Fantasy Football
New Poll - this season’s flops
So who has been the biggest Fantasy flop thus far? I’ve just added a new poll that should go some way to answering that one. Tough one though, there’s quite a few candidates that have let us Fantasy Managers down so far so it will be interesting to see how the voting goes over the next couple of weeks.
As for the previous poll - there’s little doubt about the top candidates for the Premiership’s top scorer, the Arsenal pairing of Van Persie and Adebayor dominated the vote with over 55% between them. Van Persie was your top choice, and who is to argue after his brace at the weekend, with 32% of the total votes. Anelka and Torres were the nearest challengers to the Arsenal pairing.
ContinuedWeekend Team News Updated
Can You Kick it? Well yes, you really should
Another game that’s recently launched that you should definitely run you beady eye over is “Can You Kick It”. Developed by ISM, the team behind the superb
Caught Offside Game Launches
If you’ve yet to decide where to place your registration or even if you’re just looking for another to dabble in this season (let’s face it, one is never enough), then there are a number of new games that have cropped up in the last few weeks that you can consider. The first of which can be found over at the very excellent blog - Caught Offside.
Members of the Sportingo network, Caught Offiside have partnered with the Fantasy League to launch their version of the game with their own league. Based on the Fantasy League’s Classic game (IMO the best solo game out there), it’s identical, with the added bonus of competing with members of the Sportingo network and Caught Offside with additional prize money up for grabs.
ContinuedTips Guide - Selecting Forwards
Having spouted no end of nonsense about the theories behind selecting Goalkeepers, Defenders and Midfielders, my fourth and final tips guide examines the fine art of selecting the Forward players that will win you leagues. The process I’ve gone through with these guides might be logical, but I can’t make the same promises about the content. Regardless, once again the article is full of my opinion on the players you have in front of you when you’re consulting that player list over the next fortnight so you might, just might, find something useful amongst the seveal thousand words I’ve written.
ContinuedNew Poll - the overseas signings
I’ve just added a new poll to gather opinion on a subject that we all need a view on - which of the new overseas arrivals offers the biggest points haul. Should be an interesting one which might prove handy as we approach the kick-off.
By the way, my last poll revealed that 65% of visitors felt that Sunderland would make the biggest impact on the Premiership with Birmingham gathering 26% and Derby just 9%. Certainly in pre-season, it appears that Birmingham are showing the best goalscoring form, while Derby are stuttering and look to be in need of some new blood in the next fortnight.
ContinuedTips Guide - Selecting Midfielders
These tips guides continue to prove popular so here’s the latest. In this guide I take a look at selecting Midfielders and talk through a process that can be used to narrow the player list and make it easier to compare players using a number of factors. That’s all probably nonsense but I’ve also included a load of player tips, which is probably nonsense too, but will hopefully encourage you to take a look.
ContinuedThe Times - Still no clearer
Has anyone sussed this out yet? I know you’re looking at me but honestly, I’ve had another go tonight and I’m completely lost. I even looked to register a team but it seems to do so you have to join a public league or create a private one. There are no tools to find a public league other than sorting the long list - even though the registration takes your home town and supported club, the game doesn’t think to group managers in public league according to these. Instead it seems you have to take pot luck.
Worse still is that you don’t seem to actually pick a side but instead rank players in the world and then these players are allocated at a given date by the game based on these rankings you set. This means only one team in your league will get Rooney etc but I’m still confused as to how this actually works. Plus it appears that allocation doesn’t take place if the league is not full. Guess what - right now there is only one league that appears to be anywhere near full and plenty that have allocation dates set after August 11, presumably because the chairman of those leagues are as much in the dark on this game as I am. And I haven’t even started examing the scoring system in depth - nice and simple? You’ve got to be joking. It looks like the Times have found the most complex scoring system known to man.
I’ll have another go tomorrow.
ContinuedStrange Times
Okay, so the Times have launched the Fantasy Football game. You may or may not know that last season The Times game was…err, a bit of a fiasco. So the organisers had to shake things up a bit. Just a bit. They didn’t have to reinvent the whole concept of Fantasy Football and introduce a whole set of rules that included ranking players and something called “Rotisserie Scoring” (I think I bought a chicken from a “Rotisserie” at the weekend). Sadly, the Times have done just that. The game is open for registration but comes with an FAQ as long as your arm and a list of rules that I haven’t got close to working out yet. I’ll be registering and trying to decipher the code the Times has created later today. Early impressisons are the Times have gone way too far but come back to me later. By they way, they’ve also set up a news service that provides football news but with a Fantasy Football slant. Why didn’t I think of that?
ContinuedThree more games to consider…
Several new Fantasy games launched earlier this week with Channel 4 revealing their monthly game “powered by†the Fantasy League. The Metro Premier Fantasy Football and the Mail Online Fantasy Game also both opened their doors to registrations and team selections. Last season both these games also licensed the Fantasy League rules and scoring system, however this season it seems that the Metro have turned instead to Silent Manager to “power†their game while over at the Mail, Jamie Redknapp has ousted Motty as the face of their game – should have done something with your hair Motty.
Bad decisions all round there if you ask me. Anyway, I’ve had a look at each of these games today and updated my reviews section according to you can assess their suitability for your mini-league at work or your solo registration fee. Check out the reviews here.
ContinuedFantasy League Selection Stats
As promised the Selection Stats for the Fantasy League games are up and runnning. You can use these to view stats for players for all the Fantasy League’s games including the Classic game that was fully launched yesterday. The stats include a full run down of goals, assists, clean sheets etc from last season and also the rather useful “points per game” and “points per million” stats based on last years points totals.
This final stat reveals some interesting discoveries, including the fact that if Ronaldo repeats his points total from last season, he is by far and away the best value midfielder in the Classic game, despite his £7.3 million price tag. Only Arteta gets close to offer such value per million based on last season’s points. Up front it’s Viduka who appears to offer the best value if he can reproduce the 52 points of last season. Meanwhile at the back it’s Everton’s centre-backs - Lescott and Yobo squeezed between John Terry, that looked best priced based on last season’s tally. While Liverpool’s full-backs - Finnan and Riise fair best in this position.
Have a good look around the stats for yourself here.
ContinuedFantasy League Classic opens
The Fantasy League have opened sign-ups for their Classic game. Having started pre-registration a fortnight ago, you can now go in and pick your 16-man squad from the player list. You can also view the player list without sign-up here. First glance reveals few misclassifications with Matt Taylor and Paul Scharner both classed as midfielders. The game is however, the first to classify Birmingham’s McSheffrey as a Forward. There are also some points of interest. Like the Fantasy Premier League game, this game tips Ballack for a good season, ranking him at £5.2 million alongside Gerrard. In addition they don’t seem to fancy Reading too much - both Doyle and Lita are placed in the mid to low bracket which could make them bargains, particularly Doyle who seems to be getting a tough deal from most games this season.
I’ll have a closer look at these, and hopefully produce some selection stats for this game, tomorrow night. In the meantime you’ll find a full review of the Fantasy League Classic game here.
ContinuedThe Sun is out…
The Sun’s Dream Team became the latest Fantasy game to launch today. It’s popularity with multi-entrant managers boosted once more this season by a huge £500,000 prize pot, with the winner grabbing £150,000. That’s fair play to be honest because anyone who can live with the Sun’s rather farcical scoring system over the course of the season deserves that kind of reward.
This year, to rank alongside the silliest scoring rule in Fantasy Football (points awarded to the Keeper for a penalty save, even if the penalty goes in off the post), the team behind the “Dream Team” have dreamt up another convoluted scheme to get you buying their papers, namely the fact that your players score extra points for being named in the News of the World “Dream Team” of the day. However, here’s the twist - that “day” in question is Saturday and so only those players turning out on a Saturday can earn these points. Genius. Suddenly players belonging to teams that Sky find unattractive propositions for TV viewers, suddenly become rather attractive for Dream Team players. I’m not naming any names here…
Anyway, go register an unfeasible number of teams for your slice of the big Sun pie. May all the penalties against you go in off the post and may your internet connection be rock solid during those lovely enforced transfer windows. Check out my review of the Sun’s game if you’re, for some reason, in two minds on this one.
ContinuedTips Guide - Selecting A Keeper and Defence
My first guide proved pretty popular, so as promised, I’ve worked on another one, filled with yet more ill-advised opinions and player tips. This time I’ve got all specific and, as the title suggests, focused on the factors to consider when selecting your Keeper and Defence. You just choose Cech and fergetaboutit right? Not quite, I love to complicate things…
Continued
