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.
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.
Fixtures for the GW10 Monster:
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 9
Formation: 3-4-3
General approach
For gameweek 10, FanTeam upped the ante by launching a €100K Weekly Monster. We have also been given a 110M budget to select a team of 11 players, including one goalkeeper, and the extra 10M is more than welcome. There are a lot of premium options available this round and on top of that, many of the games seem to be quite evenly matched, on paper at least. Games like Chelsea versus Spurs, West Bromwich Albion against Sheffield United and West Ham’s encounter with Aston Villa offer us plenty of interesting fantasy picks, but the results could go either way.
For our squad, we have largely focused on Leicester City (3 players), Everton (2 players), Manchester City (2 players) and Wolves (2 players). To complete our starting eleven, we added Burnley’s goalkeeper for budget reasons and one bonus striker from Leeds United. The FanTeam €100K Weekly Monster deadline is set at 12h30 (UK time), when Brighton and Liverpool kick off at the AmEx Stadium.
LEICESTER CITY
The Foxes disappointed last weekend against a depleted Liverpool side by conceding three goals without reply. This caused a bit of a dent in the club’s outsider title aspirations, but they still sit in fourth place, just two points off the top. The best remedy for such a disappointing result is a victory and in that sense, the home game against Fulham represents a great opportunity. The Cottagers have so far lost 7 of their 9 games in the league, and they conceded a worrying 18 games over that run. No other team conceded more.
That’s also why our triple Leicester selection is very attack-heavy. The first name on our sheet and our captain for this weekend is striker Jamie Vardy. Gameweek 9 saw him blanking for only the third time this season and we’re confident that he’ll be raring to make up for it this weekend. The Foxes forward has already scored 8 goals this season and before GW9, he returned a goal in three consecutive gameweeks. Fulham sit in the bottom four when it comes to goals conceded, shots on target conceded and big chances conceded, so we’re hoping Vardy will be able capitalise on Monday.
On top of that, we’re hoping that Harvey Barnes and Youri Tielemans will be joining any potential Vardy Party that may arise. We have included both the winger and the midfielder in support of the Leicester striker, despite their premium price tags. The former has looked threatening all season, but needs to become more clinical in front of goal, which we hope will happen against a leaky Fulham defence. His goal in the Europa League clash with Braga looks promising in that sense. The latter is currently the Fox in form for club and country, and he has been rested for that same European game, so he should be fresh and fit for the visit to Craven Cottage.
MANCHESTER CITY
The most expensive player in the FanTeam €100K Weekly Monster tournament for gameweek 10 is Manchester City star Kevin de Bruyne and we added him to our team immediately after selecting and captaining Vardy. Like the rest of Pep Guardiola’s men, KDB has not been at his very best yet this season, but he is still one of the best players in the world. The Skyblues are now embarking on a theoretically kinder run of fixtures, starting with this weekend’s home game against Burnley, and we feel that the Belgian could be the man to lead his team to three points. He recorded 2 assists in his last three games and he also missed a penalty back in GW8. De Bruyne is our vice-captain in gameweek 10.
With Joao Cancelo, we also chose to bet on Burnley’s shyness in front of goal this season. Despite their mediocre results, the Cityzens actually boast some of the best defensive stats in the league. They have conceded the least shots, the least shots in the box and the shots on target, for example. They also recorded 2 clean sheets already, while only five teams in the league have conceded less than their 11 goals in 9 games. The Clarets, on the other hand, have managed to score just 4 goals so far, with the past five games resulting in just 1 goal in their favor. Sean Dyche’s men are going through a tough start of the season and we hope that this weekend, that leads to points at both ends of the pitch for Cancelo.
EVERTON
There could very well be a lot of goals all over in gameweek 10 and the Everton versus Leeds clash at Goodison Park has all the makings of being a big contributor, should that happen. The home team have already scored 19 goals while conceding 16 in 9 games. The away team have already scored 14 goals this season and conceded 17. In other words, this is a game between two effective attacks and two rather leaky defences. It could go either way in terms of the result, though on paper, the Toffees are probably favourite to win this one.
As a result, we have gone with both Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Abdoulaye Doucouré for our gameweek 10 €100K Weekly Monster team. The England striker was an expensive pick, but we simply couldn’t leave him out after scoring another 2 goals last weekend. He now sits on an incredible 10 goals from 9 games this season and has blanked just once so far, away at Saint Mary’s back in GW6. Doucouré is, naturally, less prolific in front of goal, but he does represent a nailed-on option in manager Carlo Ancelotti’s starting lineup. Having said that, the Frenchman did score his first goal of the season last weekend and will be coming into Saturday’s game in fine form.
WOLVES
From two of the leakiest, but also most spectacular side in the league to one of the most business-like. Only Spurs have conceded less goals than manager Nuno Espirito Santo’s men, which is also why the Wolves already have 4 clean sheets to their name. They are up for a serious challenge this weekend as they roll up to the Emirates on Sunday, but the home team won’t be looking forward to their visit either. The Gunners have scored just once in their last 5 Premier League games…
For this reason, we have gone with a Wolves double-up in defence. We have selected their wingbacks for this occasion, as both Nelson Semedo on the right and Rayan Aït Nouri on the left get plenty of freedom to bomb forward as part of Espirito Santo’s five-men defensive line. The former has yet to record an attacking return and the latter only scored on his debut back in gameweek 7 though, but their match-up with the ineffective Gunners combined with their relatively low price tags made them the ideal complements to our big guns in the middle and up front.
THE BONUS
Speaking of big guns up front, our bonus pick for gameweek 10 is Leeds striker Patrick Bamford. The young Englishman has surprised many a fantasy manager with his clinical form in front of goal this season as part of manager Marcelo Bielsa’s attacking machine. Bamfy has currently scored 7 goals already and he has supplied 2 assists on top of that. Earlier, we highlighted the likeliness of goals in Saturday’s game between Everton and Bamford at Goodison Park, and where Calvert-Lewin seems like a wise pick for this gameweek, so does the Bamford. He is the focal point of the Whites’ prolific attack and he will surely be getting some chances to score or assist against an Everton defence that has already conceded 16 goals in 9 games this season.
THE GOALKEEPER
In order to take full advantage of the increased budget this weekend, we opted for the cheapest goalkeeper pick possible. With Nick Pope out injured, Bailey Peacock-Farrell will be in goal Burnley when the visit the Etihad on Saturday. Despite the faltering of the Skyblue goal machine this season, the expectation is that BPF will get plenty to do against City. Considering our investment in De Bruyne and Cancelo, we’re not hoping for a clean sheet here, but we do hope that the Cityzens squander a few chances for the Burnley shot stopper to rack up some save points and he is dirt-cheap at just 3.7m.