Pre-Season Tutorials 2: Picking Your Players, Captain and Substitution Order

For Pre-Season Tutorials 1: Creating Your Squad, click HERE.

I am sorry for procrastinating the post of part two of this tutorial as I was quite tired rushing for my university assignments. However, I couldn't procrastinate much more as EPL is going to start in 11 days!

In this part I am going to provide you guys some guides on how to pick your players, captain and substitutes for each and every gameweek. But first things first, make sure you have your squad ready!

Absolute Starters

If you don't have any, you are in trouble. Yes, absolute starters are those who should be deployed week in week out unless he's injured/suspended. They are consistent and never choose opponents to perform.

Who are them? Well, they are those who have more than 40% chance to gain goal/assist points for every goal score by the team. For instance, Lampard, Rooney, Bale, Torres etc.. In short, they are usually the major firepower of the team and are expensive. The reason why you should start them is that they are more likely to score than not, even against tough oppositions. To know who they are, check the fantasy stats page and look for total score, points per game, goals, assists and bonus.

Regular bonus collectors also fit in the category of absolute starters as they will still have chance for bonus points even if their team loses/draws.

Fixtures

This is important. A careful and throughout study on fixtures is the key to success in Fantasy Premier League as fixtures often determine players' performance on that gameweek.

First and foremost, give absolute priorities for players who play much weaker opponents. For example, if Manchester United is going to play against Blackpool, you should definitely start all your available Red Devils and captain Rooney (if you have him). There is a high possibility that Man Utd will win in great margin adn Rooney will score a lot against Blackpool (just an example, no offence for Blackpool fans).

Next, avoid those who play against the big clubs which are Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool. Most probably your players who play against them will get only points for playing time. The defenders will even lose out some points due to goals conceded.

If your players are playing against teams of same level, then form and home/away status is an important indicator for deciding whether or not to start them. For example, if Everton is playing against Aston Villa at home and it is on a winning streak while AV has not recorded a single win over the past five games, then you should avoid starting Aston Villa players.

Match history is a good reference as well. For example, let's say Fulham had won every single game against West Ham over the last three seasons. If Fulham is to play West Ham this gameweek, you should definitely start your Fulham players.

Gameweek Double

Sometimes a team will play twice in one single gameweek due to special fixtures arrangements. If your player plays twice, you should definitely put them on no matter who they face. At very least, they will give twice the points for playing time.

Captain

A good captain crosses out a thousands of mistakes in picking your squad. Therefore, it is very important for not picking a wrong captain.

The captain materials are usually the aces in their respective team:

• Arsenal - Fabregas, Van Persie
• Aston Villa - Milner
• Birmingham - Jerome
• Blackpool - Adam
• Chelsea - Drogba, Lampard
• Everton - Cahill, Arteta
• Fulham - Dempsey
• Liverpool - Joe Cole, Gerrard, Torres
• Man City - Tevez
• Man Utd - Rooney
• Newcastle - Carroll, Nolan
• Stoke - Sorensen, Shawcross, Etherington
• Sunderland - Bent
• Tottenham - Defoe, Bale
• West Brom - Brunt
• West Ham - Carlton Cole
• Wigan - N'Zogbia
• Wolves - Craddock

Where the bold ones are great captains.

Emergency Captain

Your selected captain might be injured or simply does not play in last minute. How? Luckily with the emergency captain rule, you won't waste your captain armband. The player with the highest form or price (depending on what you chose) will step up and be the captain for that gameweek. Therefore it is important to make your second captain the most expensive or the most in-form player other than your captain in order to maximize your score.

Sometimes your most preferred captain might be doubtful for his game. If your second choice for captain is with highest form/price, then you might want to utilize the emergency captain strategy. Switch the strategy to highest form or highest price accordingly and you will have the chance to push for higher points with your preferred captain with minimum risk.

The bad thing about this is that your first choice captain might come out as substitute or play awfully due to the lack of form.

Substitutions

They are at the bench, but that doesn't mean that they are useless. Fantasy Premier League comes with the element of uncertainty and thus it is possible that your substitutes surprise you!

Therefore, you should always arrange your substitution order according to your subs' chances to get high points. Substitutes can be a good insurance policy, if you know how to manage them.

Stay Alert

Again, stay alert for the latest injury news and make changes accordingly. Hope you get something here and follow the upcoming tutorials as well!