CaB Fantasy Football 2017/18

[holyzombiejesus]

Gah! I've wildcarded already. Primarily as I have a fair few cheaper players who haven't had a look in over the last 2 weekends and I don't want to lose too much money on them. Far better to swap them for other low 4m players who will increase in value rather than drop in to the 3s. Also swapped Kane for Aguero and Alli for Mane(amonst others). Probably a little knee jerk but fuck it.

Ha! Quick transfer out of Walker and Vokes in exchange for Otamendi and Rooney (+.5m).

[Blinder Data]

Feels a bit cheaty to have loads of stars from one team but Man U are probably going to steamroll most teams so fuck it

De Gea, Pogba, Lukaku - come at me bro

Gah! I've wildcarded already. Primarily as I have a fair few cheaper players who haven't had a look in over the last 2 weekends and I don't want to lose too much money on them. Far better to swap them for other low 4m players who will increase in value rather than drop in to the 3s. Also swapped Kane for Aguero and Alli for Mane(amonst others). Probably a little knee jerk but fuck it.

Ha! Quick transfer out of Walker and Vokes in exchange for Otamendi and Rooney (+.5m).

Maybe I should do this as Carl Jenksinson has buggered off on loan. When is the best time to do it generally? I have some dreck on my bench.

[phes]

Gah! I've wildcarded already. Primarily as I have a fair few cheaper players who haven't had a look in over the last 2 weekends and I don't want to lose too much money on them. Far better to swap them for other low 4m players who will increase in value rather than drop in to the 3s. Also swapped Kane for Aguero and Alli for Mane(amonst others). Probably a little knee jerk but fuck it.

Ha! Quick transfer out of Walker and Vokes in exchange for Otamendi and Rooney (+.5m).

I wildcarded after the games in week 1. People love to chuck about the term knee-jerk and ridicule early wildcarders but all that matters is whether your reasons are sound and then whether you pick the right players. My reasons for WCing was seeing City play and getting that sinking feeling about the way Pep plays and wanting rid of KdB and Jesus, of owning Kane instead of Lukaku and realising the extra £1m was devastating for my team and swapping those, of seeing Eriksen pick up exactly where he left off and realising at 9.5 he's still a season keeper and recognising that Pogba and potentially Mihktaryan are nailed and maybe about .5 underpriced. I adjusted for all this and spent 28 points and WCd. It's looking sound at the moment but you know, early days

[The Roofdog]

Can my defenders please stop getting sent off please. Two for fucking two so far.

[Blinder Data]

Should've listened to phes. Was fully expecting De Bruyne to run riot at Bournemouth and he did fuck all. Benteke continues to underperform (De Boer already at risk of getting sack!).

Wildcarded to give me with a Liverpool and Man U-reliant attack, with a Leicester-Spurs-Chelsea-WBA defence. Feels much more balanced.

[weekender]

Forgot about this, have just created my team for this year.

I can still win without 4 weeks' worth of points, right?

In case you're wondering:

De Gea

Naughton - Gomez - Alonso

Mkhitaryan - Pogba - Salah - Erikson - Mané

Okazaki - Morata

Subs are any old cheap shite that I haven't even heard of.

You may infer from this that I expect Man Utd and Liverpool to be the top two this season.

[Blinder Data]

Good week to bring in Mane and make him captain then :-\

De Bruyne deciding to become useful after I've got rid of him is nice too

[phes]

Good week to bring in Mane and make him captain then :-\

De Bruyne deciding to become useful after I've got rid of him is nice too

Ooof. Still, it looks like City assets could be an underwhelming rollercoaster with Pep's striker rotation, refusal to let any one player run riot and his mucking about with the position of KdB. Probably relatively safe to avoid that ballache.

Maybe i can beat your unfortunate decision by having benched Ben Davies for Hegazi, so i have a nice 14 points sitting on the bench, in first position with Vokes, Ward and Heaton to play.

My team really hasn't taken off this year despite my feeling like it's heading in the right direction... though apparently not. Captain choices perhaps have a good bit to do with this and so after agonising for bloody ages I have swapped out Ben Davies so that i can upgrade Lukaku to Kane. Davies looks an excellent point-scorer but there's always that niggling doubt around Spurs full-backs whereas the niggling doubt of not giving Harry Kane the armband in coming weeks is more of a eardrum-rupturing foghorn. So he's in and Big Rom is out.

[holyzombiejesus]

So he's in and Big Rom is out.

Really?! In terms of price rises and the silly 50% 'sell on' thing, aren't you worried you'll lose money, presuming you'll buy Lukaku back at some stage? I'm wondering if you'd be better off keeping Lukaku and sticking Rooney in as captain once Everton have played United.

[monkfromhavana]

What a shit week - I've been thinking of swapping out Lukaku for Kane too, as I think Kane is about to go on one of his scoring runs. Can't make it work though. Gonna gold fire, because prior to this weekend I'd been doing quite well and was quite satisfied with the team. One bad weekend shouldn't be taken as a sign to dump everyone.

[phes]

Really?! In terms of price rises and the silly 50% 'sell on' thing, aren't you worried you'll lose money, presuming you'll buy Lukaku back at some stage? I'm wondering if you'd be better off keeping Lukaku and sticking Rooney in as captain once Everton have played United.

No Morata looks to be better value than Lukaku at moment and even in the event I changed my mind next week Lukaku would only cost me .1 more to re-sign. If anything Kane will rise because he looks capable of repeating last year's form and Lukaku will cease to as people realise how many options there are 1-2m cheaper

[Blinder Data]

Indeed a shit week. 30 overall. 25 points resting on my bench FFS!

If Mane's ban is three matches I might have to get rid, after only just bringing him in. Swap him for a flavour of the month MF or unshowy MF for a top 6 six side for buttons and then work my way towards bringing in Kane/Morata.

[EOLAN]

So does anyone else have the sudden realisation after games that successful changes you thought you made weren't saved update.
Had Doucoure to come off my bench for some non-descript player and Ben Mee to replace either Hegazi/Maguire. 15 points lost.
Still not as bad as my Fantasy American football team draft. Coming bottom of 48 teams in week 1. I didn't even have Andy Dalton.

[phes]

Made 5 transfers this week. I seem to have completely lost my patience with this game compared to from back when I would do, well, ok (top 50,000). I just want to have a bit more fun! Anyways so Kane came in and Bavies went out as I already have 2 Spurs mids (High risk, high reward taking out the Baviesmonster) and then i had to replace Pogba and Heaton (terrible luck) and Vokes (terrible decision) so decided to go radio rental and do it all as part of a move to get in Hazard for Pogba, via Hemed

my team is now

Elliot / 3.9 nonplayer
Alonso, Mee, Naughton, Hegz, 4m nonplayer
Alli, Hazard, Eriksen, Mhiktaryan, RLC
Kane, Firmino, Hemed

In no way going to make up for a -12. What I desperately need is a big Spurs win with the midfielders sharing out the points and Swansea to score. That could wipe out most of the -12 straight off.

Dreadful defence that would clearly be better with Bavies and strengthen the other 2, but then Spurs full backs are just a ballache

[hewantstolurkatad]

Whats the best way to handle medium length injuries of players whose prices have gone up?

Like, say Pogba was ruled out for up to a month. At the moment, he's 8.3 up from 8.0, so selling him will only get you 8.1, potentially making him cost .2 more to buy back. Is it better in the long term with most cases to just keep guys like that and endure Darren Fletcher playing instead or do they typically drop a lot if they're guaranteed to miss more than one week?

[phes]

He will drop in value quickly and if you hold onto him you will lose money. You might think this wont be a problem if you hold onto him and his price rises back again, but you'll have several million $ tied up on your bench for 5-10 games, which is a killer. Get rid and you'll be able to buy again at about 8m after his price falls. Generally, if there's a lot of money tied up in a player, he would have to have risen by quite a lot of money, maybe £1-2m for serious managers to consider holding on for more than a few games and having the money  on the bench and absorbing the subsequent loss

If you paid 8.3 or 8.1 then get rid asap before he drops or you'll lose money or profit. If you paid 8.2 or 8 you can afford to put it off until he's 8.2 before you lose anything.

This site is a handy guide http://www.fplstatistics.co.uk/ (though not always accurate) for when players are about to change in value. Pogba has acheived ~ 80% of the estimate sales required to trigger a price drop, in a couple of days. So it'll probably happen this week.

[Super Ape]

Just heard about Pogba's injury. I'm cursed.

[Super Ape]

After this gameweek is over, I'll swap him out for Groß, and then Salah for Hazard. I liked having Salah in my team, but Pogba being ruled out has forced me to rethink a few things and, besides, Hazard has managed to get 200+ points pretty reliably over the years (exempting 2015/16). Also, bringing Groß and Hazard in leaves me £1.3 mil to improve my defence later, which might need to happen if my Town defenders run out of steam.

In summary, Traction Engine needn't worry.

[Blinder Data]

Yeah, fucked off Pogba. In fact I've pretty much given up on high calibre midfielders, apart from Dele Alli. There are some bargains there if you avoid the big names (N'Golo Kante is still only £5m!). Hopefully my soon to be awesome strike force will make up for it.

[Super Ape]

I think Kanté's still only £5m because defensive midfielders don't score many points for goals and assists, and so they go largely unselected - until they start introducing points for tackles and interceptions.

[Blinder Data]

I know. But as a guaranteed starter who will win a fair few MOTM and score a few goals over the season, I'd say he's worth it.

Or maybe I've just been burnt by all the 'attacking' midfielders I bought that have done nowt.

[phes]

Usually defensive midfielders are a complete waste of time, but Kante isn't such a bad pick. Like you say he's guaranteed to start, picks up shockingly few yellow cards and chips in with the odd goal. You can just leave him in your team and you'll never have to think about using a transfer. Probably not worth it for the bench though if there's other players at 4.5 who will do much the same

[Super Ape]

Deleted.

[Blinder Data]

Usually defensive midfielders are a complete waste of time, but Kante isn't such a bad pick. Like you say he's guaranteed to start, picks up shockingly few yellow cards and chips in with the odd goal. You can just leave him in your team and you'll never have to think about using a transfer. Probably not worth it for the bench though if there's other players at 4.5 who will do much the same

Tempted to bring in Fellaini for all the same reasons but it's the card threat that's putting me off

[phes]

Fellaini will easily outscore Kante given the minutes. Very interesting option, watch that space

[Crabwalk]

Transferring out Stones & Lukaku for Davies & Kane (-4) didn't work out very well. Broke all my own rules for that one and got what I deserved.

[holyzombiejesus]

I was going to swap Aguero and Lukaku for Kane and Morata but swapped Mane for Salah instead. Smug shit.

[monkfromhavana]

An ok week for me, celebrated by wildcarding for no reason whatsoever. Lukaku and Firmino out, Aguero, Morata abd a punt on Coutinho in.

[phes]

Transferring out Stones & Lukaku for Davies & Kane (-4) didn't work out very well. Broke all my own rules for that one and got what I deserved.

Absolute comedy start to season for me. Not taking it seriously, breaking all my own rules, a series of incredible bad luck/judgement. Currently ranked 3.28m

[Blinder Data]

Lukaku and De Gea saved it from being a really shit week for me. David Luiz is a bell.

So are other people transferring more than one person each week? I don't think my points total could take that. My improvements should be incremental and seamless - marginal gains and all that.