With the new season now less than two weeks away, our community Hot Topics were full of the latest pre-season information on likely starting XIs and formations. The community discussions also took in the evolution of the Fantasy Premier League game over the years, while our community writers focused on getting the most from our backlines. We look back on the week’s activity, whilst also assessing some of the latest Members area tables and showcasing the array of community competitions being set up ahead of the campaign kick-off.
The Community Articles
Defence was a key issues tackled by our community writers, with Patch making the case for investing more heavily in Fantasy backlines, while Mouldmaster looked at the prospects of a 13.5m three way defensive rotation.
Elsewhere, Saniul offered his view on Brendan Rodgers’ likely set-up as the Liverpool revolution continued apace with the signing of Christian Benteke.
This week saw us bring you a brand new game to the pages of Fantasy Football Scout, as the draft-based Dugout FC earned a shout-out. As it happened, earlier in the week The Cisco Kid underlined the appeal of draft games and leagues.
Finally, our resident team sheet expert Demi delivered this article on the best team forums and Twitter sources for getting the inside track on starting team news straight from the fans and journos.
Don’t forget, if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.
The Hottest Topics
The pre-season itinerary of many Premier League sides picked up this week, helping to shed some more light on probable starters and formations.
Luckily, many of our resident community team experts were on hand to keep tabs on these matches. Amongst our busy scouts was Do The Van Gaal-Lem Shake, who dropped by to deliver this report on yesterday’s friendly clash between Manchester United and Barcelona. He paid close attention to the evolving partnership between Wayne Rooney and Memphis Depay, which was something Mark was keen to get the community’s views on earlier in the week.
Aquafresca has also been keeping up to date on United’s pre-season fixtures and drafted this report on the Red Devils’ victory over Club America earlier in the week.
Berbinho’s Forehead’s report on Liverpool’s preparations in Australia is essential reading for those considering drafting in James Milner, while Dusan Citizen has also travelled down under to reveal that Samir Nasri is unlikely to disappear quietly in the face of rotation.
A little closer to home, Bowstring the Carp took an in-depth look at Watford’s away victory over German side Paderborn last weekend.
Pre-season friendly line-ups have also been under the watchful gaze of Couti and the Below5th as he revealed his latest update to his excellent probable starters research.
Another top researcher in the week gone by was Magic Hamster, who has been looking to see how the Rate My Team requests submitted by the community have changed as pre-season fixtures shed more light on favoured players.
Meanwhile, Lucy has used her local knowledge of Southampton to assess the south coast side’s likely starters for the forthcoming season – the essential go-to thread for those considering Ronald Koeman’s charges.
The extent to which pre-season friendlies effect our Fantasy squad selections was discussed by Andy85wsm, who was amongst our moderator and contributor team to help with the daily discussions while I was sunning myself on the Cornish coast this week.
Andy85wsm’s other daily Hot Topics this week included this discussion on how to deal with Sergio Aguero’s likely absence from Gameweek 1’s team sheet, the prospects of success for Christian Benteke at Liverpool, the importance of team balance, which of Arsenal’s many excellent midfield players to choose and the latest players to join the FPL player list this week.
Another FFScout moderator to chip in with our daily hot topic discussions was Ryan, who was interested in the effect of ownership on our squad decisions and whether the price baseline for cheap defenders has been subject to inflation this year.
Elsewhere, Epic Fail sparked this debate on the often used tag of ‘essential’ for players and Wolverine took a look at top tips for gaining a good start.
Understanding the latest rule changes in FPL, namely the introduction of new ‘chips’ to boost captaincy, bench and attacking player points, is going to be key to success this season. Knowing when potential double Gameweeks could fall will be crucial to using these chips well, according to Jairzinho. We also asked what your dream chip would be to help gain an advantage in future seasons.
The introduction of chips is just the latest innovation for FPL over its many years, as we discovered during Skool Daze’s FPL veteran quiz. This brought back happy memories of the days when Everton’s Steve Watson was near essential, while Innsie’s discussion on weird captaincy choices also took at look at Fantasy football’s oddball heroes and villains from the game’s past.
There have been a myriad of strange captaincy choices made by our Scoutcast hosts Mark and Granville over the years. Pukka popped by to see if the community would be able to help in their decision making, particularly with their annual Scoutcast team’s prospects.
The Members Tables
For those looking to assess Arsenal’s attacking options in more detail, Head2headwin has compiled this table of their performance during the final six weeks of last season. Meanwhile, Vougiedipond has created this Missed Opportunities table looking at Premier League stars’ most embarrassing statistics.
If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.
The Community Tournaments
There were a raft of tournament organisers on hand to tell us about their leagues and head to head competitions for the community to take part in. Here is a full list of those taking place, which includes Torres Magic’s Last Man Standing (FPL code 13343-18364), Hulky Punter’s Bloodbath League (FPL code 168077-145950) and The Sarjeant’s Lads on Toure league (FPL code 1866-7724).
Torres Magic has also published this community article, as a guide to his particular tournament.
