Fantasy Football Veterans’ Template Team

In Nisag17’s recent community article The FPL Template Team it was pointed out that the suggested team template of popular picks was that of a casual Fantasy manager and  not that of a seasoned and intellectual veteran player of the  Fantasy Premier League game . I thought I’d present the current template team, gleaned from the posts of the Fantasy Football Scout community, to assess what the veterans’ template team would look like.

Veteran Fantasy Managers’  Template Team

Begovic Krul

Lovren Debuchy Ward Caulker Wisdom

Hazard Ramsey Mata Lamela/Eriksen Sigurdsson

Rooney Costa Bojan

Hang on a second, that team is valued at £103, what gives?…

Who said that the template team had to be on budget? It would make sense that it would be slightly over and then allow for an individual’s preference. The above team reflects veteran managers’  tendency to overlook defence as much as possible in order to attain six or sometimes seven mid/fwd lock players. From looking at the above team an individual will immediately be able to tell what area they wish to weaken/strengthen and tinker from there. So where do people look to save and splash the cash based on the above template?

Goalkeepers

The Asimir Begovic and Tim Krul duet is fairly common. Players looking to save in this area generally select Krul + a 4.0/4.5. The only upgrade here is David De Gea + 4.0/4.5. Although Tim Howard has a high ownership in the game most veteran managers see through last year’s high score to his average opening fixtures – logic that is a common theme in template decisions.

Defenders

As always defence is disregarded, with the most common choices among veteran Fantasy Football managers being Joel Ward and Steven Caulker. Dejan Lovren and Mathieu Debuchy are secure and of reasonable value, but most players want to spend elsewhere and immediately look to downgrade to a 4.0 (Alex Bruce) or 4.5/5.0 player from a mid-table team. The common and almost only upgrade is to a Chelsea player (Gary Cahill).

Midlfielders

As players have already cheaped out on GK and DEF, there is a lot more license to spend here. You will find two of Eden Hazard, Aaron Ramsey and Juan Mata in most teams, very few have none and if so they have three big forwards. Erik Lamela or Christain Eriksen is the most generic player in the template as the fourth midfield position varying greatly, but Gylfi Sigurdsson as a 5th is an all too common site. Hazard down to Cesc Fabregas is extremely popular while Mata can also be left out due to Wayne Rooney’s presence. Downgrade options here are Jordan Henderson and Ashley Young, or if you’re tight, Dean Marney among others.

Forwards

Wayne Rooney and Diego Costa feature throughout all veteran’ teams, and around  80% seemingly have both. Stoke’s Bojan Krkic also appears to hit somewhere near the 80% mark. Downgrades/alternatives here include Shane Long, Charlie Austin and Bobby Zamora. Quite a few veterans opt for a three-pronged attack it seems.