This article is the next chapter of the beginner’s guide on How to play the Fantasy Premier League (FPL). The purpose is to give Fantasy Premier League strategy tips for players already familiar with the basic concept of the FPL game. You’ll get many valuable suggestions to improve your fantasy football results. Once you have read this article, we also have more guides!
Analyze the upcoming fixtures
The first thing you must learn is to look into the future. This might sound like a difficult task, but it isn’t!
FPL is a game of strategy. It’s like chess or any other game, where you must plan your moves. Ignoring this is the most extensive beginner’s mistake in a season-long fantasy premier league strategy football game.
The common newbie tactic is to build a team around your favorite players. There’s nothing wrong with having favorite players, but you must pick them at the right time. The second problem is to start the season by looking at the first-round fixtures. This often leads to situations where a manager is stuck with a team, which he must change fast with penalty points when fixtures are getting poorer.
There is just one free transfer available each game week. The penalty for an extra transfer is -4 points, worth a clean sheet or a goal (for an attacker). If you make more than one transfer every week, you are simply doing it wrong.
We have created a perfect tool to help you with your planning. It is called the Fantasy Premier League fixture tracker. The matrix is sorted by the total number of goals (or clean sheets). The basic thing is to look at teams that are higher or lower in the list compared to their normal strength.
For example, if Everton is expected to get the third-most clean sheets in the next gameweeks, their chances are better than the team’s general strength. You can also see that Manchester United is not in the top eight, which means their schedule is quite difficult in the opening rounds.
You must fill your Fantasy Premier League strategy teams with players with favorable fixtures. When the fixtures turn sour, you make a transfer. This will never work 100 percent because of transfer limitations, but maximizing your team’s potential is key.
Sometimes, you might transfer in a player with one poor fixture, knowing you will use him in many games weeks after.
Fantasy Premier League strategy ABC: learn to use rotation
Using rotation is very much connected to the previous topic. In an ideal world, you’d only pick players with favorable fixtures insight. Unfortunately, this is not possible in practice. Typically, teams have the following fixtures:
EASY – HARD – EASY – HARD – EASY – HARD
or
EASY – EASY – EASY – HARD – HARD – EASY
Usually, a home fixture is followed by an away fixture, which creates the first example. The second example is more typical for a top team.
This problem can be solved by using rotation. Let’s say that you are looking for medium-priced defenders. You need two defenders to your ranks and want to maximize their clean sheet probabilities. Look at the picture below to get an answer.
This image is taken from the FPL fixture tracker. It shows you two possible rotation choices:
- Everton with Leicester
- Wolves with Leicester
This means you’d pick one Leicester defender and pair him up with a defender from Everton or Wolves. Let’s say you like Everton and have one of their defenders in. First, you put the Everton defender to your starting XI. Everton plays West Ham at home, while Leicester has a tricky away fixture against Bournemouth.
A week later, you move the Leicester defender to your starting XI and the Everton defender to the bench. Leicester is playing against Huddersfield at home, while Everton has a tough away fixture against Arsenal. And so on.
With this kind of rotation, you have a defender with a high clean sheet probability each round. Rotation works the same way for attackers. Just look at the expected goals matrix.
Rotation is the key to getting the best out of your low and mid-priced players. Filling your Fantasy Premier League strategy team with top players in each position is impossible because you run out of the budget. It would be best to have some players who can be used practically every round, combined with low/mid-priced players. And you must rotate these, as explained above.
Using players with a high TSB percentage
You have learned to look forward and find players with the highest potential. Next, let’s look at individual players. One common issue is causing a headache even for the best FPL managers. What should we do with players with a high TSB percentage?
TSB is an abbreviation for Teams Selected By. It tells you how many FPL managers have this player on their team. You can see the TSB percentage by clicking the Stats tab in the FPL main menu. You can also click the Statistic tab and sort players by TSB.
Most teams currently select Liverpool players Virgil Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah. There aren’t many teams that wouldn’t have at least one of these players.
The TSB percentage is a strategic tool that must be considered from each team’s perspective. Your position in the overall game and friend leagues should decide your actions.
Case 1: You are doing well
If you think you are doing well, you can use these high-TSB players to cement your position. By selecting high-TSB players and captaining one of them each round, you can make sure that your rivals won’t catch you when these players score.
If competing against your friends, you must also look at the teams in your league. You can view every team after each round to identify players other managers use. If you want to play it safe, use the players everyone else uses. This way, you prevent your friends from catching up in rankings.
Case 2: You are not doing well
If you need to catch up with the league leaders, you cannot do it with the same players they are holding. In that case, the TSB percentage tells you, players, to avoid. Instead, it would be best if you went for differentials. These are usually players with less than 5% TSB value.
There is still a balance to be had. Picking nothing but differentials is rarely a successful tactic. You could hit the jackpot, but it’s so likely you will get nothing instead. You must find a balance and hold some high TSB players combined with differentials.
One good alternative is to pick a teammate of a high TSB player. If Liverpool is doing well but Salah and Mane fail to score, the goals would probably land on Firmino. Every single Manchester City midfielder has less than 10% TSB value. You could dump Aguero and pick Sane, David Silva, or Kevin De Bruyne.
Use statistics and make better decisions
Many free information is available to help you make a better decision with player selections. Here are a couple of practical examples.
Playerdatabase247.com has a unique player matrix that shows the starting lineups of each FPL team. It also indicates cup matches, which is useful when checking Eurocup fatigue. This matrix will also help you pick a replacement for an injured or suspended player.
Our FPL tips page is an excellent resource too! Check our blog for more tips!
Ben Dinnery is the best-known Premier League “injury guru.” He follows player news daily and reports his findings at @BenDinnery on Twitter. Fantasy Premier League strategy teams give their injury updates on Thursdays each weekend. Ben is reporting the latest news of those as well. You can also check his website, premierinjuries.com, for a complete injury situation.
Whoscored.com is probably the best site for free player statistics. Select Fantasy Premier League strategy and click any team, and you will find each player’s Offensive, Defensive, Passing, and Detailed stats. This is valuable information that the world’s pro players use. If you want to know more about how to use these stats, look at the following articles:
- How to find the best Fantasy Premier League defenders
- How to find the best Fantasy Premier League midfielders
- How to find the best Fantasy Premier League forwards
Wildcards and chips
The beginning of the season is always straightforward regarding unique fixtures. Things start to change around Christmas when Boxing Day and New Year rounds come into play. There are also special double rounds each spring because Premier League matches are being postponed due to the FA Cup. This means that there are gameweeks where some teams have two games!
As you have learned from our Beginner’s Guide, there are so-called chips available for each manager: Bench Boost, Triple Captain, and Free Hit. Then there’s also the Wildcard. When should you use these?
Bench Boost
Using Bench Boost depends on favorable fixtures. It’s impossible to say when the best opportunity for your team will arise. It depends on what kind of transfers you make, how your players get injured, etc.
You must think each week if this would be your best shot for the bench boost. You can use our FPL fixture tracker to calculate your bench’s expected goals and clean sheet probabilities six weeks in advance.
Triple Captain
Triple Captain chip is also a question of the best possible fixtures. It is usually used to attack players like Salah and Aguero, who you’d be captaining. The ideal situation is a home match against one of the weakest teams. Note that low-scoring and higher-scoring teams are always at the bottom of the table. You want to pick the opponent who is leaking goals.
You’d wait for a moment when there hasn’t been a crucial Champions League match or an international match right before your triple captain game. It’s straightforward to go through all the Liverpool and Manchester City home fixtures, for example, and pick the most optimal dates. When the round comes, you must pull the trigger (if the player is in full fitness) and hope you get paid.
Wildcard and Free Hit
And then we have the Wildcard. You have one for the autumn period and one for the spring period. Undoubtedly, you’d save your Wildcard for the double-fixture rounds in the spring period. These rounds can give you a massive advantage if you can switch your squad entirely to teams with two fixtures.
Many are using the Wildcard after 3-5 rounds in autumn. Predicting how new signings or new managers work in the Fantasy Premier League Strategy is sometimes tricky. If you notice that you have made too many bad choices initially, starting fresh is not the worst idea.
The Free Hit chip should be used when you get hit by injuries and suspensions. It’s an alternative to the Wildcard. You can change your entire team for one round without a penalty, but it’ll reverse back after that. If your team gets hit by long-term injuries or suspensions, then Free Hit will not help.
Learn from the best FPL managers
Finally, one more piece of advice: Look at the top managers! You can check your friend league at any time and look at the squads of the top managers in it. See what players they chose in the previous round. Do they have Salah, Aguero, or both? Compiling the best teams is not a bad idea.
You should also look at the Fantasy Premier League front page each week. This will show you the top player transfers in and out. It’s also a great indicator of players your rivals are likely to choose. As explained above, use this information with players with high TSB percentages.
Next, you’d return to our FPL guide and check the individual positions. Learn how to find the best defenders, goalkeepers, midfielders, and forwards in the Fantasy Premier League Strategy!
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