This is a new year. You’re sick and tired of losing your mini league to the same damn person every single year. You’ll have a plan, you’ll stop taking too many four point hits to catch up, you’ll have a captain strategy this year and stick to it! You’re going to be clear and concise, you’ll have the discipline to efficiently move from gameweek to gameweek. Maybe, somehow, that will be enough. You’re right.

The best plan is a simple plan, so here is yours: divide the season into fractions that you can manage. Sadly, 38 gameweeks doesn’t divide into a nice tidy number, but I’ve always sliced my pizzas into four slices, so let’s shoot for nine gameweek quarters to focus on. This will help you avoid the short term knee jerks, as you need to really believe in the value of your picks. This will also help you from hanging around too long on a player you just can’t stop believing in, but they aren’t paying the dividends. You’re going to hanging out in patient calm of the neutral zone.

Your transfers in these nine game quarters will err on the side of efficiency. Have the patience to allow a few blank gameweeks so you can be rewarded for that patience when the big haul comes that you may have missed in seasons past. If your squad is need of new blood, at least you know you’ve exercised some patience, you’ve waited for that point haul that seemed to always come one week after you let someone go from your team. You can save a transfer with your new found strategy, and drop a four point hit the next week that brings in three players that restructures your squad to what you want to see.

To that captain issue, pick one and go with him near all season. Kane, Aguero, Sanchez, and Hazard are all excellent choices. I say near all season because there may be an injury or a two footed slide tackle that leads to suspension to deal with, but that’s why you fit in a few other heavy hitters to your squad to help out. The issue isn’t finding the resources to fit these players into your team, you’ll have many strong captain choices week to week. The issue is the merry go round like captain choices you’re making that are chasing form and fixture for four to five players.

I feel the easiest way to start this strategy is to take as few risks as possible the first quarter of the season. Know who you will captain each week for the first nine. Allow yourself to gamble on someone new to the league, but your squad doesn’t need half of 2016’s La Ligue in it. Get defenders in that you know will start, all five of them. Take the smart four point hit that revitalizes several positions in your squad. Remember, if you can do everything said above for the first nine gameweeks, you definitely have the discipline to stick to the plan you’ve formed for the whole season. Discipline equals success in this league.

-R