FF247 Site Team Game-week 1 FPL Tips
Welcome to the FF247 Site Team Game-week 1 article.
A blank page. A clean slate. A slab upon which to paint fantasy football glory. 15 slots to fill with the finest at our disposal. This should be easy then. Last seasons heroes go in first – Vardy, Payet, Kane, Bellerin, Cech, Ozil and Toby. Add in the best of the new arrivals and transfers- Ibra, Pogba, Feghouli, Miki, Stones, Redmond, Valdes and Mane and we should be good to go, yeah? Dead easy. Oh hang on, what do you mean there’s a budget? And a formation, you say? Back to the drawing board then… and the reality that you can realistically only have a small handful of the aforementioned stars. And the skill is not only in picking which of those to take but also in finding the bargain ones who will produce consistently to augment the top boys. That’s the journey on which we all set out on right now.
What we will do over the next 38 weeks is publish that journey, step by step, blow by blow. Now for those of you who have followed us before you will know that by ‘blow by blow’, we sometimes mean that literally. It’s a committee. And we vote on the decisions each week. It’s not a very civilised committee at times, but it’s a committee. Democracy in it’s purest and most volatile form, basically. And that’s just when we have one transfer decision to make, this week we had 15….
Who picks the team?
Just to fill you in on the details a bit, the committee is made up of five very experienced fantasy football managers. They have all had some some degree of success in FPL, as well as other fantasy football games in their own right. None of them purport to be fantasy experts by any means but all have an in-depth knowledge of the Premier League. This is despite four of them not actually residing in the UK! One of them does, but one is in Ireland, one is in Monaco, one is in America and the other is from Cloud Cuckoo Land. An eclectic mix. You can probably guess who at least four of those are!
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Onto the team itself…
This wasn’t actually as painful as we expected it might be. Probably because we realise we are all just p*ssing in the wind a bit, at this point. What do we have to go on really, info wise? A bit of pre-season, some past reputations and hope and gut feeling. Do you pick Townsend or Lamela, as one example? Who really knows. As such we’ve picked a team which we feel covers the main bases –
The key decisions –
Forwards
Aguero – must have, end of. Pep’s teams tend to be exciting and produce goals. He’s at the sharp end of that point. For us it’s not a case of whether to, it’s a case of Aguero +14 others.
Ibrahimovic – To Ibra or not probably influences most fantasy team set-ups this summer. He’s pricey but is he worth it? We’ve decided to err on the side of caution. He usually delivers. If for some reason he flops then it’s much easier to exit that strategy than it is the other way around.
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Midfield – We feel Hazard may be about to be on fire again. He looked back to his usual self in the Euro’s and has had a decent enough pre-season. We can’t figure out the slump last season. He seems to have literally just switched himself off and then on again. Maybe it was just a gap year. Maybe it was Windows 10. Either way he’s in.
Firmino makes the team on the basis that a Liverpool inspired Klopp side will be attack minded and he is absolutely key to that. His inclusion somewhat ignores any fixture bias as they don’t have the best start on paper but they do also have a decent pedigree against the ‘better’ teams.
Lamela is probably our punt here. Hopefully he can kick on and be a bit of an under the radar star. His pre-season form certainly suggests potential.
We have high hopes for Redmond. That’s it really, we have high hopes for him! He’s been deployed in very attacking roles in pre-season and has produced so far. Let’s see if that can translate into actual FPL points.
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Defence
We have tried to mix a couple of ‘assist-meisters’ with a bunch of other cheapies who rotate well in terms of fixtures. It’s not an ‘ideal’ defence by any means, probably more functional than anything. We could improve it by losing a midfielder but this is what we went with.
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Keepers
This was probably the only decision which was contested with any vigour. Ultimately we decided to go with a couple who tick the two boxes of rotation and cheapness.
Here’s our team in full. If any surprises pop up in the press conferences tomorrow then we will of course alter accordingly. We shall be sure to post in the comments if this happens though.
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If anyone is interested in following the site teams progress then you can do so here
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Thanks for reading FF247 Site Team Game-week 1 FPL Tips
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Hey guys.
Just a quick one. Hennessy or Boruc.
Boruc mate.. Hennessy may lose his place..
Settled on this – what do you think?
Best of luck for the season, top stuff from the writers as usual!
Foster(WBA) / Jakupovic(HUL)
Baines(EVE) / Shaw(MNU) / Souare(CPL) / Nsue(MID) / Amat(SWA)
Hazard(CHE) / Firmino(LIV) / Alli(SHT) / Clucas(HUL) / Hojbjerg(SOU)
Aguero(MNC) / Ibrahimovic(MNU) / Long(SOU)
Gives me a grand total of £0.0m in the bank, so pretty set unless I can do a straight swap after GW1..
Great side Flingy, I wonder if Nsue will hold his place when Ayala comes back and Barragan is free to shift to RB? That would be my only slight concern. I see what you did there on Alli. 😉
Flingy I also see what you did there. Interestingly, though, no one from Arsenal seems even worthy of being in your squad ?
Clingy, The emoji face I put didn’t show up, so I wanted to make sure that you know it’s just a but if fun
Not many teams have Payet in them, any particular reason?
Because many don’t think he will start. He might, but people unwilling to risk it, plus the fixture is not the greatest either.
Maybe after what Bilic said, you will see more teams start to include him
Mito!
I guess Boruc, simply because Henn will have trouble holding off Mandanda for the starting role.
Ooops, wrong place
@Man u Man, over here!
mito can you RMT please, its on page 4.. any suggestions welcome
Should I take: Coutinho to Friminho and downgrade Stones or Friend? Thanks so much. I think I will be finally
GW1
Heaton
Valencia, Stones, Souaré
Harazd, Coutinho, Ramírez, Redmond
Aguero (c), Ibrahimovic, Gray
Sub: Foster, Lamela, Friend, Armat
GW2
Foster
Valencia, Armat, Stones
Harazd, Coutinho, Ramírez, Redmond
Aguero, Ibrahimovic (c), Gray
Sub: Heaton, Redmond, Friend, Souaré
wazzalam
Think I slightly favour team two.
Long as you aren’t playing home/away with Foster.
WBA get more of their CS away.
GW1 its Sigg+LLor vs Bolas+Wickham
Not sure that’s a Burnley shout.
After that its WBA except gw5
Posted on the wrong article
Lamela and stones (gametime??)
Or
Townsend/delafeou and valencia?
2nd, you seem to harbour doubts on first anyway.
I was happy with this team until I saw managers preferring Firminho, Baines and Souare.
Option 1: Should I prefer Firminho and Baines over Stones and Mane? (Man city preferably have better fixtures than Everton).
Option 2: Mane + Townsend to Firminho + Lamela. (Crystal Palace have nice set of first few fixtures)
Option 3: Friend to Souare? (Need not talk about Middlesbrough’s def record. Moreover I guess they did not concede a single goal in their friendies).
1. I would prefer Firmino cos he would play up top instead of Mane..
2. baines over stones because man city wont keep clean sheets cos of guardiola’s style of play..
3. Townsend over Lamela (may be thats just me)
4. Keep Friend and bring Souare in for Mcauley