How to play FPL

How to play FPL

 It is that time of the season again, while the professionals are hard at training during pre-season all FPL managers are doing their own preseason keeping up to date with all the friendlies that are starting for each club, keeping up with any injury that could happen at training or in a friendly.

Our newest contributor Josh Dowling start his preview series with the definitive Fantasy Premier League (FPL) guide.

First thing first, get a top FPL team name.

In the official game every manager starts with 100.0m to build a team of 15 players: 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 forwards.

After choosing your 15 players then you must choose a starting eleven. In your starting eleven you can choose a captain who will score you double points for that particular gameweek.

You also must choose a Vice-Captain, your VC comes into play if your captain somehow doesn’t play.

Below is a suggestion on how to spread your money around your team. I wouldn’t follow it totally but definitely do not spend lots on your defence and goalkeeper. The bulk of your point will come from your midfield and strikers. When considering who to pick in your team look at the fixture as it will suggest to you which teams are likely to have an easier game than others. It is based on a 5 rating scale: 1 easy to 5 being extremely difficult. 

Your team will score you points like this:

Every season you get 5 chips to use throughout the 38 game weeks. They are

• Free Hit = the ability to choose a team that is completely different to your current team without using transfers for one Gameweek. After using this chip your team will revert back to how it was for the gameweek before using the free hit chip
• Bench Boost = The four players on your bench add their score to your starting eleven score for that Gameweek
• Triple Captain = Ability to have your captain score triple the points they produce in that certain Gameweek. If your captain doesn’t play your VC will receive the triple points. Most players choose to use this chip when there is a double gameweek for a certain team or if a player has a good record versus a certain team.
• 2 X Wildcards = pretty much a reset button if your team is doing terribly. We get two to use between September and January 1st then another one from January 2nd through to the end of the season.

I will be posting previews for all teams over the next week. They should help you pick your team. There are plenty of tips out there around so it should be a good challenge to pick the winning team and formula.

Just finally, make sure you keep checking the fixtures in case there is postponements or rescheduled games in a game week, especially in times of the pandemic.

Last Reminder – At the moment Villa, Burnley, Man City and Man United all don’t participate in GW1 due to finishing the season 2019/20 later than other teams as they were participating in European competitions.