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 euro entry (50k prize pool) Weekly Monster which has a maximum entry limit of 3,000 and we’ll report back next week on where we finished. A finish in the top 20% would see us win part of the prize pool for which normally the winner gets about 4,000 euros. FanTeam also offer a 2 euro entry Weekly Monster with a lower prize pool (the winner normally gets about 500 euros) for those that want to try it out for smaller stakes.
Firstly we’re going to highlight a couple of very different rules that FanTeam in their Weekly Monster have compared to FPL.
Number one is that FanTeam have a rule called the ‘safety net’ so that if a selected player does not start in the Weekly Monster then the next lowest priced player from the same team automatically takes the place of your selected player (regardless of whether or not your selected player does take to the field later in the game). Have a look at our comments about our selection of Liverpool’s Lallana below for more detail. This rule helps people enter a team and then not worry too much about whether they 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 selected defenders/goalies all from the same club. The ‘stacking penalty’ rule is basically if you pick more than one defensive player (included keeper) from a particular club, the points awarded for a clean sheet will decrease by 1 point for each additional defensive player from the same club. The stacking penalty has a maximum of minus 3 points. This helps stop multi-entrants gaining an advantage by submitting block defence teams. A reasonable tactic can be to select 2 players from two different clubs for your Goalie and Defenders and thus only incurr 2 single point deductions if you nail both clean sheets correctly.
Don’t forget, the deadline for gameweek 22’s Fanteam Weekly Monster is set at 15h00 (UK time)on Saturday, January 11th 2020. You can enter a team earlier and make changes right up to the deadline. So you can have 1 hour of seeing what the starting line-ups are for the 3pm matches and can change your selections appropriately. But you can’t change your team after 3pm.
Gameweek 22 Weekly Monster matches
| 11/01/20 | Wolves | Newcastle |
| 11/01/20 | Leicester | Southampton |
| 11/01/20 | Everton | Brighton |
| 11/01/20 | Chelsea | Burnley |
| 11/01/20 | Manchester United | Norwich |
| 11/01/20 | Spurs | Liverpool |
| 12/01/20 | Bournemouth | Watford |
| 12/01/20 | Aston Villa | Manchester City |
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 22
Formation: 3-4-3 – Budget used: €99.5m. All Goalkeepers/Defenders from different clubs so no ‘stacking penalty’ would apply.
Goalkeeper
We’ve gone with Burnley’s Nick Pope as our goalkeeper for gameweek 22, a decision that is largely two-fold. First of all, his budget price allows us to spend big in other areas, which might come up handy as GW22 is offering plenty of attractive fixtures. Second of all, Chelsea’s frankly terrible home form. The Blues are actually in 14th place in the league when looking at just home games this season (14 points from 10 games in which they scored just 11 goals and conceded 10). Pope will also score 0.5 points for every save he makes.
Defenders
Everton’s Djibril Sidibé has been a mainstay in the Toffees starting eleven since Carlo Ancelotti took over at Goodison Park, mostly as a right-back and sometimes as a sort of right wing-back/right midfielder. Against Brighton at home this weekend, we hope the Frenchman will be posted more up-field again, possibly with Coleman behind him. The Seagulls have scored just 10 goals in 10 away games and taken just 8 points from that run, and in FPL, Sidibé has recorded 23 points over his past four games, courtesy of 2 clean sheets, an assist, and no less than 5 bonus points. In other words, we’re hoping for returns at both ends of the pitch from the Everton right-back. There are also 2 cheaper Everton defenders in case he doesn’t start (Coleman & Holgate).
Our second defensive pick is Wolves central defender Romain Saiss who is facing an injury-ravaged Newcastle at Molineux on Saturday. Out of the seven Magpie defenders with the most FPL points at this moment, six are currently flagged as injured or at least doubtful for this game. Of course, this is more interesting for Raul Jimenez (more on him later), but it also means that Newcastle manager Steve Bruce will probably start with a make-shift foundation against Wolves. His priority will more than ever be to strengthen his defence as much as possible and hope for a chance or two on the break. Wolves have not recorded a clean sheet since GW15, but this week looks like the perfect opportunity for their fourth shut-out of the season and Saiss is the cheapest nailed-on way into the Wolves defence. No cheaper (fit/green) Wolves defender so no safety net in play here if he doesn’t start but we’re confident he will.
The same goes for the cheapest Liverpool defender Joe Gomez, who is expected to start again on Saturday when Jurgen Klopp’s men roll up to the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to face a Spurs side that hurts to watch at times. The home team are missing a few important players for this one, the most important one obviously being star man Harry Kane, which convinced us to pick a Liverpool defender despite the (on paper) tricky fixture. Gomez has amassed a very nice 32 FPL points over his last 5 games and he is, by far, the cheapest way into the league’s best defence this week which means likely no safety net available. Gomez should have a good chance of starting though. The Spurs v Liverpool match is the late Saturday match so no-one will know for sure at the 3pm (UK time) entry deadline who will start for either team. We’re gambling that Gomez will start and get a clean sheet (needs a minimum 60 minutes of play to get the clean sheet bonus).
Midfielders
Man City’s Kevin de Bruyne was the second name on our team sheet this week, much like he is, so we believe at least, the first name on Pep Guardiola’s team sheet every week. The Belgian midfield maestro is facing Aston Villa at Villa Park, where the Villains have performed relatively alright so far this season (14 points from 10 games). They were more than extremely unlucky in gameweek 21 though, when both their starting striker (Wesley) and starting goalkeeper (Heaton) suffered season-ending injuries. At the same time, Man City are coming off an impressive 1-3 victory over arch rivals United at Old Trafford. Combining all these factors, plus City’s general footballing superiority, makes it difficult for us to imagine anything else but a comfortable scoreline for the away team and if that happens, count on De Bruyne pulling the strings. He is also our vice-captain for gameweek 22.
Our second big-hitter in midfield is Man United’s Anthony Martial, who has fully recovered from his injury issues and will be starting all the way up top for the Red Devils against Saturday’s opponent Norwich. In his last three games, the Frenchman scored 3 goals and brought his owners a sweet 25 FPL points, which comes down to an average of just over 8 points per game. Norwich are bottom of the league when it comes to away games (when it comes to home games and overall games as well, by the way) with just 4 points from 10 games. The Canaries shipped 16 goals in those games, which considerably raises Martial out-of-position striker appeal, especially knowing that the visitors will not (and maybe are not able to) “park the bus” in away games.
Brighton’s Leandro Trossard has definitely shown flashes of brilliance for the Seagulls in his first Premier League season, though manager Graham Potter has not been hesitant to rotate the young Belgian throughout the first half of the season. With creator-in-chief Aaron Mooy most likely out injured for the away game against Everton though, we feel the coach might look at Trossard for some much-needed creativity in the final third. Despite recording just 3 assists in his last 8 games, the winger already has a total of 2 goals and 5 assists to his name, which is not so bad when looking at his price. Everton at Goodison Park under Ancelotti is not going to be easy for Trossard or any Seagull, but we wouldn’t be surprised to him creating some danger, especially when considering he’s on plenty of set-pieces as well. There are a few cheaper Brighton players as well so safety net in play.
Our fourth and final midfielder for this week is a bit of a punt, as it’s not 100% sure Adam Lallana will start for Liverpool against Spurs on Saturday. With Milner, Fabinho and Keita all reported unavailable for the game, the third midfield spot on the Reds midfield seems to be between Lallana and Oxlade-Chamberlain. The former played an excellent game in Liverpool’s impressive victory over Everton in the third round of the FA Cup last weekend and despite just playing a single minute in GW21, the Englishman also played a fine game against Wolves in GW20, underlined by his assist for the only and this winning goal. This pick has been the result of budget constraints as well, but we feel it might be worth the risk but the safety net may not apply as Ox is more expensive and it’s unlikely any other cheaper Liverpool midfielder (assuming Milner ruled out) would start. If he is benched and no cheaper Liv midfielder starts then at least we will get Lallana’s points if he comes on (which is likely). The Spurs v Liverpool match is the late Saturday match so no-one will no for sure at the 3pm (UK time) entry deadline who will start for either team. We’re gambling that Lallana will play and score points.
Just to expand about the safety net – it would not be in play for us if Ox played and Lallana benched because Ox is more expensive. It would only be in play for Lallana if a cheaper Liv midfielder started (seems unlikely). If we instead selected Ox and he was benched but Lallana played then our selection of Ox would be automatically replaced by Lallana. But as we’ve selected Lallana only players the same price or cheaper than him would replace him if he’s on the bench. That said it seems likely he’d at least come on at some point even if benched and has a decent shout at starting. The other thing to bear in mind is that if our team is tied with others then the cheaper budget team would be ranked higher – so choosing Lallana has an advantage over choosing Ox (who is benched and then automatically replaced by Lallana).
Here is a copy of the ‘Safety Net’ rules:
If a player does not start his match, he will be
replaced by an automatic sub if possible. The system will look for a
replacement player that
1) is from the same club as the original player
2) plays in the same position as the original player
3) costs the same or less as the original player
All three conditions need to be met. Then the system will pick the player with the highest price and put him in place of the original player. (If there are no replacement players that meet all three conditions, the user will not get any replacement players and the original player will stand). There is no limit on how many replacement players a team can receive.
Tiebreaker rules when two or more replacement players
costs the same. The system will choose
– the player with the most fantasy points in recent matches, ‘form’
If the players are equal on this point, the system will pick
– the player with the most fantasy points so far in the season
If still equal, the system will pick
– alphabetically
If a player does not start the match, but comes into play at a later point in time, he will still be replaced. However, if a player starts the match, but get subbed out at some point, he will not be replaced.
Forwards
Jamie Vardy was the first name on our team sheet and the captain’s band has not come off his arm since then. The English striker is currently the Premier League top scorer with 17 goals (he has also provided 5 assists, by the way) and the highest-scoring player in FPL overall with 144 FPL points. Due to the birth of his child and a minor calf injury, he missed the past two games for the Foxes, but on his return, on Wednesday against Aston Villa in the League Cup semi-final, he immediately returned by providing the assist for Leicester’s only goal. We feel that, despite the good current form of Saturday’s opponent Southampton, Vardy is going to continue where he left off a few gameweeks ago. He might not replicate his hattrick from the game at Saint Mary’s in gameweek 10, but if we feel anyone’s going to appear on the score sheet this weekend, it’s him.
With Wolves striker Raul Jimenez, we’ve chosen to get another expensive, big name for our forward line. The Mexican has not been particularly impressive in terms of big hauls this season, but his consistency is equally valuable. He is already on 8 goals and 6 assists this season, giving him a total of 106 FPL points, and 2 of those goals and 3 of those assists have come in the last 6 gameweeks. That’s including the 18 minutes of play time he got when he was rested in gameweek 20. This Saturday he is facing a Newcastle defence plagued by injuries and even though Steve Bruce has shown that he knows how to build a solid defensive unit with relatively limited means, we think Jimenez is going to capitalise on the current situation.
Completing our starting eleven for this week’s Fanteam Weekly Monster is possibly the most in-form Premier League striker of the moment, namely Southampton’s Danny Ings. Over the last 10 gameweeks, the Englishman has scored an incredible 9 goals. As a matter of fact, over that run, he has only failed to return twice, against West Ham at home in GW 17 and versus Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in GW 19. This weekend, Ings and co are visiting the King Power Stadium to face Leicester, which immediately explains the striker’s low price this week. Even though the Saints are not expected to go down with another 9-0 thumping, they are not expected to take much from this game. Still, in his current form, Ings might very well manage to snatch a goal.
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.