Fantasy Football Tips For Success

Regardless of whether you’re new or a seasoned fantasy football player, becoming better at it and achieving more points is what it is all about. As such, consider the following tips as it is always good to learn new approaches. You don’t have to follow them if you feel you use a better technique to pick your fantasy football lineup while following the Premier League results.

Building a Squad

The key to success is building an in-form squad. You achieve points if your chosen players score, assist in a goal, make a save or keep a clean sheet. Most fantasy football leagues work by having a budget at the start of the season and you choose a 15 player squad. Your starting eleven must consist of at least one goalkeeper, three defenders, two midfielders and one forward.

In your squad, you choose a captain and a vice-captain. Points for the captain count twice. Should your captain not play, your vice-captain will act as captain and score double points.

If a player in your starting eleven isn’t selected your sub will be called into the fray.

The art is to balance the team as best you can.

Tips for Building a Squad

It is important that a renowned goal scorer is in your squad and by extension the first eleven. It is tempting to blow the budget on a player that is going to bang in goal after goal. Remember, though that to win a fantasy football league you need balance throughout the team. If you splash out on a Salah or a Kane you’re not going to have much for the rest of the squad. It is great to score points from goals and assists but you’ll find your team won’t be excelling unless you keep clean sheets at the other end.

To try and get the best bang for your buck, review the previous season to find consistently good players in all positions. This will help you build a strong squad that will score points consistently. You may well find that you can find teams that let in few goals but do not have superstar defenders. This is great if you have an expensive forward and want to save budget on other positions.

Use Transfers Wisely

The rules for many leagues is that you have one free transfer per game week. You can have no more than 15 players in a squad so you release one player and bring in another. This is good if you have a player that has picked up an injury or isn’t playing many games. Or indeed gets transferred overseas.

If you want to make additional transfers you have to pay a four-point penalty. So if you’re going to do this be confident that it is worth it.

Note that if you don’t use your free transfer it rolls over for a week. So if you do want to bring in more than one new player, use this facility to do so.

Bear in mind that player values rise and fall. This is worth keeping an eye on for a number of reasons. Not least that a player you wanted may have been slightly too high for you to bring into the squad. It could be after you sell a player you now have the budget due to player value changing. This can boost a team considerably.

Use Chips Wisely

If your league uses chips they normally take the following form:

• Free Hit – Reset your team for one week.
• Bench Boost – Earn points from your non-playing substitutes.
• Triple Captain – Here your captain will earn you three times your point score rather than the usual times two.
• Wildcard – In both halves of the season, you can play the wildcard chip which gives you the opportunity to choose a whole new squad.

There are five chips to play in a season and which one you should play depends on how well your team is doing. You can use chips to enhance points from matches where you think your players will do well.

If you’re in a position where you feel you have nothing to lose, play the wildcard chip. You’re probably not scoring many points and languishing down at the bottom of the league so it is time to think again.

Wildcards are good if you want to experiment with tactics. You may have put the slant on defensive players and this hasn’t worked out as you hoped or vice versa. As such, you may want to go for the opposite tactic either more attacking or more defending depending on the results.

Fantasy football is great fun and gives the season an extra dimension. Do not be too disheartened if you do not find your team is riding high at the top of the league. It takes time to perfect your tactics and your player choices, so give yourself time.

Most of all enjoy your fantasy football and remember the more you play the better you’ll get.