Pre-Season Tutorials 4: Set Piece Takers

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

For Pre-Season Tutorials 2: Picking Your Players, Captain and Substitution Order, click HERE.

For Pre-Season Tutorials 3: The Art of Transfer, click HERE.

I've to add another piece of tutorials here as I missed out one important section about set piece takers. Anyhow, you won't hate for additional information will you?

Set piece takers can potentially deliver you more points as it is easier to score goals from free kicks and penalties and deliver assists from both free kicks and corner kicks. No matter how bad a player's form is, a set piece taker will at least still remember how to shoot and pass when there is no interruption.

Therefore, when comparing two players of similar performance, it is important to take into account whether or not they are set piece takers. Set piece takers are often more consistent due to their higher chance to record goals and assists through set pieces.

Major Set Piece Takers of Every EPL Club

Arsenal: Fabregas, Van Persie
Aston Villa: Milner*, A. Young
Birmingham: Larsson, McFadden

Blackburn: Dunn, Gamst Pederson
Blackpool: Adam, Ormerod
Bolton: K. Davies, Lee, Taylor
Chelsea: Drogba, Lampard, Malouda

Everton: Arteta, Baines
Fulham: Dempsey, Murphy

Liverpool: Gerrard, Jovanovic
Man City: Barry, Tevez
Man Utd: Rooney, Giggs
Newcastle: Nolan, Barton
Stoke City: Etherington, Lawrence
Sunderland: Reid, Bent, Richardson
Tottenham: Bale, Modric
West Brom: Brunt, Dorrans
West Ham: Cole, Diamanti, Noble
Wigan: McCarthy, N'Zogbia, Rodallega

Wolves: Jones, Kightly, Milijas

*James Milner may not be playing for Aston Villa this season.

**The bold ones are some very productive set piece takers.

***The information might be outdated or inaccurate. It's always better to check yourself time after time as the season progresses.

Pre-Season Tutorials 3: The Art of Transfer

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

For Pre-Season Tutorials 2: Picking Your Players, Captain and Substitution Order, click HERE.

And now I will present to you the last part of my pre-season tutorials which teaches you how and why should you make transfers. In fact, your efficiency in transfer is the key that differentiates you from the best to the best in the best! There are only two reasons to transfer which end up with one ultimate reason: to get more points, and; to increase your bank value so that you can get players who can score more points!

Basics

So, when should you make a transfer?

1. Your player is injured/suspended;
2. your player is performing badly recently;
3. the upcoming fixtures make it almost impossible for your player to perform;
4. there is another player who can gain a lot of scores and value in forthcoming gameweeks; or
5. there is another player who score much better and is in the similar price range,

provided that that player is your regular starter. For those 4 pounders who sit on your bench for more than 80% of the season, you shouldn't bother them at all unless you are using your wildcard.

Also bear in mind that starting from the second transfer of the gameweek, there will be a four points deduction for every transfer you made. So, buy and sell wisely.

Accumulated Free Transfers

You may sometimes want to exchange two £8m players for one of £10m and another of £6m but change your mind because of four points deduction. But thanks to free transfer accumulation, you can now do it without points reduction. Simply make no transfers in one gameweek and you can make two for free next gameweek!

The great thing about this season is that the accumulated free transfers can now be taken forward infinitely - you can now save your unused free transfers and used it at any week you want! 

Still, the free transfers cap is only two, so never hope to save a several gameweeks of free transfers for the sake of making one mini wildcard.

Wildcards

What is a wildcard? The concept is the same like the one in Uno card game, but this one is even better - you can make infinite number of transfers in the gameweek that you use it! A good timing of wildcard can make a big tidal change, bringing you to a better ranking and also boosting your team value!

There is only one wildcard per season in the past, but now there is an additional one! This extra wildcard can only be used on winter transfer period (Gw 23-27) though. Still, it makes the game much more exciting don't you think?

So, when should we use the wildcard? You should used it when you whole team is performing badly, or you can use it in as early as Gw 2/3. Simply changed out your whole team to those who are in-form and your team value can easily boost for about £1m! This will definitely provide a strong foundation for your future team build. Furthermore, you will still have another winter wildcard to make things right should they go wrong.

General Tactics

Since budget does determine success or failure, you should give more focus on team value for the beginning of the season with minimal sacrifices on points. Once your budget reaches a preferable value, you can then give full sprint on points scoring.

Price Changes

I have talked much about raising your team value, but how should we determine will the player's price rise or fall? Well, there are two indicators: performance of last gameweek and net transfers of current gameweek. Players who get a nice score on last gameweek and a massive net transfers on this gameweek will have a rise on value and vice versa. However, the FPL admin will give price freeze for certain players, so it is not definite for price increase/decrease.

Money Team

This is a special play of FPL - playing for pure motive of increasing team value. There is a table for highest team value, so if you think that it is worth playing in this direction for fame, then go for it.

Stay Alert

Last but not least, always check for fixtures, player forms and injuries/suspensions when making your transfers. Stay sharp and have fun!

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!

Pre-season Tutorials 1: Creating Your Squad

The 10/11 season of Barclays Premier League is about to begin in 20 days! So fantasy managers, you should start to prepare for your new fantasy season! A good start will make you easier to achieve success.

In this post I am going to give out my two cents for setting up your initial team in this fresh season. But before that, for those new managers (and old ones who forgotten their accounts), please register at http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ and read the rules.

Overview

So how to build your initial team? Of course we would love to have all the premier league stars like Lampard, Drogba, Gerrard, Torres, Tevez, Fabregas, Van Persie, Rooney and more on our fantasy teams. However, these guys are expensive and we will only have 100 bucks available. Hence it is necessary to put in some effort to find those cheap and effective players. But before that, let me help you to choose the big guns in your team first.

Big Guns

Bear in mind that players' price usually reflects actual performance and reliability. Lampard for example, is only available if you spare £13m on him due to his sky-high score of 284 points last season. However, the initial budget cap of £100m means that you can only spare an average of £6.7m per person, and Lampard's price is almost a double!

Since they are so expensive, is it better to get a group of average cost players? NO! Teams with a mix of expensive and cheap players are always better because of two main reasons. Firstly, the captain effect. Since a captain gets twice the score he should get, therefore you should always put your captaincy on the one who can provide you fantasy points with high magnitude and frequency, and big guns like Lampard and Rooney fit in this category. Remember that it makes a great difference for a captain who scores 10 (20 after captained) and another who scores 20 (40!). Secondly, you will only deploy eleven players out of fifteen in your squad per week. Therefore it is always better to put some 4 dollar men on the bench rather than 6 or 7 dollar lads.

Now you have gotten the concept, which big guns should you pick for your initial squad? Let's see the list of 10 million pounders below:

• Frank Lampard (£13m) is expected to continue to lead the offense of Chelsea.
• Didier Drogba (£12.5m) is injured and could be missing the start of the season.
• Wayne Rooney (£12m) might be too tired in the beginning of the season after a miserable World Cup.
• Cesc Fabregas (£12m) is having a great early season fixtures but wants to join Barcelona.
• Steven Gerrard (£11.5m) is expected to play in a deeper position this season with the arrival of Joe Cole.
• Fernando Torres (£11.5m) is rumoured to leave Liverpool and always troubled by injury.
• Carlos Tevez (£10.5m) is expected to play an integral role again in Manchester City this season.
• Robin Van Persie (£10m) is having a great early season fixtures as well.

With only 100 million to spend, I would say that two or three is the optimum number of big guns to own. Lampard for me is a must, while the other slots can be filled by Rooney, Fabregas, Tevez or Van Persie.

Will this 12½ pounder worth his price?

Prolific Attackers

With the aces chosen, it's the time to focus on the other backbones on your team. You can either pick the major attackers or defenders first, but since the attackers are more effective and expensive than defenders, I will first focus on the former.

As you can derive from the word itself, prolific attackers are players who are productive in offense. They are good in goals or assists or both. The better ones even provide you bonus points frequently.

Some recommended attackers other than the big guns include:

• Jermaine Defoe (£9m) is a natural scorer and gives you big surprises sometimes with four or five goals.
• Darren Bent (£8.5m) is reliable and doesn't not choose his opponent to score.
• Joe Cole (£9m) is expected to become Liverpool's attacking focal point.
• Tim Cahill (£8.5m) and Mikel Arteta (£8.5m) always contribute when they play.
• Antonio Valencia (£8.5m) and Luis Nani (£8m) are both consistent in their deliveries.
• Dirk Kuyt's (£9m) respectable workload has often paid him great fantasy points.
• Florent Malouda (£9.5m) was a great investment last season and is expected to repeat it again.
• Gareth Bale (£6.5m) isn't the second most chosen midfielder this season for nothing.
• Charles N'Zogbia (£6m) is one of the most cost effective fantasy player.

Out of this list, I would say Bale is a must. Either Bent or Defoe should be chosen as well. And here is a list of players whom I think needs some time to observe:

• David Silva (£9m) is a great player in Valencia and is expected to do well in England.
• James Milner (£9m) was great last season but where he will start his new season?
• Gabriel Agbonlahor (£8.5m) and Ashley Young (£8.5m) both had a dim last season, but will this continue?
• Marouane Chamakh (£8m) was great in Bordeaux but we don't know whether he will become Wenger's regular starting XI.
• Milan Jovanovic (£8.5m) joins Liverpool for free but free doesn't mean cheap in quality.

Unarguably the most awaited new arrival in the Premier League.

Productive Sentinels

The primary task for defenders and goalkeepers in reality is to keep a clean sheet, and this is also the same in FPL. Every clean sheet worths four points, so a good and consistent defensive line can really take you far.

Another good thing about defenders is they actually score more points from goals! So the set piece giants and the flying backs, despite being expensive (they can be really expensive) are worthy investments. The mighty defenders also earn a lot of bonus points as well.

Basically you should pick defenders from teams with resolute defense like Chelsea, Manchester United, Birmingham City and others. The recommended famous fantasy defenders to open your season include:

• Thomas Vermaelen (£7.5m) had a wonderful first season in England with seven league goals.
• Leighton Baines' (£7m) role as set piece taker has earned him nine assists last season.
• Patrice Evra (£7m) is both productive and reliable in both ends of the field.
• Richard Dunne (£7m) is as mighty as a paladin's shield in Aston Villa's back line.
• Ryan Shawcross' (£5m) destructive header should not be forgotten despite having an injury plaguing season in 09/10.
• Jody Craddock (£5m) is magnificent for his five goals last season from low scoring Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Out of them, I would pick Shawcross as the undroppable because he's very cost effective.

The iron man.

As for goalkeepers, you need to value only two criteria. One, the ability to keep clean sheets; two, the ability to earn points from saves. For me, I would try to avoid the keepers from big five as they are too expensive and will have lesser chances to perform saves than the rest of the table. For me, only these three are considerable:

• Heurelho Gomes (£5.5m) had adapted to the English environment after a disastrous first season.
• Thomas Sorensen (£5m) never lacks the opportunity to conduct saves.
• Ben Foster (£4.5m) should benefit from Birmingham's solid defense.

His priceless hands kept Stoke safe from relegation.

Bonus Magnets

Bonus magnets are valuable assets in FPL as they accumulate a great amount of bonus points every season. Bonus points are given to the best three performers of each game. The fantasy leaders last season like Rooney, Lampard, Dunne and Fabregas are all regular bonus point collectors.

Players who earn bonus points regularly are simply better than those who don't because even if they don't score any goals, assists or clean sheets, there is still a high odds that you will earn some bonus points from them. Your worst ever score won't be that worst if they are around.

46 bonus points last season!

Reliable Benches

With the backbone of your team completed, then it's time to fill up the rest of your squads with cheap yet reliable players. You shouldn't neglect the choosing of these players because some of your players might face a much superior opposition, limiting their chances to get more than two points.

Some recommended low-priced defenders include:

• Givet (£4.5m)
• Carr (£4.5m)
• Figueroa (£4.5m)
• Faye (£4.5m)

Some recommended cheap midfielders include:

• Ferguson (£4.5m)
• Bowyer (£5.5m)
• Lee (£5.5m)
• Parker (£5.5m)

And here's the list of cheap forwards:

• Rodallega (£6.5m)
• Zamora (£6.5m)
• Doyle (£5.5m)
• Carroll (£5m)
• Carlton Cole (£6.5m)

He's a great bargain with only five pounds.

Stay Alert

Check if your squad is below or equal to 100 pounds and doesn't have more than three players from the same team. If yes, congratulations as you are ready to play! However, you would need to check periodically for news about injuries and transfers and make appropriate adjustments for that.

Finally, remember to follow the upcoming tutorials and play with passion and have fun!

P/S: Avoid DMs as it is the most unproductive position in FPL.

What's New?

Thanks to FIFA World Cup we weren't missing our most beloved English Premier League until July 11!

Spain's victory, Paul's perfect score, vuvuzela's impact, France's tragedy... This World Cup is such an eventful one. One thing worth to note, Germany's World Cup superstar Thomas Mueller is superbly generous in passing!

Looking good to surpass Ronaldo's 15 World Cup goals record.

Back to our main business here - the Fantasy Premier League! It's no surprise that there are newbies every year, so if you happened to be one and came across this site, my first advise to you is to read the rules in order to understand and learn the strategies.

For veteran players, what's new in this new season?

Firstly, improved saved free transfers. You can now carry it over for as many gameweeks as you like. Unfortunately, the limit of free transfers is still two, so you can't save the free transfers for several weeks for the sake of making a wild card like transfer in one gameweek.

Secondly, also the most exciting one, an extra wildcard! It's only available between gameweek 23-27, which means that if you're having a great squad at that time, it'll most probably be wasted. Still, it's such a great thing to have. It'll also make the decision of using the first wild card in as early as gameweek 2 or 3 a wise strategy as you will still have another chance to turn the tide around.

Thirdly, the own goal rule. Two points will be deducted for each own goal from now on, which is rather fair I think. However, I'll be much happier if they change goalkeepers' clean sheet reward to six just like what the FIFA World Cup Fantasy was using.

Other than the change of rules, FPL has also been integrated to the famous Facebook and Twitter, which will help in making the game merrier. Furthermore, there are also improvements on the mobile site to improve managers' mobile fantasy experience.

So what are you waiting for? Log onto http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ and create your team now!

The official league code for Fantasy Premier League Zone is

56710-54085

Click here to paste the code and join the fun of this long battle!