In our next article on the Sky Sports Fantasy game, we look at our captaincy options. We analyse the various ways you can change your captain and also offer our preferred armband strategy up until December, ie, to the point where we have scheduled kick-off times for Premier League matches. The aim, of course, is to try and exploit this feature to our benefit and increase our points potential.

As in most Fantasy games with a captaincy option, the player with the armband earns you double points, be it positive or negative. For a look at all the rules in the Sky Sports game, click here.

Swapping the Armband

Essentially, Fantasy managers are afforded one armband swap per Gameweek and a Gameweek runs from Saturday at 00.01am until 00:00 the following Friday. The trick here, of course, is to have your captain playing early in the Gameweek and then use your one swap to a player taking to the field later in the week, therefore getting two captains out of your one change. In order to repeat this process, though, the player who finished the Gameweek as your captain should ideally play on the Saturday the following week.

In The Bank

On occasion you may wish to ‘bank’ your captain swap. For example, your captain plays on the Saturday but none of the matches over the Sunday and/or Monday take your fancy. Instead of letting it go to waste, it’s a good idea to wait until the Friday evening in case of injuries etc and then make the switch before the Gameweek ends, therefore setting yourself up for the following Gameweek. Again, the best tactic here is to select a player with a Saturday fixture, thus giving you the chance to switch on Sunday or Monday.

Trading Skippers

If you transfer your current captain out of your team and snap up a replacement, the incoming player will take over the armband and this will not use your one allocated swap. This tactic can work in two ways – you can make the trade and still have a captain switch to follow or, if you’ve already changed your captains, the transfer gives you another armband option for the Gameweek. You can also transfer your captain out multiple times if it’s a week with games also on the Tuesday and Wednesday and potentially have four skippers.

Playing The Blanks

When the Premier League takes a break for internationals or FA Cup matches, the blank week still has relevance when it comes to captain swaps as it still counts as a Gameweek. This means you can use your one captain swap during this week and allows you to perhaps be a little more adventurous with your captain choices the weekend beforehand.

Risk/Reward Tactics

Over the course of the season all these scenarios will feature in our strategies. As we size up each Gameweek, the risk/reward of using player transfers will have to be balanced, as quite often I found that quality out performed quantity – having the likes of Daniel Sturridge as my one skipper for the week would outperform using transfers to have the likes of Nikica Jelavic twice for example. Planning your captaincies well in advance has its advantages as it means you can determine which route to navigate through the fixtures and prevents you from being stuck with an unwanted captain choice and forced into a transfer. However, as always, injuries and form come into the equation and it’s important to remain flexible and re-write your plan regularly to stay on top of the game.

Our Captain Plan

As mentioned in previous articles, I think it’s important to have a team made up of players across the price points so we can transfer our premium options around without having to use other transfers to afford them. This means you can handpick your chosen captained big hitter for specific fixtures relatively easily and increase your chances of a big haul – with that in mind, here’s our look at some of the strongest armband options available over the next few Gameweeks.

The blank options are fixtures that are less appealing in terms of Fantasy assets or but can produce the points all the same so it’s an option if you feel like using a transfer or two to go for it.

Sky Sports Fantasy Football Scout League

We’ve already set up the official Scout League with a top prize of £1000 to the winner. If you’ve tinkered with your Sky Sports team and are looking to get involved, our league name is FFScout and the code is 8009000.