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 (€75k prize pool) Main Event. The winner takes home a cool €7,500 (or £6,750 if you prefer). 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 26 €75K Weekly Monster matches
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 26
Formation: 3-4-3
LEICESTER
The Foxes have entered what looks like another purple patch with three victories in their last four Premier League games, a run that included a home game against Liverpool, and away games against Wolves and Aston Villa. They currently share second place in the league with Manchester United and they have got a major clash with Arsenal at the King Power coming up. The Gunners are not going through their best period at the moment with just a single victory in their last five league games, a run over which they conceded 6 goals. It could very well become a tightly contested encounter on Sunday, but we’re favouring the Foxes to get something out of it, which explains our triple-up.
In the attacking department, we have picked Harvey Barnes, who is listed as a midfielder on FanTeam, and the undeniable Jamie Vardy. The former has been on fire of late with 2 goals and 2 assists in his last two games against Liverpool and Villa, while Vardy is Vardy. When he plays, he’s dangerous, and when he’s dangerous, he’s very likely to return. It’s that simple. The former England international scored a goal and provided an assist in his last two games, and his record against Arsenal is something to behold: 12 games, 11 goals and 1 assist. He is also our captain for this round.
Our third Fox is fantasy favourite Ricardo Pereira, who has finally left his serious injury struggles behind him and seems to be part of Brendan Rodger’s plans going forward. He has started the last five Premier League games for Leicester and often occupied a spot on the right wing, in front of Timothy Castagne. After the win at Villa Park last weekend, Rodgers had the following to say about his plans with Ricardo in attack: “It’s been something I’ve been waiting to do for quite a long time, but this is the first period where both of those boys (Castagne and Pereira) were fit to play. Castagne will run more without the balland penetrate, and Pereira’s the one who can be inside and manipulate the ball.”. The Portuguese defender/winger therefore completes our Leicester trio.
LEEDS
Much has been said and written about Leeds United already this season, with most of it boiling down to the same conclusion, namely that the Whites are a guarantee for goals. Only the current top three plus Liverpool have scored more than their 43 goals, but only West Brom have conceded more than them. This makes it hard to predict their results, but in terms of fantasy games like FanTeam, it makes their attacking assets very attractive. Marcelo Bielsa’s men are playing at home against a solid, but most likely Grealish-less, Aston Villa side and we have opted for three of his main men for our €75K Weekly Monster squad in gameweek 26.
In attack, striker Patrick Bamford and winger Raphinha have been the protagonists so far this season. Bamfy is Bielsa’s undisputed number one for the lone striker position and with good reason, seeing as the Chelsea academy graduate has 13 goals and 8 assists to his name already. Raphinha was brought in from Stade Rennais for £14.4 million last summer and managed to quickly cement his place in the Leeds starting eleven as well. The Brazilian is the man on fire at the moment, with 3 goals and 4 assists from his last seven Premier League games. In terms of form on FanTeam, Bamford is the only player who currently scores higher than Raphinha.
As for our previously discussed Leicester trio, our third Leeds pick is also a defender who also plays out of position. Stuart Dallas has been used as a central midfielder of late by Bielsa and the Northern Irishman has repaid that faith in full. Just a few days ago, the fullback/midfielder/winger scored the second of three goals against Southampton to make it 5 goals and 3 assists for him this season. On top of that, and despite Leeds’ risky defensive tactics, he has also been part of 8 clean sheets. This bodes well for the game against a Villa side that will likely be missing their main creative outlet in Jack Grealish.
WOLVES
Wolves have had an underwhelming season so far, with 33 points from 25 games and a current 12th place. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side has been enormously impacted by the long-term absence of their star forward Raul Jimenez, but they seem to have found some form recently. Of their last four league games, they won three and drew one, and this run included encounters with Arsenal, Leicester, Southampton and Leeds. They scored 5 goals over that run and conceded just twice, so it looks like the Wolves have started to find a way to grind out results. We’re aware of this, but with a game against Newcastle coming up on Saturday, we figured a Wolves triple up could be a shrewd differential move.
At the moment, only four teams in the league have scored less goals than Wolves, but the encounter with the Magpies looks like a good opportunity to work on those numbers. Steve Bruce’s men have conceded 9 goals in their last four games and only West Brom have conceded more than their 43 goals. As a result, we have gone with both Willian José and Pedro Neto for our FanTeam €75K Weekly Monster squad this week. The former was brought in this January to fill in for Raul Jimenez and even though he still needs to find the net for the first time in England, he is nailed-on and seems to be getting used to his new team mates. The latter is listed as a midfielder on FanTeam, but used as a winger by Espirito Santo and he is currently Wolves highest-scoring player on FanTeam with 112 FT points, thanks to 5 goals and 6 assists. Our 3rd Wolves player is the effervescent Romain Saiss who is equally comfortable in midfield as he is in defence and deservedly captain of the Morocco national team.
BONUS
Our bonus fantasy pick for GW26 is none less than Liverpool talisman Mo Salah. Now, you might think that spending a large chunk of our budget on a premium Liverpool asset is not the wisest choice considering the Reds’ form of late, but Salah is Salah. Jurgen Klopp’s men are visiting Bramall Lane on Sunday and despite scoring just 5 goals in their last five PL games, four of those goals were scored by Salah. If any Red is likely to make the difference against the Blades and to get Liverpool out of their slump, it’s Momo.
GOALKEEPER
After selecting the ten outfield players of our choice, we still had a decent part of our budget left to spend on the man between the sticks. We ended up going with Crystal Palace’s Vicente Guaita, who will be featuring in what could be the lowest-scoring game of FanTeam €75K Weekly Monster’s gameweek 26. Palace are hosting an improving, but far from free-scoring Fulham side and the Eagles themselves have, according to Roy Hodgson, taken a more “back to basics” approach since a few weeks ago. That means, a return to more defensive tactics, which bodes well for the Palace defence in this one.