With the new FPL season just around the corner we will be writing some key tips before the first kick-off. In our first piece here, you will find five common mistakes that FPL players make and how to avoid them!
1) Buying good IRL players
One of the most common mistakes in Fantasy Premier League is to buy good in real life (IRL) players. People think that if they just buy the players who are good in real life, they will win their mini leagues. But that’s not how FPL works.
FPL is all about picking the players who score the most FPL points! Sometimes that coincides with who the best IRL players are. Players who score many goals and get many assists for example are good in FPL – think Haaland, Salah etc.
But some players are great IRL but not great picks in FPL. This can be for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps they aren’t nailed on to start, perhaps they are fantastic at assisting the assister but there’s no points in that! I’m thinking of players like Mahrez, Declan Rice or Casemiro.
If terms like IRL are confusing you, check out our FPL Glossary.
2) Spending too much on bench players
People will often try and build a balanced squad but this is usually a mistake. People will try and have a good bench full of good players. This makes sense right? Have a team you can rotate in and out.
The problem is you only have 100mn to spend. So if you spend more on your bench, that is less that you can spend on your first team. It’s what an economist would call on opportunity cost.
And, this is really important because players on your bench don’t score points week in/week out. Most of the time, you will be starting 11 players that are nailed on to play 90 minutes. So, your bench players won’t even get a look in.
But James! I hear you say. What about if I rotate two midfielders? I can base it on who has good fixtures!
Well, you will spend too much money of course! 4.5 midfielders in FPL are priced that way because they rarely score any points. That’s pretty much true of all players under 6.5. So, to get two good players to rotate you need to spend 6.5+6.5=13.0.
Instead, I will buy an 8.5 midfielder and a 4.5 bench midfielder. I will be able to play that 8.5 midfielder every week because he will be good enough.
The top scoring combination of 6.5 midfielders last year would have got you about 170 points. And, that’s if you called everything right. I.e., you picked the correct player in every fixture.
Whereas, I’m just picking Bukayo Saka and he got 202 points last year.
The ideal bench is something like this:
- GK – 4.0/4.5
- Def – 4.0/4.5
- Def – 4.0/4.5
- Mid – 4.5
Even if you want to just have two strikers, you may as well pick a 4.5 non-playing forward and leave them in the third slot because how often do three players in your first team not start? Very, very, very rarely.
3) “Covering” a team by picking a cheaper player than the one that scores all the points.
This is a big one. People frequently think they can “cover” the output of one player by picking another one. So, for example, you think: ‘I don’t need Trent, I can cover him by getting Van Dijk or Robertson.’
To an extent, this is true. You can cover the clean sheets of Trent in this example. But, you can’t cover his output. And, therefore, there is no point to doing this. Trent will significantly outscore Robertson and Van Dijk because of his attacking returns.
You also can’t cover a striker with the main assist maker. Even when the pairing are often reliant on each other. You don’t get the same points and this attempt to hedge your bets normally just doesn’t work.
4) Playing your chips too early
This one, you don’t need to worry about so much early on. But its an important consideration in terms of your strategy for the season.
You have two wildcards (one to play before 31 Dec and one after), a free hit, a triple captain and a bench boost. If you play the game seriously, you know to hold the free hit, triple captain and a bench boost until the latter part of the season. This is because it allows you to maximise the points gained from these weeks.
So, don’t use them too early!
The exception is the first wildcard. Most successful players don’t start the season with a great team. They make a mess of it and then adjust quickly. Usually, this involves a wildcard in the first eight weeks.
The reason for this is just that we learn so much in the first few weeks. Like, who is playing attacking football, who the first choice players are and who the shit teams are.
Read more about how to play your wildcard, free hit, triple captain and bench boost.
5) Trusting Pep Guardiola (or manager press conferences)
Don’t trust the bald fraud!
Besides Haaland, right now, I don’t think anyone is nailed in that squad. Even if they play ten games in a row and score points every week, you still can’t trust that they will start the next game. It’s just not worth it.
It’s not just Pep either. Managers frequently lie in pre-match press conferences to throw opposing managers off their game plan. Whilst it is helpful to listen into the press conferences before the game week kicks off, you should always take it with a pinch of salt.
That’s It.
Now you know the top mistakes to avoid, so don’t make them!
Did we miss anything? Want us to write about something specific? Let us know on Twitter.