Why FPL managers should adapt tactics and not ignore forwards in 2020/21

“Celebrate endings-for they precede new beginnings” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Last season was worth celebrating for me. Manchester United managed to cement a Champions League place on the final day and look like a completely different team since Bruno Fernandes (£10.5m) was signed and Paul Pogba (£8.0m) has returned from injury troubles. 

And on the personal front, last season was pretty spectacular too. I managed to secure a career-best 30th finish overall which also turned out to be my second in the top 100 and the second time finishing as India’s number one manager in the last five years. 

There’s no way I’m apologising for it because if you can’t gloat about something like this, what is even the point of playing FPL? 

That said, even that wasn’t the best thing that happened to me last season. These high finishes are not sustainable and there was a substantial degree of luck involved. So the best thing that happened to me in 2019/20, something much easier to sustain into the new campaign, was the opportunity to write for Fantasy Football Scout. To write for you guys and share my thoughts on the big issues of FPL.

The sheer degree of encouragement and support the community has shown has been incredible. I want to just take a moment to acknowledge that I do read all of your comments and it does overwhelm and encourage me to do more as a writer and give as much as I can. I will be writing with a much greater frequency this season (weekly articles) and hope that I’m able to deliver lots of spice to your weekly Fantasy Premier League appetite.

Wipe the slate clean

So let’s get stuck into this new season. What is it that I do first? I wipe that slate clean. What must or must not have worked for you last season might not necessarily be the case this season. I can’t stress enough that FPL is a very dynamic game and having stringent rules could result in you being your own enemy. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean good players will suddenly become bad FPL assets overnight. I’m just saying that treat each season insolation and make sure you are adapting. 

For example, we didn’t have a clear consistent big hitter last season. Because of the sheer number of premium midfielders for the new campaign, the tactic of swapping between these with transfers and the captaincy has received a lot of attention in the Fantasy community. Known as upside-chasing, this is a strategy I implemented to good effect last season. The foundation of this strategy can be found in this article I wrote last year and I’m hoping to do a follow-up on it in the coming months.

So is it a tactic I’ll be deploying again for 2020/21? Well, if you have Mohamed Salah (£12.0m) hitting his 2017/18 levels (32 goals + 12 Assists) or if we see Kevin De Bruyne (£11.5m) posting double-digit scores every Gameweek, you don’t need this strategy and you’ll have to go hunting for other ways to gain an advantage over everyone else. 

The point I’m trying to make is that don’t let your preconceived notions of how this season might shape up or pre-determined strategy hinder your ability to adapt to the curve-balls that this game will throw in your face at regular intervals. And while I keep preaching about the ‘aggressive’ brand of FPL, Joshua Bull who won the whole game last season held Nick Pope (£5.5m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5M) and De Bruyne for the entire season while Salah left his team only for a single Gameweek. 

This simple fact brings me back to the first article that I wrote for FFScout. I’m going to just reiterate what I said because everyone including me needs a reminder. 

“There are many ways to skin a cat and, in my opinion, none of them is wrong. You need to find your identity as an FPL player. If you are going to get sleepless nights going without Salah, don’t do it. It doesn’t suit your personality. It’s not good for your blood pressure and you don’t end up having fun. You’re better off playing the odds and percentages game because that is where your comfort zone lies.”

Do what you want with your team as long as you’re not going completely bonkers because this is a very subjective game and there isn’t any right or wrong. 

Ignore the Noise

For me, there is no time better than the start of the season to mute the noise and play your own game because, honestly, everyone is just shooting in the dark and taking educated guesses at this point.

There is another thing I want to talk about when it comes to my FPL process. I see a lot of tinkering in the FPL Community and some people are on draft five before we’ve even seen the fixtures. Personally, something that helps me (especially in Pre-Season and International breaks) is spending time gathering information, spending time in the Member’s Area and doing research (I may have spent a decent amount of time last night watching TIFO videos on Werner and all the goals he scored last season) more-so than tinkering. 

I have come to find that if you’ve armed yourself with information, you’re only making your instinct stronger and decisions will become a lot easier for you. It might lead to you becoming more decisive and lead to less tinkering with your team. I get that this might be ‘less fun’ for some of you but I just thought I’d give you an insight into my process. 

I have had a peek at the prices, and we’ll go deeper into them once the fixtures are here, but after going through them, what excites me most is the pricing of the premium forwards. 

Don’t overlook the forwards

Four of them have caught my attention and the fact that they are a million or two cheaper than the premium midfielders could mean that you could jam an extra big-hitter into your team. Allow me to talk about two of them. 

Timo Werner (£9.5m)

David did an elaborate piece on him here. Let me give you the good stuff. 28 goals and 8 assists in 33 starts and one sub appearance last season. He had a very good habit of bracing in the BundesLiga. He could very well be on penalties, especially now that Willian (£8.0m) has left the club. And my favourite from David’s article:

In 2019/20 he recorded an expected goals (xG) per 90 figure of 0.62. Robert Lewandowski and Ciro Immobile were the only players across the Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 to record a better score there.

Add to that the fact that Chelsea were second only to Manchester City for xG, shots in the box and big chances since Project Restart and even managed to better Liverpool’s xG for the season, I am just licking my lips.

Sergio Aguero (10.5m)

This is the lowest Aguero has been priced ever. All of us know about him but let me just leave a statistic here. He had a scoring rate of 0.95 goals per 90 minutes last season. 

Amongst players that played regularly, the next best three were Olivier Giroud (0.7 goals/90), Danny Ings (0.68 goals/90) and Raheem Sterling (0.65 goals/90). See what I mean? 

I’ll throw in a tweet to make a case for these two. 

In case you’re wondering, the other two strikers I really like are Anthony Martial (£9.0m) who had six goals and three assists during Project Restart and Harry Kane (£10.5m) who netted 5 times in his last three games and is finally playing as a forward again. 

I urge more caution with Kane than the other three because Spurs’ attacking underlying numbers are still a bit underwhelming under Jose Mourinho.

For all the attention that the midfielders have gotten, I am quite excited about the forwards this season. I’ll leave you to chew on this for now. 

See you next week. Same Timo, Same Place.

Best players by position:

• Goalkeepers: Budget
• Goalkeepers: Premium
• Defenders: Budget
• Defenders: Mid-Price and Premium
• Midfielders: Budget
• Midfielders: Mid-Price
• Midfielders: Premium
• Forwards: Budget
• Forwards: Mid-Price
• Forwards: Premium