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 both this week’s £18 entry (£67,500 prize pool) and the Weekly Monster Step 1 Satellite to €55 Step 2 SCOFF €500K Final [20 seats GTD]. The winner takes home a cool £6,750 (or £1,350 for the £1.80 entry lower stakes game) and brings excitement to the next 3 days of Premier League action. 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 3 Defenders, which would see you incur just 2 single-point deductions if you nail both clean sheets correctly.
Gameweek 35 Weekly Monster matches
Our team entered in the Weekly Monster in gameweek 35
After FanTeam refunded all entry fees for the GW34 Monster following the postponement of the Man Utd v Liverpool match, we head into GW35 with fingers crossed that all 8 matches in the ‘monster’ go-ahead.
FanTeam have priced Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United players as the most costly for GW35 with Salah the top-priced player at 14.6m who we have selected (as captain) along with the full-back pairing of TAA and Robertson in the expectation that their rest last weekend and pursuit of 4th place will lead to a win against Southampton. The Saints sit in 15th having only won 1 and drawn 1 in the last 5 whilst Liverpool are undefeated in the last 5 with 3 wins.
The 1st match in the ‘monster’ is the Sheffield Utd v Palace 3pm fixture and we’re taking 3 from the 13th placed Palace team who should win against bottom placed, and already relegated, Sheffield Utd. Zaha and Eze in midfield are complemented by full-back Mitchell and if any are missing from the starting line-up we will have an hour’s notice to make a swap. Zaha is our VC so we know we have a counting captain for the weekend.
The next fixture in the Monster is the Champions League final rehearsel of Man City v Chelsea and we are taking a punt that the Man City 1st team (or reserves) will out manoeuvre Chelsea to secure the Premier League title despite the Blues wish to secure their current 4th place position (and Champions League spot for 2021/22 in case they lose to City in the CL final). We’re taking Ederson to keep a clean sheet along with Cancelo (the most expensive City defender, so plenty of sub options if not starting) and Aguero (the most expensive City attacker) who is looking to sign off his Manchester stay in style.
Finally, to hopefully provide some excitement for the final match on Monday night we’ve filled the final two places with players from 16th placed Burnley who take on 18th placed Fulham who now stand 9 points away from safety. Neither side is in great form – Fulham just 1 point from their last 5 matches whilst Burnley have a 1 (big) win and 4 losses. Chris Wood is the form player from Burnley and we hope the talented Dwight McNeil will supply him with a cross for a goal or two. Fulham really do have to win otherwise face the Championship next season so perhaps more chances for Burnley to score.
