View this email in your browser The Strategy of a Top 100 FPL Player. By Clarke Hutchison

Twitter: @NaturalFootyFan

FPL Team: Kendrick Lamela

Current Rank: 90th I’ve been fantasy football obsessed for as long as I can remember, with fond memories of gluing player prices to the inside of my school books, alongside hundreds of scribbled draft squads. At this stage I had just started secondary school and my interest peaked during the Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010 tournaments. Forget English lessons; which forward you had alongside David Villa was the big talking point in my classrooms. I’ll admit, I haven’t quite recovered from selecting Robin Van Persie instead of Golden Ball winner Diego Forlan back in 2010.



If anything, this mistake (you’ll make a lot of those) only intensified my love to extend my football knowledge through fantasy football, so I signed up for my first Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season the following year.



My first three seasons passed, finishing outside the top 250k each time (277k, 575k, 322k). I was hooked, but recognized that a lack of strategy was limiting my success. I was picking the team I liked, and thought would score points, ignoring other influences on my overall standings.



Over the next three seasons I was more cautious in my approach and, along with starting to play Daily Fantasy contests, had a much broader understanding of techniques to counteract other players and improve my own performance. This led to three consecutive finishes inside the top 50k (26k, 12k, 49k) and 1% of total managers.



As we enter the final third (no underlying stat pun intended) of the current season, I’ve pushed into the top 100. Gameweek 21 was the first time I’d joined the 100 club and I’ve stayed there ever since, recording my highest ever rank (37th) a couple of weeks later.



It’s clear that these strategic changes had a massive effect on my consistency, and as a result, my overall rank and mini-league status. I can’t guarantee they will be as beneficial to you as they were to me, but here goes.

It’s YOUR Team

This is perhaps the most important thing of all; it’s your team, your players, your decisions. Never forget that.



As of 2014 (following three consecutive >250k finishes), I stopped asking for X vs. Y advice, it’s similar to asking someone if you should switch to an Iphone or not - most people are set in their opinion, without analysing the question at hand. I also promised to trust my instinct and use my own research whenever possible and when it lined up with my strategy.



Obviously this didn’t, and still doesn't, work out all of the time, but just as practice over time improves any skill, if you stick by your principles you’ll experience the long-term benefits.



I’m not saying cut loose from forums, polls, statistics, other individual’s research etc… in fact, the opposite - gather as much information as possible, but instead of blindly placing your faith in someone else’s plan, use it as a guideline to make your own informed decisions.







Also, committing to an outside source’s advice, only to curse them or their research when it doesn't go to plan won’t get you anywhere. At the end of the day it was your choice to take the plunge, and their information must have been well founded if you did! It’s not so much learning to make your own decisions, but learning that every decision is yours and only you are accountable for them.

Use Form & Fixtures

I don’t believe in the form over fixtures or fixtures over form debate. I’ve learnt the hard way by making multiple mistakes overvaluing fixtures (barring the start of the season, when form is unclear) and also by investing in form when all logic points in the other direction. You have to combine both aspects to get the best out of each.



In the search of team FPL points (clean sheets/expected goals), favourable fixtures can give you a huge advantage, when form is used as a reinforcement. It’s all about common sense, but for example, Burnley defenders were early form setters this season so, if they had an attractive run of fixtures, you could select them with confidence (100% of their clean sheets have been secured vs. opposition outside the top 8).



There will always be abnormalities, but even with Man United (14) and Chelsea (13) leading the clean sheet table, 81% of them came against clubs outside the top 8. A defender might be ‘fixture proof’, in that you play them regardless of their opposition, but there’s no mistaking the importance of a good fixture.



For individual FPL points (goals/assists), in my opinion fixtures are second-fiddle to form, but still a contributing factor. The relevance of fixture(s) decrease as you move up the budget > premium scale for players and the bottom half > top 6 for clubs.



In summary, when Mohamed Salah and Xherdan Shaqiri are in form, the fixtures are irrelevant for the former (top 6 side), but still have a major impact on the latter (bottom half side).



Known as a bit of a football data nerd (particularly after my six-page clean sheet study in FFMAG) there’s a part of me that always considers underlying statistics, but again, don’t live by it. Watching a match is unrivalled to get an idea of the dangers of a player, or if they’re likely to hit form.



Richarlison is a good example. Watching him in the early stages of the season, it was obvious he’d contribute heavily and this would translate to FPL points. His underlying statistics were what you’d expect from a premium player, even after Watford’s downfall - ranked 5th for penalty box touches, 3rd for big chances and 2nd for shots inside the box since GW10.



If you weren’t aware of Watford’s drop in form and how this related to their on-field performances by watching the matches, or at least the highlights, you’d probably be under the mistaken belief that his FPL output would be stable. Instead he’s blanked in 8 of the last 11 gameweeks.

Don’t Complicate Things

“Playing football is simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is”



I like to use this Johan Cruyff quote as an FPL guideline. Replace ‘football’ with ‘FPL’ and the statement stands true.



You can invest as much or little time as you want. The format allows casual and competitive players (often called veterans) to compete alongside each other, equipped with identical tools, but unlimited strategies.



In my opinion, to be successful, you must follow the game from both perspectives. From a casual’s standpoint, if a player is in-from, scoring points and good value (think Mahrez/Vardy in their breakthrough season), 9 out of 10 times they get them in.



In the case of a more competitive player, they’ll likely have an equal pull towards the player, but a longer thought process. My point is, don’t complicate things, you’re not less intelligent by making the ‘obvious’ move. I’ve been guilty of this with detrimental effect in recent years.



I went without Kane in his breakthrough season - then priced in the budget bracket - then followed this up by snubbing the Leicester pair discussed earlier in the 2015/16 season. This wasn’t smart and ultimately my overall rank plummeted out of pure stubbornness.



Contrastingly, in the last couple of seasons I’ve swallowed my pride and jumped on the bandwagons early (Salah in GW5 this season). Rather than continuously having to work around the form player, I’ve enjoyed riding the bandwagon rather than chasing after it.

Block Your Opposition

This is something I’ve taken seriously since I started playing Daily Fantasy contests (funnily enough, in the last 3 seasons). One of the most effective strategies in a daily tournament is matching the high ownership picks of your opponent and allowing your differentials to do the business. It’s the same for the season-long game.



I spend more time analysing my opposition (at the moment it’s the top 100, but could be anything from the top 200k or 3 million) than myself. This might sound strange, but if you don’t know their next step, you’ll be the one losing your footing.



A lot of my transfers are based on what’s going on around me. If I’m ranked high in my mini-leagues and happy with my overall standing and see my competition herding towards a certain player, I’ll happily be a sheep, but if I need to make up ground I’ll look elsewhere.



One thing to remember is that you won’t always be able to make the move you planned. I regularly transfer in players who I don’t actually want, and there’s nothing wrong with that if it helps your long-term goals.



Time for another confession…I never wanted to get Aguero before his hat trick, because of Firmino’s form/value, but I knew my opposition were flocking to him in an attempt to catch up. In hindsight, I should have followed the crowd, but I decided against it in the end.



Understanding ownership is also vital to success. If you own the popular players amongst your competition, less ground will be lost when they score big and you’ll likely have a ‘safe’ captaincy option each week. As previous FPL champion Simon March states, the template is an excellent ‘foundation’.







A lot of people say that you can’t close gaps with a template squad, however, this is far from the truth. If you sell out most of your high ownership players for differentials, you’ll suffer when they inevitably haul (they’re highly owned for a reason).



There’s nothing wrong with bringing in a low-ownership player: it’s an effective, albeit risky, strategy to gain an edge on your rivals, but don’t go over the top and switch out the likes of Salah and Sterling ‘because everyone else has them’.

Don’t Rush Transfers

Always wait until the night before, or morning of the deadline to make transfers, unless price changes won’t allow it. In my first couple of years, I was guilty of bringing in players on a Monday/Tuesday and forgetting they had a midweek fixture (chance of suspension/injury). I now wait until as late as possible, even after the midweek fixtures, to get as much news as possible.



Waiting a day or two for a fixture to be played, or for manager updates (often in Friday’s press conferences) is worth more than 0.1m in my opinion. Of course if your budget is the exact amount for your transfer(s) with a price change imminent, don’t hang about.



For the most accurate price changes check out: http://www.fplstatistics.co.uk



Concentrate on the ‘Target’ column. It denotes the likelihood that a player's price will change overnight. Values in excess of 100, or lower than -100, indicate players that are likely to change in price - highlighted with red or blue borders.



On-site it states that changes typically take place between 02:30 and 03:00 GMT, but I’ve found that it can happen much earlier. As such, I tend to use the search bar to find the player I want and if they’ve hit the 100+/- target by around midnight, I expect their price to change and plan accordingly.



Keep an eye on this, but don’t let it rule your decisions. As I mentioned, a couple of days’ worth of information is worth more than a 0.1m loss or gain. If a player gets injured, you might lose -4pts, rather than 0.1m in value. Patience is a virtue, if you don’t have it you’ll eventually be punished.



Over 150,000 managers have already transferred in Willian or Sane ahead of the upcoming gameweek. Both players are set to miss their respective fixtures due to injuries suffered in the cup.

Sensible Captain Picks





In previous seasons I attempted to close gaps or increase leads with risky captain picks, but in the last three seasons I’ve been extremely cautious, going with one of the top 2 captain candidates in the majority of polls.



Before finalising my captain pick, usually the night before the deadline, I check out Fantasy Football Scout and Reddit’s FantasyPL. Both provide weekly captaincy polls.



I use these to reinforce my picks, and get an insight into what others are likely to do. This is the first year I’ve done this and my captaincy picks have been more influential than ever.



Analyse your own captaincy performance at https://premierfantasytools.com. Gameweek 25 starts tomorrow!

Reply to this email with any dilemmas you are facing ahead of this gameweek and we will answer the most popular questions in tomorrow's pre-GW25 email at 5pm.