As part of FISO’s special series of weekly articles on FanTeam, Europe’s biggest daily fantasy football provider, we will actually be entering the team we write about each week into the game. Our article will focus on an Early Entry for their Fantasy Premier League tournament held each week in order to help you identify game rules, tactics and the most promising players per gameweek, so you can win some of that large prize money.
Our FISO team below will be entered into this week’s €20 entry (€50k prize pool) Main Event. The winner takes home a cool €5,000. FanTeam also offer a €2 entry Weekly Monster with a lower prize pool for those who prefer to play with lower stakes. Join the discussion on FISO’s FanTeam forum.
Before moving onto our team selection, we want to highlight a couple of FanTeam rules that they apply to their Weekly Monster competition and that represent some of the major differences when comparing the game to the FPL. Do though check out the Predicted Line-Ups for the Premier League clubs as well as the latest injury news (click on ‘Team’ to sort per club rather than the default ‘date’) before finalising your picks.
Number one is that FanTeam have a rule called the ‘safety net’. The safety net comes into play when a selected player does not start in the Weekly Monster, because the game will then automatically replace this player with the next lowest-priced player from the same position (GK, DEF, MID, FOR) in the same team. This is regardless of whether or not your selected player does take to the field later in the game. This rule helps people who have entered a team into the Weekly Monster not to worry too much about whether their selected players will start or not, particularly if they know there are cheaper players for that same club in that same position who should start instead.
Number two is that FanTeam also have a ‘stacking penalty’ for the Weekly Monster, which penalises teams that have selected more than one defenders/goalkeeper from the same club. The stacking penalty comes into play when you pick more than one defensive player (defenders or goalkeepers) from a particular club and this club records a clean sheet. The points awarded for this clean sheet will decrease by 1 point for each additional defensive player from the same club that you have selected. The stacking penalty has a maximum of minus 3 points. This rule helps stop multi-entrants from gaining an advantage by submitting block defence teams. A reasonable tactic can be to select two players from two different clubs for your Goalie and Defenders, which would see you incur just 2 single-point deductions if you nail both clean sheets correctly.
Gameweek 24 €75K Weekly Monster matches
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 24
Formation: 4-3-3
GOALKEEPER
Our goalkeeper was actually the last pick for the upcoming FanTeam €75K Weekly Monster tournament, as we first wanted to see how much budget would be left after filling out the outfield part of the squad. To our pleasant surprise, we had enough left in the bank to bring Hugo Lloris into the side. Of course, Spurs are visiting an in-form Manchester City side and will be heavy underdogs for that encounter, but Lloris is still one of the best shot stoppers in the league. City will dominate the match and Spurs will be looking to strike on the counter, especially now that the heroic Kane-Son tandem is back in business. The French goalie will get plenty of opportunities to stand out with saves and who knows, maybe Spurs can even cause an upset. These are José Mourinho’s favourite games, after all.
WEST HAM
Our ten outfield players are neatly divided into five duos from five different clubs. Our four-men defence is made up of two double-ups, the first of which consists of West Ham’s Aaron Cresswell and Craig Dawson. With 39 points from 23 games and a current sixth place in the table, the Hammers are flying high this season and their defence plays a major part in that success. They have recorded 8 clean sheets already and just six teams have conceded more than their 28 goals so far. West Ham are up against Sheffield Utd in London on Monday, who are improving of late, but still bottom of the league. The Blades have scored just 15 goals this season and a defeat without netting looks like a realistic scenario against the in-form Hammers.
As far as our fantasy picks are concerned, Aaron Cresswell was one of the first names on our team sheet. He is combining consistent form with a favourable fixture and is currently the second-highest-scoring defender on FanTeam. Craig Dawson was chosen with his price tag in mind, it being 0.4m lower than Vlad Coufal’s. Still, he has started the last eight league games and scored twice over that run. Let’s hope that at least one of them can get involved in the attacking returns this gameweek, on top of a clean sheet.
BURNLEY
Our two Hammers are joined in defence by two Clarets as they prepare for an away game at Zaha-less Crystal Palace. With 29 conceded goals in 22 games, only eight teams in the league boast a better defensive record than Sean Dyche’s men and Zaha missing for the Eagles plays a big factor as well. To give you an idea of just how big a factor: Palace have not scored a goal yet when the Ivorian didn’t start. Burnley were kicked out of the FA Cup by Bouremouth on Monday, so their full focus will be on the Premier League now and they will have marked the upcoming game as one where vital points can be won.
Where Cresswell and Dawson are defensive picks with a bit of an attacking ceiling as well, the same can’t really be said for our Clarets Matt Lowton and Ben Mee. Both have 6 clean sheets to their name, but they have been barely involved at the other end of the pitch. The only attacking returns between the two of them are 2 goals scored by Ben Mee back in gameweeks 16 and 20. We’re counting on a seventh shut-out of the season against Crystal Palace.
MANCHESTER UNITED
Our team is quite balanced this week in terms of budget spread, but the one team we have splashed on is Manchester United. With 49 goals in 23 games, the Red Devils have become the most productive team amongst the English footballing elite and they are up against the league’s worst defence on Sunday. West Brom have conceded a worrying 54 goals in 23 games, 11 of which were conceded in the last four matches. Sam Allardyce will have his Baggies lie deep against United, which is a tactic the visitors have struggled with at times, but the differences in quality and form look simply too big at the moment for this game to end with a West Brom clean sheet.
As a result, we have, of course, gone for Man United talisman Bruno Fernandes in combination with Edinson Cavani. The Portuguese playmaker is both the highest-scoring player overall on FanTeam and the most expensive asset for gameweek 24 of the €75K Weekly Monster, and our captain for this round. He has recorded 28 FT points in his last three games and we’re hoping for (much) more of the same against West Brom. Cavani is a bit more of a punt, though how much of a punt can one of the best strikers to grace European football in the past decade really be? The Uruguayan played 135 minutes of Premier League football in the last two games and scored a goal in each of those games for a total of 13 FT points. Should he for some reason not start at the Hawthornes, then FanTeam’s safety net will bring Anthony Martial into our side.
LEICESTER
After seeing how Manchester City largely dismantled Liverpool in gameweek 23, we decided to get some Leicester assets into our selection for this weekend. The Foxes are outsiders for the Premier League title, though City are heavy favourites at the moment, and a sensational result could be on the cards at the King Power this Saturday. They have taken 14 points from their last seven games with the 1-3 home defeat against Leeds being the only really surprising one. Brendan Rodger’s men have scored 10 goals over that same run, whilst Liverpool conceded 9 in that period. A face-off with a fit-again Jamie Vardy and his team mates could not come at a worse moment for the Reds.
With Jamie Vardy, we have also mentioned our first Leicester pick for gameweek 24. The English striker got 29 minutes of playing time in GW23 after an absence of three weeks and 62 minutes in the FA Cup clash with Brighton on Tuesday, so expect him to start against Liverpool. Against a wobbly Reds defence, we wouldn’t be surprised to see him add to his current 11 goals and 8 assists.
Accompanying Vardy is fellow forward Harvey Barnes, who is listed as a midfielder on FanTeam. The young Englishman is having a good season, and currently sits on 7 goals and 3 assists. He will be coming up against Trent Alexander-Arnold this weekend, so if his team mates manage to launch him into the spaces that will inevitably appear behind the England international, he will get chances to build on those tallies.
EVERTON
Finally, Everton. The Toffees are coming off a spectacular FA Cup win over Tottenham and are facing Fulham next in the Premier League. After an excellent start to the season, they have become a bit of an unpredictable entity once more. In the last six league games, victories were booked against Wolves and Leeds and they drew with Leicester and Man United, but they also lost to Newcastle and West Ham, both at the King Power. For the upcoming home game against Fulham, we have gone with two attacking fantasy assets from Carlo Ancelotti’s side. The Cottagers haven’t won a league game since gameweek 12 and they have conceded 6 goals in the last five games.
Keeping the possible absence of Dominic Calvert-Lewin in mind, we have opted for Richarlison in attack and Gylfi Sigurdsson in the midfield for our gameweek 24 FanTeam €75K Weekly Monster squad. The Brazilian and the Icelandic internationals were two of the stand-out performers against Spurs in the FA Cup on Wednesday. The former scored twice, while the latter scored a penalty and provided 2 assists, including the final pass for Richarlison’s winner in extra time. After a rest of three days, we expect both players to feature from the start against Fulham as well.