Wildcard in English Premier League Fantasy Football

I bet many of the managers in English Premier League would like to have one wildcard in their possession when the season begins. Unfortunately they don't, but the players of fantasy premier league get, not only one but two wildcards to use. One you can use any time of the season and the other during gameweeks 20 to 23.

Wildcard is of course a chance to look over your team, and change the players to your likings. If you want, you can change every player in your football team. There has always been many different opinions as to when to use your wildcards to gain maximun advantage. Some say to use very early on in the premier league season, and some think you should save your opportunity until you're team value has increased. Thought process in that being of course that with more money you can buy better players for you fantasy premier league team.

My opinion is that using your wildcard early on is a good decision if the team you chose in the beginning of the English Premier League season just isn't performing to their abilities. The math is simple, every gameweek you get less points than you should be, and the more gameweeks you do that, the less points you're getting. But if using the wildcard improves your team dramatically, your also scoring more points every gameweek. And again, the more gameweeks, the more points.

If however, you managed to assemble a team that is doing very well in premier league fantasy football, you should hold on to your wildcard and wait for a better time to use it. One such better time is of course if games get delayed and many so called double gameweeks occur. Using you wildcard knowing that many of the player transferred in will play one or more double gameweeks, can lead to incredible results.

So what is your opinion, when should fantasy football managers use their wildcard?

More Clean Sheets - Best Defenders in Fantasy Premier League

What makes a great defender for your fantasy soccer team? He of course has to play in a winning team. He of course has to play often and whole games. If he scores a goal or gives an assist now and then that is a big plus. Of course we wouldnt mind if his price wouldnt be too much either.

So who are these denfenders. Take a look down for my tips.

Over £6M

Last season of fantasy premier league is of course the best place to start searching for your defenders. Everton's Leighton Baines collected 178 points, mostly due to his 5 goals and 11 assists. Great effort for sure, but I think his price of £8M is too much this season. Out of the more expensive players I'd go for Ashley Cole of Chelsea and Nemanja Vidic of ManU. They collected 150 and 148 points last season, but are more likely to keep to their points or increase them than Baines. One player that costs even £6M is Stoke City's Robert Huth. He scored 6 goals last season and gave 3 assists. And for Huth, the price truly is right.

Under £6M

When you get a Chelsea defender for £5M you're probably making a bargain. Paulo Ferreira is just that. From Everton you can also find couple of players whose price doesn't necessarily correlate to their skill. Both Sylvain Distin and Phil Jagielka have the pricetag of £5.5M. Both are good picks for your fantasy premier league team. At £6M sharp there is also Gael Clichy who transferred from Arsenal to ManCity.

Hope these tips are helpfull and you choose the best team possible as your fantasy premier league team.

Best midfielders for your fantasy soccer team

So, what about midfielders. After all, they are usually the most important choices to be made in your fantasy premier league team. Many seasons have shown that the players who collect the most points in fantasy premier league are almost always midfielders. The reason of course being that they get points for just about anything, 5 points for a goal (that's 1 point more than attackers get..., and they even get a point for a clean sheet.

Last seasons top pointscorer was Luis Nani from Manchester United, midfielder. Second most points was gathered by Charlie Adam, who played for Blackpool and has since transfeered to Liverpool, with 192 points, and guess what position he plays... :) You get the drift.

The aformentioned players are not a bad place to start when choosing midfielders for your fantasy soccer team.

Over £8M

Midfielders are quite expensive, but I'd say there are two players you're guaranteed to get your moneys worth. They are Nani (£10M), as stated above and Malouda (£10.5M) from Chelsea. The most expensive midfielders this season are Frank Lampard from Chelsea and Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal. Both have a pricetag of £12M Both have been suffering injuries, and aren't to be purchased, not yet at least.

Under £8M

Every season of fantasy premier league, there are players who score points even if they cost considerabely less then their fellow midfielders. Last season Charlie Adam was a good example, now his price has of course skyrocketed. Under the 8M mark I'd recommend N'Zogbia who has trasferred from Wigan to Aston Villa. His price of 7.5M can be considered a bargain. Another budget midfielder comes from Queens Park Rangers. Adel Taarabt costs only £6.5M, but is without a doubt one of then most interesting midfielders this fantasy soccer season.

Goalkeeper picks and tips for your Fantasy Premier League Team season 2011/2012

Less than week to go until the begininng of the Fantasy Premier League, so it's about time to start looking at the top picks and tips for your team. I'll try to give comments about the best player for your team in every price range. So, no more blabbering, let's get right to business.

GOALKEEPERS:

Over £6M
At the top of the price list for goalkeepers are ManCity's Joe Hart and Chelsea's Petr Cech. Out of these to I'd pick Hart. He played a great fantasy soccer season last year with 175 points edging out Cech with 17 points. Manchester City has been quite active on the transfer market again this season, and I think they just might have the team to go all the way. ManU's Van der Saar called it quits last season and the pressure of catching balls has been transferred to one David de Gea. This Atletico Madrid transfer has the pricetag of 6.5M and is only half a mill cheaper then Hart and Cech but might a good buy on the long run.


Under £6M
We're all after a successfull budget goalkeeper aren't we. Best choices would seem to be Wigan's Al-Habsi costing 4.5M and WBA's Foster with a 5M tag. Out of these two I'd start with Al Habsi for the soul reason of fixtures. While Wigan's first three matches are against Norwich, Swansea and QPR, WBA opens with matches against ManU, Chelsea and Stoke.

Anatomy of a perfect Striker

Strikers are a tough breed to predict in Fantasy Premier League. While they should be scoring goals in virtually every game, sometimes they hit a streak so cold, North Pole fades in comparison. But we are stuck with them, every Fantasy soccer team must have 3 forwards, whether we like it or not. So what makes a great striker? And how to find the perfect forward for your FPL team?

Strikers are expensive, they always have been, and generally, investing a lot money in them, hasn't been a smart move while playing fantasy premier league. Except... Last season, somehing really weird happened...You just couldn't succeed without having the now so hot forwards Rooney or Drogba in your team. Perhaps you even had to have them both in some gameweeks.

So, what to expect from the coming season of 2010/2011? Are the forwards going to keep making goals like they did last season? Will the be ones like Tevez and Bent who, while pretty affordable, score two goals in one game ALL THE TIME. Who knows. But these are some attributes you want from your strikers.

Striker should have a Consistent playtime.
You don't want to pay a lot of money for a player who doesn't make the starting formation. Players very rarely score if given 5-15 minutes of playtime per match.

Striker should play for a Winning team.
A forward can be as talented as none before, but if he plays for a team that can't feed him the scoring opportunites he needs...He won't score many goals.

Striker should have Little risk of injury.
While every player can suffer an injury one time or another, some are more prone to loosing matches due to an injury than others.

And then, remember. Forwards are a little like goalkeepers, when they do good, they get more confidence. And confidence is good. So if a striker starts scoring goals like never before, jump in to that bandwagon as early as you can.

The last question is of course, who are these great goalscoring strikers to have in your Premier Fantasy League team? Aside from the no brainers Rooney and Drogba, I say Tevez (Manchester City) and Saha (Everton) What do you think?

Can Anelka rival Drogba in Barclays Fantasy Football?

While Didier Drogba is playing for his country in African Nations Cup, Nicolas Anelka will be getting a lot more trust as Chelsea's lead forward. His 2 goals and 1 assist against Sunderland show frenchmans ability to decide games in Barclays Premier League. Anelka is still far from his last seasons 19 scored goals but if he keeps up with he's awesome form, he will be a serious threat for any opponent Chelsea will face this season.

Birmingham, Burley and Hull City are his next targets and Anelka surely will be the player to have in your Fantasy Premier League team. With a pricetag of just under £10M he is a little cheaper than Rooney and a good buy at least for the the next few gameweeks. What happens after that remains to be seen. While Anelka and Drogba sometimes show ability to be a really lethal attack pair, Drogba has been stealing the spotlight earlier in the season.

What do you think, can Anelka really rival with Drogba in the end of the season and perhaps top his 19 goals from Barclay's Premier League season 08/09?

Using the wildcard in Fantasy Premier League

First, what is a wildcard? Wildcard is one chance to transfer all the players in your fantasy premier league team, without any cost, that of course meaning reducting your points. Of course you don't have to change all your players, but when using the wildcard it's wise to transfer at least half of your current team.

It's not easy to say what is the best time to use the wildcard in fantasy premier league. Usually people think that it is wise to save it until at least the half of the league has been played. However it may sometimes be a good move to use the wildcard even early on of the fantasy soccer manager game. If after say 4 gameweeks you realize that the choises you made in the beginning of the game don't give you points you're happy with, you should consider using the wildcard.

Let's try an example: With the existing players you get about 40 points per gameweek and you postpone the wildcard for 15 gameweeks. If using of the wildcard improves your weekly score, say, ten points, you would have lost 150 points during those gameweeks. Of course it's possible to alter your squad using the weekly free transfers, but making huge differents is much harder that way.

So, if you're in place where your current squad isn't bringing in the points you need; use the wildcard. I promise you it's better to use it early in in such case.

Freekickers, Penalty takers and Cornergivers

One aspect that should be taken under consideration while choosing players for your Fantasy Premier League team is who are the players who shoot freekicks and penaltyshots or give corners in their teams. These players get significantly more opportunities to score goals and assists. Here is a list of few players from couple of teams, who are likely to be those players.

Chelsea: Lampard and Ballard shoot most of the freekicks and penaltyshots, Lampard gives corners.

ManU: With Ronaldo gone, Rooney and Berbatov are the most obvious freekickers.

Arsenal: Arshavin can shoot freekicks, Van Persie takes penalty shots.

Liverpool: Steven Gerrard takes most of the freekicks.

Strategies to do good in Fantasy Premier League

I have a few Fantasy Premier League strategies that I have used in past seasons. Of course you still have to gather information about teams and players, but these strategies are a good starting point for selecting your teams.

Here are 2 of those strategies...

Strategy 1

Uneven players.

Remembering that in Fantasy Premier League you have 100M to buy your 15 players, one strategy is to invest your money to only those player that you put in play. In other words, you buy as cheap a substitute players that you can find, hoping that there wont be any need for substitutions.

An Example

100M divided to 15 is 6,6M, but if you buy the cheapest substitute players (usually about 4M a player) you get to use the remaining 86M to 11 "playing" players. That's 7.8M per player.

Of course the risk of this strategy is that if a need for substitutions accur, you propably wont get too many points from your substitutions...

Strategy 2

Gathering money.

This is a strategy that can be taken into play after few rounds have been played. It means after a round you go and buy a player that has made a lot of points. Because the rises in players prices come slower. So each round the value of your players rises, and after a while you can use your money to buy more enpensive players.

Tips to succeed in Fantasy Premier League

There are many different strategies you can use in Fantasy Premier League soccer. However let's first start with a few tips that are the basic of many of those strategies.
TIP 1
When selecting players for your team, keep in mind that only players that get to play can earn points. So it's no point choosing players that don't get to run on the green, because of injuries or because they are simply not good enough. With few exceptions it's always wise to select players that are in starting formation for their soccer team.
TIP 2
Don't pay too much extra for players that are known names but who don't play to their ability.
TIP 3
Don't make too fast transfers, when you select a player be sure to give him a few weeks to show his abilities.
TIP 4
Some players are so called "bonus sharks", these players usually get good points from games even if they dont score, because of those bonus-points. You want these players on your team.
TIP 5
Keep eye on the fixtures. It's easier for players to score against weaker teams. Also a team full of defenders from a team playing against say Chelsea, is not a good idea.