Scout’s Matchday 8 picks for the free-to-play SPITCH Fantasy game

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Another Fantasy Premier League (FPL) deadline has passed: now attention turns to SPITCH, where you can enter all the way up to kick-off tonight.

What is SPITCH? There are two main things to know: 1) you effectively have a Free Hit chip to play every week and 2) you are only judged on your best five matchdays!

So one week of accidentally forgetting to play won’t be problematic – even starting in April still gives you a chance of winning prizes.

There are two season-long options for the 2022/23 campaign, one of which is free and has a £2,500 prize pool.

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HOW TO PLAY SPITCH

SPITCH is a platform where managers can use their football knowledge to defeat others and win money prizes.

As with FPL, managers commit to a formation and have a budget to buy players for their line-up, in the quest to score points and win prizes.

But unlike FPL, managers can actually go under or over their ₵1,200 budget – this will determine how many positive or negative points they begin the round with.

Each week of ‘Season’ mode requires a new line-up with no captains. Managers are allowed up to nine players from the same club and can alter teams mid-matchday. ‘Safety Net’ automatically replaces non-starters, whilst a sophisticated scoring system rewards defensive actions in a way that FPL does not.

MATCHDAY 6 REVIEW

These were the top-scoring players from the latest round of matches.

Meanwhile, 24 players finished with a negative score, including names like Dejan Kulusevski (-11) and Martin Odegaard, who followed his 606, 509 and 285 scores with a -19.

SCOUT’S MATCHDAY 8 LINE-UP

The selection for Matchday 6 totalled 2,503 points, which ranked at 614th place. We purposely tried a smarter approach, using stats to select the players that had done the high-scoring actions most often and it resulted in our second-highest rank so far.

Kevin De Bruyne (504) racked up two shots on target and an assist alongside 39 passes – this alone brought in 308 points.

Goals also came in for Harry Kane (320) and Brennan Johnson (158).

Let’s stick with the 3-3-4 formation. In goal, Dean Henderson (₵58) just scored negative points against Bournemouth but remains the top-scorer in his position. His leaky defence will not enjoy facing Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic (₵80), who we’ve also selected due to his league-leading 27 goal attempts.

The game doesn’t reward clean sheets so it makes sense to choose defenders that either attack or execute a plethora of successful blocks, tackles and interceptions. We have gone for the former, composed of Kieran Tripper (₵67), Joao Cancelo (₵175) and Nathan Patterson (₵55).

Odegaard (₵72) was the top-scoring midfielder until his negative Gameweek 6 pushed the Norwegian down to fifth. Still, his all-round play should excel once again when Arsenal travel to Brentford.

Faith is also being kept in Kulusevski (₵94) after his poor outing. Although it’s hard to predict Antonio Conte’s task of fitting four top attackers into three spots, he has surprisingly started on the bench for three successive matches. Spurs and Leicester usually provide plenty of goals when they meet, so a Kulusevski start would give plenty of chances to shoot.

Another midfielder benched in midweek was Phil Foden (₵140) although he came on around the hour mark. Both he and Erling Haaland (₵280) have a trip to Wolves – not that the latter’s selection needs any justification!

The final two places up front go to Alexander Isak (₵78) and Ivan Toney (₵100). Newcastle have an enticing home game versus Bournemouth and Isak’s two outings for the Magpies have fetched an expected goals (xG) tally of 1.26.

Toney, buoyed by the England call-up that followed his Gameweek 6 hat-trick, has the confidence to put Arsenal to the sword. Penalty duties do not harm his appeal, either.

JOIN THE FANTASY FOOTBALL SCOUT COMMUNITY ON SPITCH

You can join other Fantasy Football Scout users in our community on Spitch here.

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