FPL launch 2015/16 – New Rules and Player Pricelist
Finally, after weeks of waiting excitedly like a child on Christmas Eve, FPL has been launched for the 2015/16 season. With GW1 still the best part of a month away, there will be countless hours of tinkering ahead as managers try and ensure they get off to the best possible start in their pursuit of global domination. The price list will be carefully scrutinised to find this season’s Harry Kane, while many a club’s pre-season tours and friendlies will be monitored to see who is showing impressive form and which of the new transfers appears to be settling in the best. All of this is of course normal July and August behaviour for us frustrated FPL managers, especially those who didn’t get involved in Fantasy MLS and the U21’s Euro Championships and certainly for those that despise the cricket!
FPL have however given us some other innovative changes to get our heads around as we contemplate the season ahead – and it’s these changes which we will concentrate on first before we then take a quick glance at the first reaction to the price list.
Rumours were rife days before launch date that FPL were tinkering with the game and they haven’t disappointed. There are four new elements to the game, all of which we need to understand fully to maximise our FPL performance this season.
CHANGES
[clear]Wildcards
Managers will have two Wildcards to use during the season – however, Wildcard 1 can only be used in the first half of the season (before 28 December 14.00hrs). The second Wildcard can only be used in the second half of the season. If you fail to use your Wildcard in the first half of the season, you will lose it. The January Wildcard has been scrapped and does not exist anymore.
Chips
A new feature of the game is the “Chips” that FPL has introduced. There are three different kind of chips:
All Out Attack
Bench Boost
Triple Captain
All Out Attack
Allows you to play a 2-5-3 formation in the next gameweek.
Bench Boost
Points scored by your bench players in the nominated gameweek are included in your total score.
Triple Captain
Your nominated captain’s points are trebled. In the event of your captain not playing, your vice captain’s points will be trebled. If neither your captain or vice-captain feature then you will not benefit from playing your “Triple Captain” chip that week and it will not be reallocated to your team.
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The All Out Attack, Bench Boost and Triple Captain chips can each be used once a season and are played when saving your team on the “My Team” page. They can be cancelled at any time before the gameweek deadline.
However, please note that only one chip (including your wildcard) can be played in a single gameweek. For example – it would NOT be possible to play your wildcard in a big DGW and also utilise the Triple Captain chip.
What effect will these “chips” have on our selection?
Initially not a lot, unless you are planning to play one of the chips early on. However, we would advise caution and patience – as we know, early season can be very unpredicatable where it is not uncommon for promoted teams to gain surprise results, new transfers are still settling in and players who have represented their countries in summer tournaments will often be eased back into action slowly.
The Triple Captain feature seems the simplest chip to plan for – and the likelihood is that one will use it when one of your star names (Aguero, Hazard, Costa, Alexis etc) are either playing at home to a supposed weakened side or there is a DGW, which will likely only happen in the second half of the season.
Bench Boost will obviously require us to have a fully playing squad – the initial thoughts of this are that managers may avoid choosing two keepers from the same team (Foster, Myhill – West Brom etc) and will want to make sure that their fifth midfielder is likely to have a chance of contributing something more than a 2pt return (Gareth Barry fans be warned!).
The Gareth Barry example from above also applies to All Out Attack – managers will want five attacking midfielders and therefore it is recommended not to rush to use this feature to ensure that your fifth midfielder for that week (who is likely to be a cheapie), is not only a guaranteed starter, but that his attacking stats are good, as indeed are his fixture that week.
So those are the new features and at first glance they seem exciting innovations to keep us on our toes and will require us to concentrate our planning further.
Gone are the days of a simple RMT. It will now be, “Please RMT and I’ve activated my All Out Attack”!!
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Players Price List – initial reaction
Unsurprisingly, last season’s budget FPL gold, Harry Kane has shed his “cheap as chips” price tag and opens the season with a price of 9.5mln. So who is this season’s bargain basement striker? If you fancy a punt on newly promoted Watford or Bournemouth, then Troy Deeney and Callum Wilson start the bidding at 5.5mln. Among those priced at 6mln are Leicester’s Loenardo Ulloa & Jamie Vardy as is Liverpool’s new striker Divock Origi. If they don’t excite you then among the crowd at 6.5mln are Saido Berahino (WBA) and Daifra Sakho under the tutorship of Bilic at West Ham, who started the Europa League campaign with a brace. Bafetimbi Gomis of Swansea is priced at 7mln as is the fit again Jay Rodriguez at Southampton. If you’re still not enthused and if you can stretch to 7.5mln you have such names as Danny Ings at Liverpool and Falcao at Chelsea (what a bargain if Jose gets him firing).
New player prices – some of the new players to the Premiership or those who have changed teams that may interest you:
Petr Cech (Arsenal) – 5.5mln
Micah Richards (Villa) – 4.5mln
Gerard Deulofeu (Everton) – 6.5mln
Nathaniel Clyne (Liverpool) – 5.5mln
Firmino (Liverpool) – 8.5mln
James Milner (Liverpool) – 7.0mln
Memphis Depay (Man Utd) – 8.5mln
Maarten Stekelenburg (Southampton) – 5.0mln
Andre Ayew (Swansea) – 7.0mln
Dimitri Payet (West Ham) – 7.5mln
And some selected old favourites:
Sergio Aguero – 13mln
Diego Costa – 11mln
Olivier Giroud – 9mln
Eden Hazard – 11.5mln
Cesc Fabregas – 9mln
Alexis Sanchez – 11mln
Theo Walcott – 9mln
David Silva – 10mln
Yaya Toure – 8.5mln
Angel Di Maria – 8.5mln
Wayne Rooney – 10.5mln
You will all have your own views and may spot the glaring bargain that I have missed. So please share your thoughts below on both the new changes to the game (the chips) and also your thoughts on the prices and maybe you’ve even begun to draft your initial squad.
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Fabian Delph is set to sign for City…there’s another career down the drain!
Hey Kop. Reckon he could take the place of Fernandihno/Fernando? I think he’s better than those but i suppose that means feck all in this day and age.
NIN, I reckon the only reason they’ve bought him is because he’s English!
You have a valid point there! Terrible carry on. Maybe he’s looking at the other two and thinking “yeah, i’ll have them”. Hopefully that’s the case and he’s not just following the wages.
Citeh have contacted LFC and are in dialogue over the little shit. Go on f** k off.
Anyone considering Sterling when he goes to Man City?.
Ant, no because he will be on the bench most of the time.
I’d say he’ll be hard to fit in but will need some consideration for sure. Aguero is a much better target than Studge, never mind Lambert, Borini and Balotelli 😉
Any chance of a RMT? 2.5m in the bank but I want to keep 1.5m.
Cant judge players until we at least see some preseason action but, on the face of it, your forward line leaves a lot to be desired, for me. I know little about Wilson so i’m assuming he’s a punt. There were only 12 GW’s last season where Rooney scored more than 2 points so i’d avoid him, big time, until he shows he’s back in the goals. He’s probably too patchy for a premium striker.
Kun, Benteke and Deeney for me.
+1
I have a plan to get Kun in after GW3. It requires 1m and the other 0.5 is just to make it easier to upgrade players with price changes. I prefer Wilson to Deeney and think Sakho will be a good pick. I would like to get Benteke but I need another 1m. How would you suggest I raise it?
Wilson scored 20 goals last season and is very quick. Prob a toss up between him and Deeney
Cool. That’s a nice tally. Might have to have a looksie myself when the time comes.
Deeney is the Captain and he’s on penalty duties isn’t he?
Anyone going with Fabregas? He usually has a great first half of a season, second half not so much. I”m leaning towards him over Hazard, that extra 2.5m to spend. 😉
How the hell is Sturridge still 10.5m? Barely played last season. And what we did see of him wasn’t all that good.
Wijnaldum has signed for Newcastle and van Ginkel will go to Stoke on a lone deal. Van Ginkel being used, the idiot. That’s why young players should never go to Chelski.
Van Ginkel could be a very interesting pick if that goes through. I like Wijnaldum too but not sure on Newcastle at all. What’s your thoughts on those two Raz?
The teams they signed for don’t really make them all that appaeling to be honest. Also, depends on the roles they get and how expensive they are. I don’t think I would touch either. If any Dutchie, I’d get Depay (but even that move depends on how LvG plans on using him, preseason and all).
True i suppose. I read somewhere that Wijnaldum is quite versatile so yeah, might keep an eye on that one. At 8.5m i cant see my starting squad without Depay. We’ll finally get Rooney off set pieces and give them to someone who actually knows how to take them.
if i can afford Hazard i think hes more reliabele over the season.
But i will get fab and get hazard later if i cant afford him at the beginning of the season
Don’t have the page but I remember Fab always getting twice as much assists/goals in the first half of the season. Dude needs his rest, appaerantly. Will see how fresh he is at the start. Here are some Fab stats:
First half v Second half of the season (goals and assists):
09-10: 19 v 9
10-11: 9 v 5
11-12: 13 v 4
13-14: 16 v 5
14-15: 15 v 7
Indeed. If history repeats itself then it’s pretty guaranteed that he’ll slow down in mid Jan, early Feb at latest.
This does make him sort of interesting for the first half of the season though.
Most definitely mate. I’ll be considering him when the time to tinker comes, that’s for sure. Class player.
Finally have a draft I think looks good but it’s bound to change. What do you guys think?
I can see your 1st and 2nd sub really, really annoying you on GW1 😉 Screams 15 points to me.
Ye I know was thinking Morgan to start for Cook and maybe benching Ki for Vardy, but who knows mate
Matt – That’s exactly what i was thinking. I like this team, i must say. I’m a 3-4-3 man for the most part but this is a good 3-5-2 i think.
Ye I’m a 3-4-3 man too but I think this year may be a year for 3-5-2. What would you do to change it to 3-4-3? I might not even change it but just incase I revert to old ways
Not a lot, to be fair. You’ve got three good strikers there so maybe downgrade Ritchie to someone cheaper and then fill the defence a bit. I like a Ki/Mahrez rotation.
Ye that could work. What’s Mahrez like I haven’t done much reachsearch on him? I could use the extra .5 to upgrade Morgan who’s a good 5.0 defender or is the .5 better used to change Mert to Kos?
One other question, Milner or Hendo? I think Hendo may have a deeper role this year with Milner in the no.10 position but I just don’t know with the Pool.
I think he’s a good player anyway. He was really beginning to kick off last season until the AFCON came about. It took a while to get back in the team when he came back but he then began producing good numbers. He also had a colossal GW toward the end of the season, a 15 pointer or something like that so he can bang them out. At 4.5m i’d keep Morgan provided he’s got minutes guaranteed. Watch transfer activity on that one. Mert to Kos sounds good to me. Or maybe Hoban to Prodl if it looks like the former is going to lose his spot.
Arse, forgot the last Q. I’d take Milner any day of the week :thumbup:
Ok that’s help. I’m liking the sound of Mahrez could be a good differential. Morgan ill keep my eye on but I think hes a guarantee starter. Hopefully Hoban keeps his place I know the lad and he’s a good player.
Cheers for that just needed a bit of a second opinion on Milner I think both could prove good for us this season especially with Hendo trying to probe himself in Gerrards boots.
My knowledge of Hoban is limited to recent research, and not too much at that but i do like what i’ve read about him. Yeah Hendo has good potential too but i’d take Milner especially if he’s going to play as a 10 with Hendo dropped back. I hope Morgan is good to go. I can see him being a boss scorer for the first couple of months.
Ye Tommie was really coming into the team but then he got a bad leg injury and he’s had to work back into the team and with the manager merry go round it’s been hard.
That is very true mate hopefully Milner does get the no.10 role.
Ye same here I think Morgan will be a high scorer he got some good returns last year.