With seven top 5,000 finishes, including a career-best rank of 17th, Utkarsh Dalmia (aka FFscout Pro-Pundit Zophar666) is no stranger to finishing the season in style.
In fact, since he started playing in 2009/10, he has never finished lower than 30,179.
But while his track record is stunning he advocates a patient philosophy of minimising risk in the transfer market and keeping a close eye on squad structure.
His chat with fellow self-proclaimed “dullard” Joe takes in the importance of price points, team balance as well as trying to minimise bad luck and the risk of a rotten Gameweek.
But such a balanced approach needs to be flexible. This is something he is having to deal with this season as he attempts to avert his first poor ranking finish in an illustrous FPL career.
Zophar also discusses how his usual big at the back philosophy involving premium defenders has had to be tweaked this year with such an array of budget options with potential for points at both ends of the pitch.
He also chats about his epic season when finishing 17th in the world and how playing his own game, surrounded by social media ‘noise’ and the pressure of so many friends now involved, has altered how he approaches the game.
The changing game, involving rotation and a wealth of captainable assets, is also covered.
As is an awareness that luck is an FPL manager’s greatest friend, or enemy. As Zophar says about Fantasy managers’ ability to truly influence the game: “I’m not the one on the pitch scoring the goals.”
The chat with Utkarsh is available to view on Youtube in the embedded video below.
Previous Meet the Manager video interviews can be found here.
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The series is also available as a podcast and on Soundcloud. These are available in the second and third players below.
