Casually Condemning Casuals

Being casual is causing consternation among veteran Fantasy Football managers. The standoff is between those that don’t like the term and those that roll it out at every opportunity.

For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to those with a casual attitude to Fantasy football, who rarely look at fixtures and form and certainly never look at underlying statistics and emerging trends. They just shoot from the hip, spending mere seconds managing their team each week.

A key debate has emerged as to whether the term should be used so freely as a criticism. Casual Fantasy Football managers do exist. They always have. They are a certain percentage of the 3.5 million that play the Fantasy Premier League game. They happily go about their business, doing their thing and neither know nor care that this debate is ongoing.

But they are just one of many groups that make up the Fantasy Football family, a key point that is often overlooked.

For starters there are the ghosts, who are so casual that all they do is set up a team and leave it for the season. They affect ownership and Gameweek ranks just as much as those who play casually week to week. These are not casuals, they are ghosts who haunt the season.

Also the non-casuals are very diverse. They have their own sections. Dullards, Mavericks, Traditionalists, Knee-jerkers, Hit-takers, Non hit-takers, Streakers, Luckless, Statisticians, Gut-feelers, Sheep and so on. To say the Fantasy football community is made up of just casuals and non-casuals is far too simplistic.

Another problem with the term casual is that it is over used. What may appear casual to a hardened veteran of Fantasy Football may actually just be a gut-feeler, who acts on instinct.

Casuals have also become a convenient group to blame when dedicated Fantasy management plans go array. To dismiss those who captained Riyad Mahrez in Gameweek 1 as casual fails to understand the nuances of why people make decisions. While this may appear a carefree move, it may also be the move of a Fantasy manager who paid close attention to Leicester’s team sheets during friendlies and spotted him becoming more integral to their attack from the wing.

And what of a Fantasy manager who attempted to play his Wildcard but forgot to press the button after making 52 points’ worth of hits? Surely a casual? Actually no, this happened to 2013/14 Fantasy Premier League champion Tom Fenley, not someone that could be accused of being casual.

Hardcore players who study statistics, tables, pay membership, watch price rises, etc. may display casual traits without being casual. Some managers in the past have refused to ever pick Luis Suarez, simply because they didn’t like him. Given the former Liverpool man’s fine form while in the Premier League, this decision is arguably stupid, but certainly not casual. Avoiding him actually took far more careful thought and planning than simply drafting him in.

Are those who kept Theo Walcott despite rotation concerns casuals? My mini-league rival still owns him because he rates him as a player. He is also a seven-year veteran of Fantasy football and big fan of statistics, so another who could be unfairly given the casual tag.

Motivation in playing Fantasy football is also something to be taken into account before liberally using the word casual. For some, overall rank is meaningless and head-to-head competitions or specific mini-league victories rule supreme. This means that decisions may be based on countering a rival rather than what is logically the right move over time.

The introduction of chips this season in FPL has also added to the casual debate. Many managers have already used some of these. Are they casual for not saving them for a carefully planned double Gameweek and Wildcard strategy? Perhaps, but if their chips have already borne fruit, maybe they are the ones that will be proved right.

This is an unusual season. The Dullards, who fear risky decisions and stick to heavy hitters, are feeling it the most. Mavericks and Form pickers are being rewarded; some may be doing this by accident, but many will be seasoned managers who just play the game differently.

In short, the problem with the term casual is the casual use of it, especially by those who are currently struggling. Not everyone that is scoring more than you is a casual. Don’t assume someone is casual just because they are outside your perceived norm.