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 23’s Fanteam Weekly Monster is set at 3PM (UK time) on Saturday, January 18th, 2020. You can enter a team earlier and make changes right up to the deadline. This means you have an hour to check the starting line-ups for the 3PM games, so you can change your selections accordingly up until the 3PM deadline, but not after.
Gameweek 23 Weekly Monster matches
| 18/01/20 | Arsenal | Sheffield United |
| 18/01/20 | Southampton | Wolves |
| 18/01/20 | Norwich | Bournemouth |
| 18/01/20 | Manchester City | Crystal Palace |
| 18/01/20 | Brighton | Aston Villa |
| 18/01/20 | West Ham | Everton |
| 18/01/20 | Newcastle | Chelsea |
| 19/01/20 | Burnley | Leicester |
| 19/01/20 | Liverpool | Manchester United |
How did our Weekly Monster team fare in gameweek 22?
Formation: 3-4-3 | Budget used: €99.5m | GW22 finish: 1800th/2600 | Prize pool: €0
| NAME (club) (opponent) | PRICE (m) | RETURNS | POINTS |
| Nick Pope (BUR) (CHE away) | 4.3 | 2.5 saves, -1 for goals conceded | 2.5 |
| Joe Gomez (LIV) (TOT away) | 7.6 | Clean sheet, yellow card | 6 |
| Djibril Sidibé (EVE) (BRI home) | 7.5 | Clean sheet | 7 |
| Romain Saiss (WOL) (NEW home) | 7.5 | /// | 2 |
| Kevin de Bruyne (CIT) (AST away) | 14.5 | 2 assists | 10 |
| Anthony Martial (UTD) (NOR home) | 13.8 | 1 goal, clean sheet | 9 |
| Leandro Trossard (BRI) (EVE away) | 6 | /// | 2 |
| Adam Lallana (LIV) (TOT away) | 7.6 | /// | 1 |
| Jamie Vardy (LEI) (SOU home) | 12.9 | 1 assist | 5 |
| Raul Jimenez (WOL) (NEW home) | 6.2 | /// | 3 |
| Danny Ings (SOU) (LEI away) | 11.6 | 1 goal, yellow card | 7 |
Our team suggestion for the Weekly Monster in gameweek 23
Formation: 3-4-3 | Budget used: €99.0m | Focus on players from Man City, Southampton and Norwich
Goalkeeper
With Wolves’ exertions in the FA Cup on Wednesday when losing against Man Utd, we feel that Southampton may have the edge over them this weekend. Wolves are not on the best of runs at the moment whilst Southampton have beaten Spurs and Leicester in their last two EPL matches. So we’re picking 3 Southampton players, starting with McCarthy in goal, on the basis that if they beat Wolves there’s a chance all 3 players will then get in the points (and each earn the win bonus point).
Defenders
As is the case for the midfield and the forward line, our first defensive pick comes from the Manchester City roster. We wanted to select Ben Mendy, but seeing as he might be rotated with either Zinchenko or Angeliño, with Oleksandr Zinchenko being the most expensive of the three, and considering the Safety Net is in play, we’ve gone with the Ukrainian. If he starts, we’re fine, and if Mendy or Angeliño ends up starting, the playing asset will automatically replace Mendy in our Weekly Monster lineup. In gameweek 23, City are welcoming a goal-shy (10 goals scored in 11 away games) and injury-ravaged (currently 8 potential starters are flagged in FPL) Crystal Palace to the Etihad, and we can honestly see this going only one way. Eagles boss Roy Hodgson might be able to figure out a way to avoid a thrashing, but what we hope for most of all are points from Zinchenko/Mendy/Angeliño at both sides of the pitch. If we’re online in the hour up to 3pm and Mendy starts we’ll swap him in for Zinchenko to reduce our budget (useful in a tiebreaker).
Our second defender for gameweek 23 is this season’s FPL favourite John Lundstram, whose Sheffield United are visiting the Emirates to face Arsenal this weekend. At a glance, this might look like a strange pick, but let us explain. First of all, Sheffield are performing astonishingly well so far his season (they currently sit in sixth, four positions above Arsenal). Second of all, Lundstram plays as a box-to-box midfielder. Third of all, Sheffield play the kind of energetic and at times gritty football that Arsenal tends to have problems with. And fourth of all, despite the improving performances and results of late, and despite the positive messages coming from the club since Mikel Arteta’s appointment as head coach, this is still Arsenal, with an Arsenal defence and an Aubameyang-less attack. True, Lundstram away at Arsenal is a punt, but if there is one team from the traditional top-6 that could get into real trouble in a home game like this, it’s Arsenal.
Our third defender is selected using the same principles as our Goalkeeper. We think Norwich have a good fixture this weekend taking on Bournemouth at home and consequently we’re selecting three players from Norwich, one of which is their captain Grant Hanley. This also means we won’t incur any stacking penalty as all 4 players in our defence are from different clubs.
Midfielders
Our midfield is built around two main men and one of those two is Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne. The Belgian midfielder is displaying an almost terrifying consistency in the Premier League this season, with 5 goals and 6 assists in his last ten games. In gameweek 22, he brought our Weekly Monster team a very welcome 10 points, making him our best-performing player of the week. This weekend, KDB and his teammates are hosting Crystal Palace, which is why we have selected the midfield maestro again this gameweek. Lately, Guardiola has been experimenting with a different formation at times in which the offensive wingers are more or less sacrificed for a wider line at the back and a second striker up top. This has not been positive for the likes of Sterling and Bernardo Silva, who haven’t played a minute over the last two gameweeks (well, Sterling played 1 minute in GW21). Therefore, in comes Mr. Consistency De Bruyne, who looks to be City’s most rotation-proof asset and capable of delivering a decent haul against Palace this Saturday.
Our second premium name in midfield is Liverpool’s Mo Salah, who will be facing arch rivals Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday. The Egyptian forward scored a goal in GW21 and provided an assists in GW22, so he has been in pretty good form lately. If we look back in time a bit further, we see two blank 3-pointers in gameweeks 19 and 20, preceded by scores of 13 and 16 points in rounds 16 and 17, respectively (Salah did not feature in GW18). Manchester United have already conceded 15 goals in 11 away games and this weekend, Salah will most likely be facing the very talented, but still very young Brandon Williams at left-back. On top of that, Liverpool’s star attacker has a clear preferences for playing in front of his own fans this season, which is illustrated by the fact that 9 of his 10 goals this season were scored at Anfield. It’s always hard to predict the outcome of regional derbies like this, but we could see Salah have a field day on Sunday afternoon. Salah is our vice-captain for gameweek 23.
Our third and fourth midfielders are Stuart Armstrong of Southampton and Alexander Tettey of Norwich. We’ve already explained the reasons for choosing these two clubs and we’re hoping these two can provide an assist for our two strikers from Southampton and Norwich. Budget constraints mean we can’t afford someone more expenssive than Tettey.
Forwards
Like we did in defense with Zinchenko and in midfield with De Bruyne, we’re starting our offensive lineup with a Manchester City player as well, namely Sergio Aguero. Between gameweeks 12 and 21, the Argentinian striker just scored a single goal, which was mainly due to ongoing injury issues. Gameweek 22 saw him return to the Premier League spotlights in style though, scoring a hattrick and providing an assist to help his team to a 1-6 victory at Villa Park. Rotation was and is a serious risk for Aguero, as it is for the rest of his City teammates, but we’d be surprised to see Pep bench a Kun in red hot record-breaking form. Purely in theory, the Cityzens have the easiest fixture out of all (traditional) top clubs) as they are welcoming a Crystal Palace side suffering from a lack of goals and an overflowing treatment room. Aguero is also our captain for gameweek 23.
Our second pick for the front line is Norwich striker Teemu Pukki, who was injured last weekend, but reported to be fit in time for this weekend’s home encounter with Bournemouth. The Cherries are struggling badly at the moment and these struggles have seen them steadily descend down the Premier League table. Currently, they sit in 19th place, meaning there is just one team below them and that team is… you guessed it, Norwich. In other words, we’re betting here on a true and authentic bottom-of-the-table clash, one of the least predictable types of games. The visitors have booked just two victories in the last twelve games and they have scored only a single goal in their past five games, back in gameweek 19 versus Arsenal. Over that same period, they also conceded 11 goals. The Canaries haven’t done much better, to be honest, but they have shown a bit more reason for positivity. Their last victory was booked all the way back in GW13 against Everton, but they did draw four out of the subsequent nine games. Over that run, they scored 11 goals and 3 of those goals were scored by Pukki. In other words, Norwich have not completely lost their scoring touch, so we hope Pukki will be building on his total tallies of 9 goals and 3 assists this season on Saturday.
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 11 gameweeks, the Englishman has scored an incredible 10 goals. 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. When we decided to focus on Southampton as one of the main clubs from which to select players, he was the first name on our team sheet.
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.