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 (€100k prize pool) Main Event. The winner takes home a cool €10,000. 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 21 €100K Weekly Monster matches
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 21
Formation: 4-5-1
MANCHESTER CITY
The core of our squad selection for gameweek 21 of FanTeam’s €100K Weekly Monster tournament is very similar to the one we built for gameweek 20, in the sense that one of the triple-ups that we have opted for comes from, perhaps not surprisingly, the skyblue part of Manchester. Man City seem to have found their title-candidate form just in time with seven consecutive victories. Over this run, they have conceded just a single goal, against Chelsea back in gameweek 17. At the same time, Pep Guardiola’s men have scored 18 goals themselves in the last seven, and 11 of those goals have come in the past three games against Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and West Brom.
It’s therefore no surprise that our FanTeam squad for this weekend contains two City defenders, Joao Cancelo and John Stones in this case. With a goal, an assist and a clean sheet against the Baggies this week, the former recorded an impressive 16 FT points in his last outing. The latter has been racking up the points as well, collecting no less than 40 FT points in his last four games. His brace in gameweek 19 is obviously not something that will occur again any time soon, but we do expect the clean sheet points to keep pouring in. City boast the best defence in the league and they face the league’s worst attack in Sheffield United on Saturday, which explains why were happy to risk FanTeam’s stacking penalty for this one.
The third Cityzen in our team is Raheem Sterling, who seems to be hitting some decent form with 2 goals and 1 assist in his last three games. Due to his fixture this weekend, the Englishman is FanTeam’s most expensive fantasy asset for this round, but we feel that he could well be worth the investment. He is sure to start in the absence of Kevin de Bruyne and we’re certain that he will get some chances against Sheffield United. The Blades are just coming off a shock victory at Old Trafford for their first victory of the season, which will have given their confidence a serious boost, but the away game at the Etihad looks like a bridge too far for Chris Wilder’s outfit.
SPURS
We wrote earlier that this weekend’s €100K Weekly Monster team boasts a lot of similarities to the team we created for the previous round and that’s not just because of the Manchester City trio. Like in gameweek 20, our selection for this week also contains three players from Spurs as they prepare for a visit to the AmEx Stadium in Brighton. Last night’s game was no success for José Mourinho’s men as they lost 1-3 to a Liverpool side that looked a bit off lately, at least in terms of results, and they also lost talisman Harry Kane to injury in the process. We think they’ll be looking to bounce back against the Seagulls on Sunday, though. Brighton like to take the initiative and attack the opposition, which is just the way this Spurs side likes it. They still have the second-best defence in the league and in Heung-Min Son, they can count on one of the league’s best forwards, even in the absence of Kane.
The Korean will be even more central to Tottenham’s offensive plans this weekend, which is why we have selected him for our team, together with fellow winger Steven Bergwijn. Son was very unlucky not to get on the score sheet early against Liverpool, but he will get chances to redeem himself against Brighton. He sits on 12 goals and 6 assists as we speak. Bergwijn can currently only dream of such tallies, but the Dutchman does seem to have found a place in starting eleven for now. He has started three of the last four games and provided an assist on each of those occasions to record a decent 17 FT points.
Seeing as Brighton are not the most productive side in front of goal either, we have opted for Toby Alderweireld as our third Spurs fantasy pick. The Belgian has not started in the last three games, but we can permit ourselves this pick, as FanTeam has once again activated the Safety Net for this tournament. Should he not start, than the likes of Ben Davies, Matt Doherty, or Davinson Sanchez are brought in automatically. By picking Alderweireld though, we leave open as many options as possible. Brighton have scored just a single goal in their last three outings, so a clean sheet for Toby (or one of his replacements) looks like a relatively safe bet.
CRYSTAL PALACE
For the coming weekend, our team also contains a double pick from South London, where Crystal Palace will be hosting Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday. Honestly, this game is one of the harder ones to predict in gameweek 21 and our inclusion of two Palace assets was partly motivated by budget constraints as well. Still, 8 points from the last five games is OK for the Eagles when you consider that this included encounters with Man City, Leicester, Arsenal and West Ham. They did lose their last two, against City and West Ham, but the probability of success will be higher against Wolves. Nuno Espirito Santo’s men have taken just 3 points from their last seven games and they haven’t won a league game since gameweek 13.
Over that same run, Wolves have scored just 8 goals, which made us decide to include Tyrick Mitchell as our fourth defender this weekend. The young English left-back comes at a budget price and is facing a forward line that is suffering badly from the injuries of their two most dangerous players, Daniel Podence and especially Raul Jimenez. Mitchell is joined by forward Andros Townsend, who has once again fought himself back into the Eagles’ starting lineup. He has started the last five games in a row for Roy Hodgson and looked lively, despite recording just a single assist over that run. Against a Wolves side devoid of confidence, he could get chances to work on his tallies.
SINGLE SHOOTERS
Our team for the FanTeam €100K Weekly Monster in gameweek 21 also boasts three single fantasy picks who we feel might perform well at an individual level this weekend. This is partly based on their form and fixtures, and partly a result of our wish to spend a considerable amount of our budget on Man City and Spurs assets. We would have liked to include a few more Leicester players, for example, as their home fixture against Leeds looks like a potential goal fest, but we had to content ourselves with picking just one Fox, Harvey Barnes. The young Englishman will be one of the players to step up in the final third while Vardy is absent and provided the assist for the equaliser against Everton on Wednesday. In the five gameweeks prior to that game, he already scored 3 goals and provided 1 assist.
The only striker in our selection this weekend is West Ham’s Michail Antonio, who was extremely unlucky not to get a double-digit haul against Palace on Tuesday. He hit the post twice and was a threat for the entire 82 minutes that he was on the pitch, eventually coming away with just a single assist and 6 FT points. He is up against Liverpool at the London Stadium this weekend, so we’re taking a punt here, but there could be some serious differential value in the Hammers man.
Finally, our goalkeeper. Even if the results don’t always reflect it, Burnley shot stopper Nick Pope is proving time and time again that he is one of the best goalkeepers in the league. He currently ranks second in terms of saves made on FanTeam and we’re counting on him to add a few of those to his total when the Clarets visit Chelsea on Sunday. On top of that, The Blues are definitely not in great form, while Burnley are returning to their sturdy best. The home side has scored just 4 goals in the last six games and the visitors have just taken three points at home to West Ham, which was also the first time they conceded more than one goal since gameweek 10.
Join the discussion on FISO’s FanTeam forum.