim they do this on the basis of last season's 'heat maps' for the players, but I'm not convinced...): Salah, Diaz, Son, Bowen, Mbeumo, Nkunku, Hwang, Semenyo, Rashford, etc. (and last season, Richarlison, Gakpo, and Havertz too!). There are also a lot of wingers who may score - and assist - almost as much as (or even more than) most of the game's 'forwards': Gordon, Barnes, Saka, Martinelli, Kulusevski, Johnson, Neto, Sarabia, Mitoma, Rogers, Bailey, Garnacho, Diallo, Hudson-Odoi, Elanga, Doku, Bobb, Kluivert, Harrison, etc., etc.  And then there are some highly creative midfielders who also offer a very strong goal threat: Palmer, DeBruyne, Foden, Bernardo Silva, Odegaard, Eze, Bruno Fernandes, Maddison, Kudus, Gibbs-White, etc.

Usually only a few of the very best 'forwards' will outscore any of these attacking midfield options. So, the midfield is where you need to focus most of your attention - and most of your budget.

Two playing goalkeepers, but not too expensive

Now, some people favour the strategy of taking a main keeper and a back-up keeper from the same club, to save a little money (a lot of the second-string keepers are only 4.0 million); the thinking being that you'll have a guaranteed instant replacement if your first choice should get injured or dropped.

There's something to be said for that. But many of the second strings aren't actually that good; and having a keeper change forced on you in the middle of the season naturally disrupts the rest of the team a bit, especially the defence; so, you might well get significantly weaker returns from that back-up keeper.

And more importantly, you probably want to try to keep even the best keepers away from the toughest fixtures: anyone could ship a ton of goals away to Liverpool or City or Arsenal, or maybe Newcastle and Spurs and Villa too... or any team that's currently in a hot run of scoring form. So, having two decent keepers that you can rotate around the most daunting fixtures can be very valuable. 

Almost all defences do much better in home games as well. So, it's worth considering a pair of keepers who largely alternate their home and away fixtures. This page on the FPL site shows you which teams are exactly fixture-matched in this way. But there are other combinations that work pretty well most of the time - for fixture difficulty as well as home/away advantage. Last year the Leno/Areola pairing fitted together very nicely.

So, I think trying to save money with a non-playing second keeper is a dangerous ploy, a false economy. But you also don't want to spend too much money on keepers. They don't score that many points overall (Jordan Pickford was the only one who made it into the 'Top 25' overall points-scorers in FPL last season; often there are no keepers that high up the ranking...). And there tends to be less of a differential points spread between keepers: Pickford ended up quite a way ahead of the pack last year (that's unusual), but there were only 20 points separating the next 6 - and then there were a few others who didn't play the whole season but were nearly as good as Pickford on their points-per-game return. Hence, it's difficult to justify paying a 'premium' price for one of the very best keepers, when some of the 4.5-million-pound options will probably do almost as well (and maybe, if you're lucky, even a little better). [That holds for the start of the season, at least. In the last few months, you might have some more budget to spare - because you've grown your squad value, or because some of the premium players you started with have lost form or got injured - and you can then consider upgrading to one of the top-scoring goalkeepers.]

Also... Beware of keepers from the top sides! It is paradoxical, but... City and Arsenal in particular are so good defensively that their keepers rarely get called upon to make saves. And the 'saves' points can actually be as important - or even more important - to a goalkeeper's points total as his clean sheets. Teams down in the relegation zone often have keepers who produce very good points, even if they hardly ever manage to keep a clean sheet.

Beware of central defenders

Clean sheets are, of course, hugely valuable. Although in recent seasons, with Liverpool and even City losing a bit of their defensive solidity, there haven't been as many of them. Maybe only one or two teams will post really good numbers for that. Last year, Arsenal were way out in front with 18 (which made everyone want to 'double up' on their defenders). The year before, somewhat surprisingly, it was Man Utd.  But some lower-ranked teams can be unexpectedly resilient: last year, relegation-battling Everton were actually one of the best defences in the League; the year before, Brighton and Brentford were well up towards the top of the heap, alongside Newcastle and Villa.

However, all members of a defence get the same points for a clean sheet - regardless of how good a defender they are. (Most people would agree that William Saliba is Arsenal's best defender, and maybe the best defender in the League now - but he doesn't get any more points for that!)  So, the top-scoring defenders are almost always full-backs, especially very advanced full-backs (or outright wing-backs), because they offer a better prospect of some attacking returns - assists, and maybe even the occasional goal - as well as defensive actions.

There are exceptions to this. There have been some defenders who mysteriously hoover up the bonus points every week (even when their side has lost!), because they get on the ball and play a lot of passes in addition to completing a lot of defensive actions: Cristian Romero was a prime example of that in the early part of last season. (But NB: changes to the system for allocating bonus points this year, with defenders and keepers much more heavily penalised for conceding, will likely mean that they get far fewer bonus points in games where they don't keep a clean sheet.)  Some central defenders don't just step up into deep midfield occasionally, but go marauding all the way forward and contribute around the edge of the opposition box too (Antonio Rudiger was a monster for this at Chelsea a few seasons ago!). Some are so aerially dominant that they become 'agents of chaos' in attacking set-pieces and pick up a surprisingly large number of assists and goals that way (the late, great Tyrone Mings was a prime exponent). And of course, most central defenders can occasionally be a goal-threat at set pieces (but you shouldn't get too carried away by that; very few defenders score more than 2 or 3 goals in a season; and even fewer do that in successive seasons; when defenders score 2 or 3 goals in a short space of time, it's almost always a transient streak.... not an emerging trend!).

Finally, as with keepers, there isn't usually that much of a differential points-spread between defenders (so, to some extent, it barely matters who you pick!). There are often a few players who are well ahead of the pack: we've seen some exceptional returns in recent years from Cancelo, Alexander-Arnold, and Trippier. But there's not usually all that much to choose between the best of the rest: last year Ben White ended up well out in front, but there were 14 other players who averaged between 3.5 and 4.5 points per game. Hence, it's very difficult to justify spending a premium price for a defender. You might go for one or two of them - people like White or Trippier, if they look likely to be fit and in-form (and playing on their favoured flank: White was switched back to the centre for a little while at the start of last season, and Trippier was moved over to the left for a few games). But there are a lot of good options at the 5.0 and 4.5 price points - and even a few likely starters at only 4.0 million.

Beware of central midfielders (BUT.. they may have their place!)

Rodri and Caicedo and Rice are fantastic players, yes, fan favourites, and crucial to the way their teams play.... but they're not likely to get anywhere near the top of the FPL scoring charts.

You only get 5 midfield picks; and, as I outlined above, there are 20 or 30 possibilities who are regular goal-scorers - most of these should comfortably out-point even the best central defensive midfielders (if they stay fit and in-form...).

Ah, but there might be exceptions.... (There are always some exceptions!)  There are some central midfielders who are more box-to-box, and get involved in the attacking third as well quite a bit (e.g., Bruno Guimaraes). There are some who at least sometimes play a much more advanced role - and/or may be on set-pieces or penalties (e.g., Pascal Gross, James Ward-Prowse). There may be others who are transitioning into a more progressive role where they will sometimes go on a bit of a scoring streak (e.g., Declan Rice). And there are some who have the happy knack of coming up with just a few goals a season, but somehow always in the most crucial games (Rodri!). Now, none of these are usually likely to be anywhere near the 'Top 10' FPL points-scorers in midfield (well, Rodri and Rice actually finished around 10th last season, but that is unusually high for a player of this type; and I doubt if they'll do quite that well again; an awful lot of the more attacking midfielders missed big chunks of last season with injuries), but... if you look at the points-per-pound return  (select the 'Value (season)' option for the display on the FPL stats page), you find that Rice and Rodri were the TOP TWO midfielders last season... and Guimaraes, Gross, Tomas Soucek and Andreas Perreira also got into the 'Top 10' or thereabouts.

So...  for the 4th or 5th midfield spot, when your budget's starting to get a bit thin, players like this are worth considering. But you certainly want at least 3 of your midfield picks - and, if possible, 4 or 5! - to be regular goal-scorers.

Value-for-money

That 'Value (season)' stats listing on the FPL website is one of the most valuable tools for squad selection. You always want to be thinking about getting the most bang-for-your buck from every pound of your squad budget; and this page will help you make choices to do that. If you're torn between two options, bear in mind that the one with the higher points total last season might be unreasonably priced. If his rival has only slightly fewer points, but a much better points-per-pound return - he's probably the one you should go with.

However, some of the super-premium players are worth having, regardless of their unimpressive points-per-pound. Haaland's points-per-pound figures are bound to be fairly terrible. (Last year, Watkins and Solanke were the only 'forwards' to make the 'Top 40' on this metric. The top of the rankings - apart from Cole Palmer - were almost all goalkeepers and defenders; then some defensive midfielders.)  Salah's and Son's too. But players like these offer you the prospect of a huge overall points total. Moreover, they return uncommonly reliably, 'blank' relatively infrequently (well, Son not so much...); and they usually produce quite a few really huge hauls each season - which it can be painful to miss out on.  Palmer and Foden, and perhaps a few others, now seem to have joined this elite corps of players too - players who are 'above budget': you have to consider including them regardless of how much they cost or what their points-per-pound value is.

But as you go through the selection process, the value-for-money consideration becomes more and more important. When you only have 5 or 6 or 7 slots left to fill, and your budget is down to perhaps 30 million or so, it is absolutely vital to target the players who offer you the highest points-per-pound.

Forwards??

The approach to selection here varies greatly from year to year. A few seasons back, we had a weird situation where almost none of the weaker teams had a decent forward, and just about all of the more promising options (Vardy, Bamford, Ings, Calvert-Lewin,...) missed most of the season with injuries - leaving Harry Kane as just about the only worthwhile forward pick for long periods. There happened to be a lot of high-returning attacking full-backs that year too, so we found ourselves often going with a 4-5-1, or occasionally even a 5-4-1 formation - but that's a bit of a freak.

Two years ago, it was looking like Haaland was an inevitable pick for everyone, massively ahead of any of his rivals (except perhaps for Kane, who was getting ready to depart). But then Ollie Watkins began to show that he was a significant force too; and last season he actually out-pointed Haaland (though only because the lanky Viking missed two months of the season with injury). Alexander Isak, although a big injury worry, is also looking very potent. And we now have a wealth of promising options at lower price-points too: Mateta, Cunha, Muniz, Wood, Awoniyi, Joao Pedro... maybe Evan Ferguson, when he gets fit again.

The main dichotomy in strategy this season appears to be: take Haaland and/or Watkins (+ 1 other top striker, if you opt for only one of them; I might rather have Isak than either of them...), OR take 3 more mid-priced strikers.

Since, as I explained above, it's usually not a good idea to start more than 2 of your strikers (as there are plenty of goalscoring midfielders to choose from, who give you more points for the same goal contribution - and often for slightly less money too), you can probably save money with your third striker pick and go for a promising prospect in the 5.5-6.5 range. [As it happened, there were so many good performances in this price bracket - with veterans Wood, Welbeck, Raul and Vardy suddenly showing great form again early in the season, as well as strong newcomers Delap, Strand Larsen, and Evanilson - that you could in fact take all three strikers from the cheap end of the spectrum. With so many of the usually high-scoring midfielders having a spotty start to the year, it even became attractive to start all three strikers quite often! This, again, was a real freak circumstance.]

Haaland, Watkins, and Isak are - pretty unarguably - the three strongest striker picks this year; and almost everyone will be going with TWO of those, and one other. (No, there won't be a lot of differentiation on the forward line. Don't sweat it!)

I feel that the 'mid-priced' forwards are effectively priced out of contention this year: those priced between 7.0 and 8.0 million - Solanke, Mateta, Havertz, Alvarez, Gakpo, Darwin Nunez, Jesus, Hojlund, Richarlison, Toney, Wilson, Jackson [Zirkzee might be an exception??] - just don't bear comparison with the 'Holy Trinity' of Haaland-Isak-Watkins; but they're too expensive for that third slot that you're hardly ever going to use. (And, frankly, I don't think they're as good as some of the cheaper options - Cunha, Awoniyi, Wood, Muniz, and maybe Duran, if he moves to a club that will give him a start.)

Whether or not we can afford Haaland (plus 2 or 3 other premiums, such as Salah, Palmer or Foden) is the huge question of the moment for FPL enthusiasts... and I'll probably discuss that more in a later post.

Beware false economies - you NEED your bench!

A lot of FPL managers fall in thrall to the concept of the 'budget enabler': the idea that it's worth getting a few players at the cheapest possible price-point because it will give you a little bit more to spend on your starting eleven. Now, sure, it is useful - necessary, even - to have a few very cheap players to make the budget work for you. (This year, I'd probably go for 2 goalkeepers at only 4.5 each, 1 or perhaps even 2 defenders at 4.0, and most of the rest at 4.5; and a very cheap third forward and fifth midfielder.)

But a lot of people just grab blindly for the very cheapest options, without giving any thought to whether they bring any value to the squad. As I said above, every pound of that initial 100 million is important; every single one of them needs to be put to work. If you have a bench stacked with reserve-team players who will never get a start, you are storing up trouble for yourself!

The rate of injuries in the modern game has become insane over the last few years. Even 15 or 20 years ago, serious hamstring problems would only crop up a few times a season at any club, and ACL tears were quite a rarity across the entire League; last year, almost every single club had 3, 4, 5 players ruled out with injuries like that at any one time. I had to replace 55 players over the season because of injury (about 20 more than my previous worst season!); and that was serious injuries, not just minor knocks that might sideline someone for 2 or 3 gameweeks. You might get some sort of injury problem almost every week.... sometimes 2 or 3 or 4 in one week! And they often happen at the last-minute (even sometimes in the pre-match warm-ups!!), giving you no opportunity to transfer the affected player out. If you don't have a playing bench, sooner or later - probably sooner - you are going to find yourself putting out a team of only 10 (or 9, or 8...) men, and haemorrhaging points as a result.

And with so much pressure on the (these days, entirely inadequate) number of Free Transfers, you can't afford to waste those on short-term changes: if a player has a minor knock, or a suspension, or is likely to be rested for one weekend after some gruelling European ties, or just faces a particularly unpromising fixture next... you want to drop him to the bench, not move him out of the squad. That kind of thing also happens a lot.

So, by all means look for some ultra-cheap players to fill out the squad. But make sure they are regular starters - or at least have a decent chance of becoming so. (Valentin Barco, for example, might not be a nailed-on choice at Brighton, but does seems likely to get a few games at the start of the season because so many of their other defenders are currently injured.)  And try to get the best players you can: there are still choices to be made, even at these very low price-points. And it is worth paying just a little bit extra for a bench player who can actually give you a chance of some decent points, if you need to call on him.

Have an eye to 'investment picks'

On a related point to that last one... Another fatal drawback to choosing cheap players who don't play is that they become toxic assets. A lot of managers have probably included them because they mistakenly believe that they will play, or at least hope that they will; and they will start selling them off when they discover that they are nowhere near to getting a start (or they just discover early on how badly they need a proper bench!) - and their prices will crash.

It is essential to try to steadily boost your squad value (again, this is worth another post or two all of its own; I'll try to get around to it) - so that, after a few months, you might have an extra 2 or 3 million pounds available with which to upgrade your squad... perhaps get in one more of those coveted premium-price players that you couldn't quite afford at the start of the season.

In order to boost squad value, you need to avoid any players whose price is likely to drop (or quickly get rid of them if their price starts dropping), but seek out players whose price is likely to rise. These are what I call 'investment picks'. You might not actually fancy them for a long-term hold; you might never put them in your starting eleven, except in an emergency - but they can help you to grow your budget. The best prospects for this are usually fairly cheap. (Cheap players are usually lower-owned initially, but also more attractive as new acquisitions because of their accessibility. And price increases are mainly dependent on the percentage change in ownership - so, a relatively low-owned player who quickly gains 100,000 or 200,000 more owners is likely to shoot up in price.)  They are often conspicuously under-priced - either because they had a disappointing season last year (perhaps just because of injury absences, rather than actually playing poorly when they did turn out), or because they're new to the League (transfers in from overseas, or promoted youth team players) and no-one really knows how good they might be yet. And they're often on the brink of breaking into the first team, but it's not clear if they're quite there yet. If you can correctly anticipate that someone is going to get a run in the first team because of an injury or a crash in form for the usual starter.... you've got a good 'investment pick'. (I already mentioned Barco as an example. And Conor Bradley or Jarrell Quansah at Liverpool could be tempting to take a chance on for similar reasons - at least at some point during the season.)

Watch out for budget 'windfalls'

A lot of people seem to be grumbling at the moment that there aren't as many good options available at the lowest price-points as there have been in some previous seasons (I'd disagree with that, but...). Perhaps the main reason for that is that it's still too early. Late transfer activity usually brings in some very good new potential picks, often attractively priced down at around 5.0 million, or even 4.5 million - or, occasionally, if you're very, very lucky, at 4.0 million. The 'poster boy' for this phenomenon is, of course, Cole Palmer, who went from perpetual bench-warmer at City to Ballon d'Or fodder with Chelsea (well, you know, if they'd had any European football last year...). But last year also saw Areola's sudden promotion over Fabianski in goal for West Ham. And a couple of seasons before that, Neco Williams made an eve-of-season transfer from the Liverpool bench to a start with Nottingham Forest. So, 4.0-million pound starters, even, occasionally, quite good ones, can just drop in your lap out of nowhere right before the Big Kick-Off.  Be patient, and keep your fingers crossed.

In particular, keep an eye on low-key domestic moves. Very often 'Big Six' clubs will sell or loan out some of their surplus squad players or rising youth team stars to one of the lower-table or newly promoted sides: these can be particularly useful low-budget picks. But such moves often happen very late in the day; and they don't usually make big headlines.

And FORGET about 'differentials'!!!

This is another topic that should one day get a post all of its own (maybe a whole series of 'em!). Suffice it to say that I find this one of the most worthless, the most exasperating, the most overused and misused of all FPL jargon terms. The problem with it is that most managers seem to have a very muddled idea of what it really ought to mean: for most of them, in fact, it seems to be primarily interpreted as: 'Avoid good players because a lot of other managers will have them...'  This is, of course, self-harming nonsense. Utterly BATSHIT CRAZY, in fact.

People glance through the forums where FPL obsessives (like me, I know...) are frenziedly sharing their draft squads (already: three weeks before the season starts!), and if they see someone with several of the same players they have, they moan, "Oh, he's got ALL the same players as me." (NO, he doesn't; he might have 6 or 7 or 8 of the same players; but that's it.)  Then he finds one or two more who also seem to have some of the same players as him, and moans again, "EVERYONE has the same squad as me."  (NO, they don't. A lot of managers may have many of the same players as you.... but NOT  EVERYONE.)

Even the guys or gals who are most like you in their picks probably have no more than 7 or 8 of the same players. That means you have at least 3 unique picks in your starting eleven. And probably an entirely different bench. And maybe different captain and/or vice-captain picks as well. Your teams/squads are perfectly well differentiated. Even across the whole 10 million or so teams that will be regustered over the next few weeks, it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be more than a relatively small handful - and in many gameweeks, absolutely none at all - that are an exact match for yours. (And probably only ever for the starting eleven, not the whole squad. And that will only ever be a one-off, for one gameweek. NOBODY is going to duplicate your team for the entire season,... or even for two weeks in succession.)

Stop fretting about how many other people might be choosing a particular player. Just choose the players you think are going to bring in the most points... and see how you get on.

And finally.... just to recap on a couple of suggestions from yesterday's posts:

I recommend listing all the premium-priced players you might be interested in (if you can dismiss some from consideration right at the start, that's a big help). For all the ones you'd really like to squeeze into your squad, assign them a running-order - the order in which you'll be willing to sacrifice them if you have to.

And since deciding whether or not we can afford to do without Erling Haaland this season is a HUGE question for everyone at the moment, and one that's causing most of us a lot of difficulty, I also suggest... compiling TWO provisional draft squads: one WITH Haaland and one WITHOUT. Put them side by side, and see which one calls to you more....

OK, that's it.   SORRY it got so LONG.....

And SORRY: I really didn't want to encourage anyone to start picking their squads just yet. As I explained in this subsequent post, I think the beginning of August is WAY TOO EARLY to be giving any thought at all to your selections; you really don't want to start doing that until as late as possible before the BIG KICK-OFF.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE  FOR THE SEASON AHEAD!!!

You're not picking a REAL team! (Another 'Picking the initial squad' preliminary)

This might seem very obvious - but I think it needs to be said.

A lot of people - maybe just unconsciously, not with any self-aware deliberation - fall into an idea of picking a team that could actually play: a 'balanced' team..... with a mixture of left-sided and right-sided players, centre-backs as well as full-backs, one or two solid central defensive midfielders as well as some free-spirited creatives, and a ruthless single-minded goal-poacher along with a more unselfish support striker up front. Lovely: that might well be the 'best' real team you could draw from the ranks of Premier League players, it could work beautifully on the grass.

But an FPL squad does not require you to follow any of those sensible pricniples, and they are better abandoned. Three centre-forwards, five 'No. 10s', and five left wing-backs would be awful in reality; but it's perfectly OK in Fantasy - in fact, it's probably the right way to go!

Even the No. 10s might not be necessary. There are so many outright strikers generously classified by the game as 'midfielders' that you probably want to go with as many of those as you can afford. So, you might be putting together a squad with 7 or 8 strikers and 5 full-backs. It might feel weird, wrong... but it's absolutely fine: it's the right thing to do.

My big post of tips on that tricky first squad selection will drop sometime tomorrow.

Budget is a BEAST (A 'How to pick the initial squad' preliminary)

100 million quid might look like quite a lot (wouldn't turn it down as a Lottery win!!), but.... it's really NOT.  Picking that first squad at the beginning of the football year is a real challange.

I like to start a new season (and returning managers might like to try this too) by reassembling my players from the end of last year. (all those that haven't transferred out of the League), and seeing how much they are over budget now. Since I've usually grown my squad value to at least 105 million by the end of the year, and since I have all good players, who often jump up in price by at least 0.5 or 1.0 million... it's usually somewhere in the 110-115 million range, occasionally even more.

Here's another fun little exercise you can try, just to hammer home how limiting this budget cap is. Don't look at the individual player prices, just quickly pick a full squad of 15 - all the players you instinctively feel are likely to be the best for the season. See how much that costs. It's quite likely to be at least 120 million, maybe even 130 million.

Suitably chastened? Right, now you can get started on the selection process properly.....

This year the big price change is Cole Palmer's record-shattering one-season increase from 5.0 to 10.5 million.

Though perhaps even more momentous is Erling's Haaland's 1-million pound bump up to 15 million, which, although it's a much more modest percentage increase, may shift him over a crucial threshold where - for many FPL managers - it just won't seem viable to have him any more.

However, two big price increases on the most popular players might not mean that much in isolation. You have to consider pricing in its global context - how much everyone else is priced at this time. Foden has also seen a big price rise. And, unlike last year, almost none of the other 'big name' players have seen a drop. Moreover, there are as yet very few likely starters at the extreme low end of the price scale (but that may yet change: be patient).

So, the initial budget is quite squeezed this year - in a way it hasn't really been for about the last three seasons or so. Hence, the initial squad selection is likely to be quite a disorienting ordeal even for some of the more experienced Fantasy managers; for first-timers just joining the game, it could be an especially daunting prospect. Have courage: the conundrums are soluble.

Actually, I am for once quite favourably impressed with the faceless FPL gnomes who sort out all this stuff. The aim of the overall pricing structure should be to make the first squad selection difficult-but-not-impossible, it should force you to make some really tough choices. They haven't really managed that so well in recent years. But this year. I think they have.

 

'To Haaland, or not to Haaland...' is the big question right now (and I'll probably address it in detail in a week or two).  It is looking very difficult to include him along with more than one or two of the other most coveted, high-priced players... without leaving the rest of the squad extremely weak.

I would suggest making two initial drafts, one centred on Haaland and one omitting him. Then compare the two, and go with the one that looks strongest.  (And if you really can't choose, flip A COIN!!)

But it's not just Haaland. Look at all the other players who are premium-priced. If they're at 10 million or above (6 million for defenders or goalkeepers), we might consider them super-premium. Write out a list. They might all be players that you'd really want in an ideal world. This isn't that world; this is a mean, cruel world - where you have to make tough choices.

See if there are any you can dismiss from consideration right away, as not being absolutely essential. Then assign a running-order of desirability to the others... the order in which you'll have to let them go, one by one, if the budget won't stretch.

Accept the necessity of making these sacrifices. It might be some of your favourite players, perhaps players who've served you very well in the last few years of Fantasy. Hard luck - they might have to go! It might be very vexing, frustrating, upsetting... but you've got to do it.

If you've got the list down to 4 or 5 players, you could stick them all in your provisional squad. But be warned, once you've juggled with the less expensive options elsewhere, you might find yourself still needing to consider letting one or two more of them go.

This is the dance. Get used to it.