Betway Insider have set out these rules in advance of the start of the 2018/19 Fantasy Premier League season to help you pick a better fantasy team. Pay heed to these guidelines and you could see yourself high up on the leaderboard.

Rule 1 – If you have the spare time then watch as many of the opening matches as possible to see who’s on form and who’s firing blanks. A player who looks to be playing well but is just unlucky not to score or assist is more likely to produce the goods in his next match than a player who is off colour. If you haven’t got time then see what people are saying on fiso’s Fantasy Football forums.

Rule 2 – Review the first 5 or 6 fixtures for each club and avoid those mid/lower ranked clubs that have difficult matches (such as a lot of away matches and/or against higher ranked clubs). For example, Newcastle’s opening home fixtures are against Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal and they also have an away match against Man City – you can’t get a much tougher start than that in your first 5 matches.

Rule 3 – The bargain players can make your season. Each player has a cost and you only have a limit to what you can spend so value for money is important particularly if you’re spending big on certain players. The new clubs coming from the Championship can provide opportunities as can players transferred in before the transfer deadline. FISO’s FPL forum has many discussions on who might be the best bargain players to have on your FPL team this season.

Rule 4 – In FPL you get 1 free transfer per week but anymore (other than using your wildcard/free hit) then it will cost you 4 points. Don’t get trigger happy and remove players costing you minus 4 points each time, particularly if you have someone on the bench that can come in. You have to be lucky to make up those 4 points lost.

Rule 5 – Many managers have a strategy at the start of the season and then rip it up within a few weeks only to find that if they had stuck to their guns they would have climbed back up the leaderboard. Yes you may need to adapt to how things pan out on the field and may need to reorganise your team to get that star player in but don’t abandon a strategy that’s worked well for you in the past and where the odds are with you.