FISO are starting a new series of weekly articles on Fanteam, Europe’s biggest daily fantasy football provider (and entering the team that we write about!). This series will focus on Fanteam’s Weekly Monster, a weekly fantasy league based on the Premier League games that kick-off on or after Saturday 3pm UK time with €50,000 worth of guaranteed prize money. That’s every gameweek, in case you were wondering. Our article will focus on a Early Entry for this weekly tournament which will help you identify game rules, tactics and the most promising players per gameweek so you can win some of that large prize money. Every gameweek, we will choose a team of eleven players from the selected Premier League matches within a virtual budget of €100 million. In that sense, the Weekly Monster is quite similar to the official Fantasy Premier League game we all know and love.
Our FISO team below will be entered into this week’s €20 entry (€50k prize pool) Weekly Monster, which has a maximum entry limit of 3,000. Every week, we’ll report back on how our team performed in the previous week. A finish in the top 20% of a given week would see us win part of the prize pool of which the winner normally takes home about €4,000. FanTeam also offer a €2 entry Weekly Monster with a lower prize pool (of which the winner normally gets about €500) 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.
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. By ‘next’ lowest we mean if our player (who doesn’t start) is priced at 7m and two players priced less than him at 6.8m and 6.5m start then our replacement will be the 6.8m player. The automatic replacement is regardless of whether or not your selected player does take to the field later in the game. This rule means people who have entered a team into the Weekly Monster need not 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.
Don’t forget, the deadline for gameweek 24’s Fanteam MidWeek Monster is set at 7.30PM (UK time) on Tuesday, January 21st, 2020. You can enter a team earlier and make changes right up to the deadline. This means you can change your selections accordingly up until the 7:30PM deadline, but not after.
Gameweek 24 Weekly Monster matches
| 21/01/20 | Bournemouth | Brighton |
| 21/01/20 | Sheffield United | Manchester City |
| 21/01/20 | Everton | Newcastle |
| 21/01/20 | Aston Villa | Watford |
| 21/01/20 | Crystal Palace | Southampton |
| 21/01/20 | Chelsea | Arsenal |
| 22/01/20 | Leicester | West Ham |
| 22/01/20 | Spurs | Norwich |
| 22/01/20 | Manchester United | Burnley |
| 23/01/20 | Wolves | Liverpool |
How did our Weekly Monster team fare in gameweek 23?
Formation: 3-4-3 | Budget used: €99.5m | GW22 finish: 451st/2600 | Prize won: €30
| NAME (club) (opponent) | PRICE (m) | RETURNS | POINTS |
| McCarthy (SOU) (WOL home) | 6.6 | 1 save, -1 for goals conceded | 0.5 |
| Mendy (CITY) (CRY home) | 8.9 | 1 assist, yellow, -1 for goals conceded | 3 |
| Lundstram (SHE) (ARS away) | 5.3 | /// | 1 |
| Zimmerman (NOR) (BOU home) | 7.3 | Clean sheet | 7 |
| Salah (LIV) (UTD home) | 12.8 | 1 goal, clean sheet | 9 |
| Armstrong (SOU) (WOL home) | 5.4 | /// | 2 |
| De Bruyne (CIT) (CRY home) | 14.6 | /// | 3 |
| Tettey (NOR) (BOU home) | 6.8 | Clean sheet | 5 |
| Aguero (CIT) (CRY home) | 13.8 | 2 goals | 11 |
| Ings (SOU) (WOL home) | 8.2 | /// | 2 |
| Pukki (NOR) (BOU home) | 9.8 | 1 goal | 7 |
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 24
Formation: 3-5-2 | Budget used: €100m
Goalkeeper
Our goalkeeper for gameweek 24 is based on our expectation that Southampton will be bouncing back this round after a disappointing home loss versus Wolves over the weekend. With a visit to Crystal Palace up next who we’re hoping come down to earth after their excellent draw at man City at the weekend, a nice little haul could be on the cards for Saints goalie Alex McCarthy. The Eagles are not unfamiliar with keeping the points at home, which is illustrated by the 16 points they have taken from 11 home games, but they are far from productive in those games as well. Palace have scored just 10 goals in front of their own fans all season, which bodes well for Southampton and McCarthy.
Defenders
We’ve chosen to stick to a three-man defence for GW24 with an emphasis on Everton, who are welcoming Newcastle to Goodison Park on Tuesday evening. Picking Djibril Sidibé and Mason Holgate will activate the Stacking Penalty in case the Toffees keep a clean sheet, but we would consider losing just 1 penalty point more than acceptable. As far as the Safety Net goes, only Baines is cheaper in the Everton defence than Holgate, while Baines, Delph and Coleman all have lower prices than Sidibé does. This means we have some margin in case he ends up not starting, which is a luxury we don’t have in the case of Holgate (unless Baines suddenly and surprisingly starts).
With 20 points from 11 home games, Everton have not done too badly so far. As a matter of fact, when looking only at home games, they are placed sixth in the league. Only Norwich, Watford, Palace and Newcastle have scored less in front of their own fans than Everton’s 13 goals, but only Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Sheffield United and Palace have conceded less at home Everton’s 11 goals. At a glance, this paints the picture of a team that doesn’t necessarily entertains at home, but that does book results. Newcastle, on the other hand, have scored just 10 goals in 11 away games, while conceding 22 over that same run of fixtures.
Our third defender for our gameweek 24 Weekly Monster selection is the first of three Manchester United players in the team, namely youngster Brandon Williams. Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seems to trust the young left-back, and with Shaw in midfield against Liverpool and putting in a good shift, he might once again start for the Red Devils on Wednesday, especially considering the list of injuries at United. With 10 goals conceded in 11 home games, they boast the shared second-best defence in the league, just one behind leaders Liverpool. This round’s opponent Burnley are not particularly comfortable away from Turf Moor this season, which is illustrated by the 9 points they have brought back from 11 away games. The Clarets have also scored just 10 goals over that run of games, so hopefully United manages to shut Sean Dyche’s men out once more. We have a last-minute selection contingency plan in case Williams does not start.
Midfielders
Where we emphasised on Everton in defence this gameweek, we’re focusing on Manchester United in the midfield with two picks. Anthony Martial is the fourth-most expensive player overall in the Weekly Monster this round, due to his potential for a nice haul against Burnley at home. The injury of Rashford hurts United a lot, but this will only make Martial even more of a focal point in attack and the expectation is that the home team will dominate possession during most of the game. They have shown this season that they can struggle badly against teams that drop deep and aim for counter-attacks, but considering the 20 goals Burnley have conceded in 11 away games, we feel there could be some joy here for the French striker who is classified as a midfielder for Fanteam’s Weekly Monster and who has scored 4 goals in his last five Premier League games. He is our captain for GW24.
To some extent, the same goes for his teammate Juan Mata, though the big difference with the Spanish playmaker is that the latter is far from a secured starter under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. With Pogba still (or is it again?) out injured, and both Lingard and Andreas Pereira disappointing as number 10, we expect Mata to be given a chance from the start on Wednesday. The last time he started was back in gameweek 22 against Norwich and in that game, he completed the 90 minutes and brought in an impressive 11 points on Fanteam. Fred and Matic are all cheaper than Mata and expected to start, so there is a bit of a Safety Net we can count on in case the Spaniard is not in the starting eleven for some reason.
Besides these two Man United stars, we have added another expensive asset to our midfield, namely Dennis Praet from Leicester City. The young Belgian midfielder started the last two gameweeks and recorded a more than decent 12 points in Fanteam over that period, courtesy of a goal and an assist. These two returns were his first two direct goal involvements of the season. As a matter of fact, the goal he scored against Southampton in gameweek 22 was his first for the club, mainly due to the fact that he didn’t start off the 2019-2020 campaign as a first-eleven player after arriving from Sampdoria in the summer. Since a gameweek or two though, he seems to have replaced his somewhat out-of-form compatriot Tielemans in the starting eleven, at least for the time being.
Our fourth midfield pick for gameweek 24 is a mainly budget-enabling one, allowing us to bring in a potentially explosive fifth midfielder with differential potential later. Crystal Palace are definitely no pushovers, as is illustrated by their current ninth place in the league, but Southampton are one of the teams in good form currently and we’re confident they will cause Roy Hodgson’s men some trouble coming Tuesday, which is why we’re filling out our squad with Stuart Armstrong. The kindly priced Scottish midfield is a mainstay in Ralph Hasenhüttl’s starting eleven and he has recorded 18 points in the Weekly Monster over the last five gameweeks. We’re hoping Palace come back to earth with a bump after their great result against Man City.
In comparison to last gameweek, we have gone with five instead of four midfielders this time and the fifth midfielder is a pick that combines form and fixture: Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish. The young English midfielder is Villa’s captain and overall best player, at least in an attacking sense, as most of the attacks run through him at some point. This includes a majority of set-pieces. He already has a more than respectable 7 goals and 6 assists to his name, which represents a direct involvement in just under 45% of his team’s goals. This Tuesday, a resurgent Watford roll up to Villa Park and even though that one is far from in the pocket for Villa, we do feel confident about Grealish’s potential to record a return here regardless of the game’s result.
Forwards
The first forward for our Weekly Monster GW24 team was also our first name of the team sheet. Leicester have just lost two consecutive games, against Southampton in gameweek 22 and Burnley last weekend, so it’s time for them to get back to winning ways again. A home game against West Ham looks like a good opportunity to do so and we’re hoping Jamie Vardy is feeling the same. He has cooled down considerably since his goal against Man City back in gameweek 18, recording just a single assist in the five games after that. Do remember that he did not feature in gameweeks 20 and 21, though. In any case, that’s not the kind of rhythm we had gotten used to from Vardy this season, so we’re hoping a goal or two against West Ham will get him back on track for the Golden Boot. He’s our vice-captain for gameweek 24.
Vardy is forming an attacking duo with Danny Ings this round, whose 14 goals and 1 assist helped him record a very nice 124 points in FPL and 104 points on Fanteam. Coming Tuesday, the Saints are travelling to South London where they will be facing Crystal Palace. The Eagles currently sit in 9th place, which can and should be considered quite a feat by manager Roy Hodgson and his men. The foundation of this result is their defensive solidity, which is underlined by the 10 goals they have conceded in 11 home games. Only Liverpool have conceded less. We feel that Ralph Hasenhüttl’s Southampton have hit a vein of form though, and we can see them taking the three points back to the English south coast this gameweek. If they do, you can count on Ings being involved.
As we said this team has been entered into the 20 euro FanTeam Weekly Monster and we hope to report back next week that we’ve shared part of the 50,000 euros prize pool. You can also follow discussions about FanTeam games on FISO’s FanTeam Forum. FISO members could win free ‘Weekly Monster’ entries (worth 20 euros) via the FISO FanTeam forum. There are freerolls for new entrants if registered within the last 8 weeks. Read all about a fiso member who won 30,000 euros on FanTeam from just a 2 euro entry fee. FanTeam have also just launched a 500,000 euro Fantasy Premier League game.