Joe chats to academic Daniel Whittaker about how Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers think and reach their decisions.
Librarian and information studies academic Daniel (@FPL_Tikka) has just completed his Masters’ dissertation on how FPL managers consume information and use it to decide on their weekly transfers, captain calls and strategies for the weeks ahead.
For this, he has surveyed and interviewed a raft of managers, from ‘hardcore’ content creators, who spend hours each week consuming statistics, to ‘casual’ managers, who spend only a few minutes each week playing the game.
He has kindly agreed to exclusively share the initial findings from his unique research with Joe for the latest in the Meet the Manager series, where we meet interesting managers with a story to tell and who are offering a unique take on FPL.
Among the most eye-catching headlines from his findings is that the FPL community model of gathering data, statistics and news each week is so successful that it could be the future of how all people use information.
He recounts some prominent examples where FPL managers in the community are outpacing mainstream sports journalists and pundits in terms of predicting player availability, tactics and the scheduling of postponed matches across the season.
Who knew last season when Jack Grealish would be available for an extended period first? Who has accurately predicted team line-ups each week? And who knows when extra games will fit into the broadcast schedule, even before the clubs themselves sometimes? These examples are just some of the ways FPL managers are teaching the world how to successfully use information, says Daniel.
Across Joe’s fascinating chat with Daniel, they consider FPL managers’ ‘high levels of information literacy’, the skills they have to refine huge chunks of data each week and the systems and strategies they put in place to help them make key decisions.
Daniel looks back on his own career history to illustrate his points, showing the exact season when he discovered trusted sources of information such as those provided by Fantasy Football Scout and key voices in the FPL Twitter community.
This interview was filmed ahead of Saturday’s deadline, so Daniel also talks through his Gameweek 29 team and transfer plans as he targets a strong finish.
Joe’s chat with Daniel can be viewed below.
