Members

From Antonio to Ritchie: Fantasy assets who are playing ‘out of position’

In our latest Members article, we take a look at four Premier League players who have recently been deployed in more advanced roles.

We have drawn from the Opta player data available to subscribers in our Members Area to see how these positional changes have affected their games.

What do we mean by ‘out of position’?

In Fantasy terms, ‘out of position’ (or ‘OOP’) doesn’t necessarily denote square pegs in round holes.

It doesn’t mean centre-halves deputising at full-back, players occupying a different flank from normal or a Jeff Hendrick-type (£5.4m) conversion from a central midfielder into a jobbing wide-man.

All those things are relevant when assessing a player’s worth in Fantasy Premier League, of course, as a change in roles can enhance or lessen a player’s appeal.

But by ‘out of position’, we in this context mean a Fantasy asset whose classification in FPL no longer fits.

As a rule of thumb, FPL players are grouped by the following criteria at the start of every season, with the decision heavily influenced by where they spent the bulk of their time in the previous campaign:

  • Defenders: Centre-halves, full-backs, wing-backs.
  • Midfielders: Central midfielders, ‘number tens’, wingers (either in a 4-4-2, 4-5-1 or 4-3-3).
  • Forwards: Those who spearhead a three-man frontline, are paired in a strike duo or plough a lone furrow in attack.

Occasionally there is a misstep, with John Lundstram‘s (£4.8m) classification as an FPL defender a particularly glaring error, but most players fit neatly into the categories above and are accurately bracketed.

What FPL can’t vouch for at the start of every season is changes of system during the upcoming campaign, which occasionally throws up an ‘out of position’ asset for us to consider.


The cases of Lundstram and Anthony Martial (£7.9m) are already well-documented, with those two assets playing as a midfielder and forward respectively for the entirety of 2019/20, so we instead switch our focus to four players whose ‘out of position’ statuses are more recent developments.

164 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Pap Le Cissier
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    4 years, 13 days ago

    They forgot to mention Joelinton in the article, he’s out of position in the starting 11

    1. Jafalad
      • 14 Years
      4 years, 13 days ago

      Ian Harte was forgotten too. Shoddy journalism. 😡

      1. Pap Le Cissier
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 11 Years
        4 years, 13 days ago

        Haha! How was your season going until the call off Jaf?

  2. Von Lipwig
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 5 Years
    4 years, 13 days ago

    I have Pope and Ryan and 2FTs. I wanted to replace Ryan and then get back to 2FTs for GW32 (and possibly keep doing this one transfer at a time until the football starts again).

    Who would rate? (5.1m max)

    1. Mihai Roman
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      4 years, 12 days ago

      Button

  3. Assisting the assister
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 13 days ago

    Going to get in to horse racing

  4. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
    • 14 Years
    4 years, 12 days ago

    Still only 185,000 confirmed cases worldwide/7,000 deaths (not sure the total number tested - must be well into millions?)

    Let’s hope those numbers stay low & things stay relatively calm