And it’s live...

Yesterday saw the first price releases of FPL players ahead of the next season, sparking excitement amongst the FPL community, and today has seen the launch of this seasons game.

Therefore, it seems the perfect time to start this blog, and reflect on the lessons learnt over the last few years.

Your biggest opponent in FPL is yourself, not the millions of other players in the game.

I heard this quote on a FantasyFootballScout podcast last year, and nothing has resonated quite as much.

You can spend all your time reading, analysing and having an internal debate about the choice of KDB or Sterling, Salah or Mane, etc. But the thing I, and no doubt many others struggle with most is when one of those choices go wrong, I spend the next few game weeks chasing those lost points and begin second-guessing myself next tome I come to make such a decision.

A key example of this, is shown when I compared my start of season team, to my final team last season.

If I’d have just done a set and forget, I’d have been better off, but I chased bandwagons, I went for the likes of Pukki, Abraham, Mount, too late. I took Vardy our very early on, only for him to start scoring and then having to pay more than I sold him for when bringing him back in, Same with Nick Pope.

This year I intend to have a bit more faith in myself, and not hit the panic button too early.

Premium Midfielders > Premium Strikers

5 of the top 10 goalscorers (and 3 of the top 5) in last seasons Premier League are classed as midfielders next season. With an extra point per goal, and the clean sheet points available to midfielders it makes sense to target these ahead of the top strikers.

the likes of Aubameyang, Salah and Sterling have to be top of the wish list, with the aim of fielding a 3-5-2 rather than my usual 3-4-3.

No matter how well your GW goes, someone on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook will have done better.

There were several times last year where I had a really good game week, I’d win in my H2H league, have all green arrows and top score within my mini league for the game week... and then log in to social media and someone would’ve had the game week of their life and absolutely destroyed my efforts. It’s disheartenin (especially when last year, my decent weeks were few and far between) but I need to remember that I’m not playing them (ok, I am in the overall competition) concentrate on getting green arrows in your overall ranking. If you get them, you’ve done well. If you go up a place in the mini-league, job done. Don’t beat yourself up just because someone you don’t know has played their triple Captain chip on Michael Antonio on the one day of the season he turns into Robert Lewandowski and grabs 4 goals.

Finally. And most importantly. FPL should be fun.

It’s a game. It adds an additional layer of enjoying the premier league. Enjoy it, if you do well, great. If you don’t. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Laugh at your misfortune, and come back next week and attempt to do better.