A Guide To Team Selection

This is an insight into general things to consider when selecting a lineup for the season. There are specific things to take into account for positions like Goalkeepers and Defenders which I will go into in another article. This guide however looks generally at how you identify and more importantly, rule out, players for your team.

This isn’t written with any particular Fantasy Game in mind, it applies to them all. Having said that, squad games do give you more freedom to risk an injury prone player or perhaps one who picks up a few cards. Even in these games however, injuries, suspensions and dreaded rotation, can be an acute pain in the posterior.

Transfers can of course be used to fix problems in your side throughout the season but a solid foundation of reliable players can free up those precious transfers. Using them to capture form players and to sign emerging talents rather than to fix problems with your starting lineup, is one of the keys to success. So here’s some points to consider before you snuggle up to that player list…

Look for Out of Position or misclassified players

The old chestnut. When exploited for an advantage, these are players classified as defenders when played in midfield or classified as midfielders when played as Forwards. It’s an obvious one but every season there are one or two classic examples to be had. Portsmouth’s Matt Taylor in 2006-07 was the top-scoring defender in many Fantasy Games – but he played 95% of the season on the left of Pompey’s midfield and cracking one long range goal after another. His clean sheets tally wasn’t disastrous either. Taylor was widely classed as midfielder last season so that one was corrected but there are always some that slip through the net.

Going into this season there is a chance for example that the likes of Ashley Young at Villa, Dirk Kuyt at Liverpool and Saloman Kalou at Chelsea will be given midfield classifications when all three could easily be employed as forwards by their clubs. Theo Walcott’s classification is another one to look for if he looks like getting regular games for Arsenal.

The best method of finding misclassified players is to keep an eye on the pre-season games and watch for managers trying players out in new roles. I’ll keep you posted here on the site on any developments in this area.

Look for “Sleepers”

Every season there are players who under perform either through injury, morale or just a serious loss of form. These players can they awaken to find their former self a season later and soar back up the Fantasy scoring charts. Fantasy games base a lot of their player values on last season’s form so you can sometimes get a real bargain by anticipating players that will return to top form for the season to come.

West Ham always seem to have a few of these, mainly due to chronic injury problems. Dean Ashton and Craig Bellamy are two good examples. Benni McCarthy at Blackburn is another. Check out my reviews of the season for each position – in these articles I list the notable sleepers which should offer you some decent help on finding some likely candidates going into the season.

Look for New Arrivals

There are two sources of new arrivals to look for. Players that come up with promoted sides and new foreign imports.

Finding gems amongst the promoted players is possible because they often offer good value. Promoted players don’t have Premiership form by which the game organisers can base their values. In 2006-07 it was Reading’s Kevin Doyle that came up with a promoted side and quickly became a massive asset to Fantasy Managers. It took many by surprise and yet, his potential was there to be found in his stats for Reading in the Championship the previous season. Last season we had a similar situation, if to a lesser extent, with Birmingham’s Seb Larsson. He turned out to be a very decent budget midfield purchase which many jumped upon mid-season. Finding good budget buys early is always best though, since it gives you the ultimate flexibility with the money you will save. Therefore finding these quality signings that can be grabbed at a premium early on, will give you an advantage when it comes to your initial squad selection. Get them in later and you’ll often have to use multiple transfers to maximise the money you will save.

Taking a glance at this years promoted sides and straight away Liam Lawrence at Stoke and Roman Bednar at West Brom are names that stand out for me. One look at the table of set-piece takers tells you all you need to know about Lawrence. He might be part of a Stoke side who are expected to struggle in the Premiership but he is central to almost all their set-pieces and Stoke boss Pulis could well identify set plays as an effective means of getting an advantage on rival sides. Bednar at West Brom meanwhile is an emerging talent and a likely starter. Both players should be available within the budget price range in which ever game you elect to play.

Defensively there are a good few goalscoring defenders coming into the Premiership with their promoted sides. Leon Cort and Ryan Shawcross scored 8 and 7 goals respectively in the Championship last season and although I can’t imagine they’ll repeat that this term, they could be decent short-term prospects when Stoke’s fixtures look kind. I can also see Shawcross earning FPL bonus on the occasions that Stoke do keep clean sheets. Equally Michael Turner at Hull is another who was a danger from set-pieces last term, scoring 5 goals in the Championship. Hull’s defence was one of their strengths last season so he could well be worth a look and again, he’ll be a key figure when Hull do manage to earn a clean sheet.

New foreign players are also worth considering. A word of warning here though – don’t be dazzled by the bright lights of publicity that will follow some of these players around in pre-season. As it turned out last season, Torres hit the ground running and banged in the goals from day one. This is a rarity though – often new arrivals, particularly forwards, will take time to adjust. As a result, these are ideal signings to make using your first few transfers. If you can study the form of these players and catch them at the right time, they can win you mini-leagues. However, gambling your early budget on them at the cost of established Premiership players isn’t advised.

A better strategy is to “wait and see” and prepare your lineup for such signings. Taking Torres as an example – if you included a known Premiership striker in your team roughly in the same price range, swapping him out for Torres the minute the Spaniard hit form was an easy, one transfer step. If however you don’t allow for this and sign two mid-priced strikers, you probably had to sell both to finance the Torres deal, thus you’d be using two transfers. In a nutshell then, if you really fancy someone like Modric at Spurs, it could be worth making plans to sign him by opting for a safer mid-price option like Downing initially, rather than gambling on Modric making an impact from day one.

Look for likely ever-presents

As a general rule the more matches your players play, the more points they have the opportunity to score. With this in mind you need to target players who are likely to play at least 32-34 games of the 38 available per season. Finding these players isn’t easy there are a number of factors you have to consider, which are…

Avoid Card Magnets

Be aware of players that will miss matches through suspension. One game for collecting five bookings isn’t a disaster but if they hit 10 then it’s 2 more games and it starts to get concerning. Players like Butt at Newcastle and Reo-Coker at Villa, often pick up double figures in bookings and are both likely to serve at least one suspension next season unless they change their ways. While they are unlikely to be on your radar, Fabregas certainly is. He came perilously close to 10 bookings and a 2-match ban last season. While I would never avoid Fabregas as a potential signing, you will need to keep an eye on him over the season and watch for suspensions – my suspension tightrope in the right menu bar will help with that.

For other players, the likelihood of a suspension over the season could be a deciding factor so use your games statistics or the selection stats that I’ll be publishing soon, to check on yellow and red card counts from last season.

Avoid Sicknotes

Injuries are pretty unpredictable in the main but there are players who are cursed with bad luck or weaknesses from former injuries. Players like Dyer at West Ham, Lennon at Spurs, Saha at United, Viduka at Newcastle and Ashton at West Ham. These are just a few who have struggled to hit the 30 games a season consistently who you should maybe think twice about including if your lineup. In addition, before you make your initial lineup choice, be sure to check out my injuries and bans table to ensure you don’t sign a player already going into the season crocked.

Rotation=Evil

An evil thing that Fantasy Managers fear above all else. The big villain here tends to be Rafa Benitez. His relentless shuffling of the Liverpool side makes a rich gold mine of Fantasy Points so rickety and insecure, only the bravest of prospectors should venture there. Only Reina, Carragher and Gerrard appear to be secure in their places. Even that little lot will miss at least 2-3 games each around Champions League games. For that reason, be aware of Liverpool players and also other clubs that could rotate because of Cup and European commitments.

In basic terms, any side involved in Europe are likely to rotate their side for Premiership games prior and after these European midweek games. As I’ve mentioned, Liverpool are the most unpredictable of the Champions League contenders although Scolari at Chelsea is an unknown factor this season. Wenger and Ferguson don’t tend to be so severe but then the outputs of both Tevez and Rooney certainly suffered to some extent last season.

In the UEFA cup meanwhile you can expect Everton and Spurs to rotate fairly heavily depending on resources. Again, if you stick with the site, I’ll endeavour to outline trends when it comes to these sides and their team selection around European games.

Find the “Untouchables”

A no-brainer. You need players who are on the teamsheet every week. That means you need players who are first choice in their position and who don’t have any real chance of losing their place for a prolonged period. In truth these aren’t that easy to find. I’ve already mentioned that Liverpool have about 3 players who are automatic first choice. Looking at United next season you have Van der Sar, Ferdinand, Vidic, Rooney and Ronaldo if he sticks around. The rest all have healthy competition to see off before they can be 100% certain of a place or be protected from regular rotation.

Most of the top teams only have a handful of players who you can really guarantee will get 30+ games. This is where the second tier clubs and players like Young and Agbonlahor at Villa, Yakubu at Everton and Downing and Alves at Middlesbrough – really come into their own. They are likely to be decent scorers again this season and, barring injury, will all play that 30+ figure without any sweating on your part required.

In a squad based fantasy game this doesn’t matter so much. You can juggle the big name players with steady, less glamourous figures who can step in to contribute when rotation rears its ugly head. However, in a game limited to just a single selection of 11 players it becomes a major consideration.

When transfers are valuable, high scoring first choice players like Ashley Young give you one slot in your team you don’t have to worry about changing for the entire season and that can be priceless. If you have 4-5 players like Young, who play week in, week out and score on a regular basis, then you can use your transfers to juggle the other 5-6 positions and capitalise on form. If you have a 9-10 players missing 1 in 4 games, then your transfer ambitions could be distracted to fix them rather than pounce on the form players that can win you leagues.

Be Wary of Forced Absence

Firstly be aware of signing players on loan from other Premiership clubs. As part of these agreements they are pretty certain to be ineligible against the club that owns their contract, therefore that’s 2 appearances you can tick off straight away. Another forced absence this season is the Olympic Games but it’s looking like very few players will be affected by this. There are other international football comittments that can cause fatigue if not absence. This is particularly for South American and Australian players so you may need to wary of this. An ear to the ground and my injuries and bans table should be all you need to keep abreast of this.

And Relax…

That’s about it for this guide. There will be more to come though – I’ll be updating the guides for each position that I wrote last season to take into account the new arrivals to the Premiership. I’ll be waiting a week or so for some more transfer activity before I get to work on these so keep an eye out for news of these on the front page.