With the nation of Fantasy Football Managers finalising their teams ahead of the big kick off, we thought you may be interested in an analysis which reveals everything managers need to know in order to make the best possible squad and start to the new season.

Bookmakers bwin have analysed Fantasy Football’s Top 50 most successful managers, as well as the performances of every player last season, to reveal the answers to the most common questions in Fantasy Football: What is the best formation to play? Where should managers spend most their money? Should squads have three players from one team? Should teams have a strong bench? Plus many more…

The headline stats include:

Formations, position choice and transfers:

• 3-4-3 is the winning formation – Averaging 50.5 points a game, managers should stick to a 3-4-3 formation. With an average of 46.2 points a game, 5-4-1 should be avoided at all costs
• Choose Full Backs over Centre Backs – Averaging 3.33 a game, full backs trump centre backs, who average 3.17 points a game
• Wingers score more points than Centre Midfielders – Wide men score on average 4.16 points a game, whilst central midfielders score just 3.42
• Invest in midfielders rather than strikers – Midfielders over £8.5m average 5.81 points a game, making them better value for money than strikers. Strikers over £10m average 5.73 points a game
• Don’t cheap out on your defence – Avoid buying cheap defenders (under £4.5m), as they average 2.85 points a game. This is significantly lower than the second lowest point makers – cheap midfielders (under £6.5m), who average 3.09 points a game
• Do make transfers at the expense of point deductions – Taking a point reduction on players can prove beneficial, as long as managers only do it once in every four gameweeks
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, put them in 10 – The perfect squad mix is: three players from one club, two players from three separate clubs and six players from six individual teams

What Players to pick:

• Hidden gems from the Championship – Wolves Diogo Jota, Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon and Leicester’s James Maddison would have been the Championship’s top points earners last year and could be good value for money editions
• Premier League new arrivals aren’t worth investing in – The likes of Fabino, Keita, Anderson and Yarmolenko would have all averaged under 4 points a game last year, so don’t expect too many points from them
• Salah unlikely to warrant his £13m price tag – On average, the top 10 scoring players score 25% less points the following season
• Vardy and Pogba are big game players. They need to be in the side for tough fixtures – Vardy averages 6.75 points per game whilst Pogba averages 6.6. These are significantly higher than their performances against the bottom 6 (3.91 and 4.78 respectively)
• Aubameyang and Son are flat track bullies – Aubameyang averaged 9 points per game and Son 6.08 against the bottom 6. These are significantly higher than their performances against the top 6 (1.33 and 2.8 respectively)
• Avoid having Newcastle players at the start of the season – The Magpies have the hardest opening fixture difficulty according to FDR (opening 6 games), so managers should avoid their players featuring early on
• Everton players to bag points early on – According to FDR, Everton have the easiest starting fixtures (opening 6 games), so managers should take advantage by filling their team with Toffee players