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.
Fixtures for the GW15 Monster:
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 15
Formation: 4-4-2
General approach
For gameweek 15 of the Premier League, FanTeam is following its trusted recipe with the €50K Boxing Day Monster. We are given a 105M budget to select a squad of 11 players, which was not an easy task this week given the many favourable match-ups. This means that the ongoing tournament contains plenty of expensive fantasy picks and relatively few budget-enabling picks with potential. For our team this week, we have focused on four teams, complemented with the bonus Salah picks.
Our 11-men squad consists of two West Ham picks facing Brighton at home, two Palace picks looking to bounce back against Villa, three Spurs picks visiting Molineux on Sunday and three Everton picks playing struggling Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. To complete the starting eleven, we have chosen to go with the one man everyone will probably want in their team this week.
WEST HAM
With 21 points and a tenth place after 14 games, West Ham are performing more than decent this season, especially when considering that they looked like being relegated until the very last day last season. Manager David Moyes has managed to create a cohesive unit out of the Hammers and their defence is an important part of that. Just six teams have conceded more than their 19 goals, which in part is thanks to their 4 clean sheets. They did ship 3 goals against Chelsea last weekend, but we’re confident this won’t happen at home to Brighton. The Seagulls have been notoriously wasteful in front of goal this season, which is why we have selected right-back Vladimir Coufal for our Gameweek 15 €50K Boxing Day Monster. The Czech international brought his owners 8 FT points over the past 3 gameweeks, courtesy of an assist and 2 Impact points, and more could be coming his way this weekend.
He is joined in our team by winger Jared Bowen, who is listed as a midfielder on FanTeam. The young Englishman is not (yet) the most prolific of attackers, but he does sit on 4 goals and 2 assists for the season already, and he is definitely one of West Ham’s most dangerous forwards every game. He recorded two double-digit hauls this season, in gameweeks 3 and 10, and the hope is that the home game against Brighton will result in his third. The Seagulls have conceded 6 goals in the last four games, which included encounters with goal-shy Fulham and Sheffield United, and a clean sheet at the London Stadium looks unlikely.
CRYSTAL PALACE
Palace took quite a thumping against Liverpool in GW14 and whilst it would be a bit of an understatement to say that the 7 goals conceded indicates their defence isn’t doing so well at the moment, Football is a funny old game and it wouldn’t surprise us if they bounce right back against a team that had a great win in GW14, Aston Villa. Goalkeeper, Guiata and attacking full-back, Patrick Van Aanholt (PVA) are our selections and as it is one of the two 3pm kick-offs we’ll select PVA as our VC to be sure we get a captain pick if Salah starts from the bench again.
EVERTON
The core of our FanTeam selection this weekend consists of three triple-ups, starting with Everton. The Toffees had a great start to the season, then slumped a bit between gameweeks 6 and 11, and now seem to be back to good form again. In the last three games, they took the full nine points against Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal, scoring 5 goals and conceding just 1. This is why we feel that against Sheffield United this weekend, a victory with a clean sheet could be in the cards.
When talking about Everton this season, there is no way Dominic Calvert-Lewin does not come up. The English forward has been in phenomenal and very consistent form so far this campaign, with 11 goals and 4 assists in 14 games, and he was directly involved in 60% of Everton’s goals over the past three games (3 assists). His last goal dates from gameweek 10 when the Toffees drew with Burnley at Turf Moor, so it’s about time DCL finds the net again. We feel the away game against bottom-of-the-table Sheffield United could be the ideal opportunity to get back to his scoring ways.
Besides Calvert-Lewin, we have also added Gylfi Sigurdsson and Mason Holgate to our lineup. The Icelandic international has been in good form since replacing the injured James Rodriguez in the starting lineup, recording 21 FT points in the process, courtesy of a goal, an assist and 3 Impact points. He should be starting against the Blades as well as one of Everton’s principal creators. Seeing as no team has scored less than Sheffield United, we also added Mason Holgate to our team, who is one of Everton’s least expensive starting defenders this weekend and was rested for the Caraboa Cup defeat tonight against Man Utd. Should he not start for some reason, then FanTeam’s Safety Net will replace him with Ben Godfrey for us.
SPURS
Our next trio have their home ground in North London, but play in the West Midlands this weekend. Spurs are visiting Molineux to face a Wolves side who have won just once in their last four outings, though that victory did come at Stamford Bridge. The absence of star man Raul Jimenez is affecting the team’s performances, especially in an attacking sense, and they are up against one of the league’s best defences on Sunday when José Mourinho’s Spurs come to visit. With 8 conceded goals and just 3 goals in their favour, like with Everton, we can see a Spurs victory with a clean sheet in this one.
As a result, our Spurs trio starts with full-back Sergio Reguilon, who has performed very well for Mourinho recently. Last weekend’s home game against Leicester was a disappointment for the entire squad and the Spanaird will be looking to make amends with a clean sheet against Wolves, we hope. The Spurs booked three clean sheets in their last six games, though none of those came in the last three games. Still, against a goal-shy Wolves side, a fourth shut-out of the season looks like a realistic scenario.
The rest of our Spurs selection is made up of this season’s top fantasy performers who are priced surprisingly friendly for the upcoming encounter with Wolves. Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son have been in red-hot form so far this, recording an incredible 20 goals and 14 assists between the two of them in just 14 rounds of Premier League football. Manager Nuno Espirito Santo’s Wolves are definitely no push-overs and we’re not expecting a goal bonanza here, but Spurs look favourites and if they want to take the three points home, they will largely be dependent on their dynamic duo up front.
BONUS
Finally, the bonus man, Liverpool’s talisman. Mo Salah was brought on in the 57th minute at a 0-4 score line against Crystal Palace last weekend and half an hour later, the Egyptian had 2 goals and 1 assist to his name for a total of 15 FT points. This lightning performance brought his totals up to 13 goals and 4 assists for this Premier League season. Up next are West Bromwich Albion at Anfield, so we didn’t doubt for a second. He was the first name on our team sheet and he is also our captain for gameweek 15 of FanTeam’s €50K Boxing Day Monster.