Surly, are you amending our odds each week as the results come in (feel free to give up your day job if you want to)?! ;-) At the end of the season when the league is over, you'll have to post a the fin table with your original odds. Then we'll be able to tell if you have the makings of a canny bookmaker!
Not the worst idea playing the wildcard now Frogman. I waited until Xmas last season to play my wildcard and the values of all the decent in-form players had sky rocketed! Plus I think you get one wild card this side of xmas and another in Jan (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Think I'll be playing mine in the next few weeks.
Bobby, the hardest thing about doing the wildcard is do you try to be different from the other teams or go with gut feeling. It was surprisingly tricky to do. Looking forward to the weekend though.
Hmm it's a tough call. I tried the 'less popular players' tactic and got thoroughly stuffed last season, I ignored the Michu's + Suarez's and was convinced Torres and Ramirez were going to come good. Clearly this was not the case! Saying that, someone at work spontaneously bought in Yakubu a few seasons ago and made him captain - he knocked in a hat trick, went and a scoring spree and our work league was pretty much over by February! 2 seasons ago I strategically used my wild card when Chelsea and Man Utd had 2 relatively easy games each for the next 2 game weeks (champion League catch up games) - which resulted in having 6 players from those teams taking up the bulk of my budget. They scored some mega points that fortnight, but then it got difficult transferring in other decent players without majorly disrupting the team (eg you could only bring in Bale if you got rid of Van Persie). I think the secret is picking form players at the right time (I missed the boat with Sturridge and Giroud this season and stuck with the likes of Bent and Lukaku). To be honest, the more I tinker with my squad, the worse it generally gets! You're probably better off asking our reining champion Captain for advice!
The Steve Sidwell Shield - Round Two Results: please log in to view this image Congratulations again to the winning teams. Special praise for SBM Legion & It's A Taarabt! who both overturned deficits through indiscipline. An honourable mention too for Nic's team as they successfully overturned our league leaders and ensured that in the first two rounds of the Shield they have beaten the current top two from the league. Impressive stuff! The stars of the round had a definite Chelsea feel to it as David Luiz, Branislav Ivanovic and Eden Hazard had important parts to play with their indiscipline this week. Is anyone truly surprised? The quarter finals will take place this weekend (gameweek five), as the schedule is a little compressed ahead of my holiday at the end of October. So without further ado, the quarter final draw: Nic's team v Legen-waitforit-dary Enter the Frei v Ciall Nonnolly's XI SBM Legion v Brad'sBelters It's A Taarabt! v Riley Stoke United Good luck everyone. It may be the only time time I will say it, but for our quarter finalists - make sure to get some of those Chelsea yobs in your team for the weekend!
I'm not updating them on a weekly basis, but I will try and update them every now and then throughout the season. Come season end though, we can all see whether I have the makings of a bookmaker - I suspect I do not, and you'd get good odds on that!
Unless they've changed the rules on wildcards (I've used mine already, by the way), you get one that can be used at any point in the season, plus one that can only be used in January. That's not quite what is stated above. As for following the pack or striking out on your own with players, there are times when you have to do each. If everyone (nationally, not just in our league) is selling a particular player, you need to sell early or lose a lot of value. You might stick with him, confident that he's about to turn his form around, but you could lose money on it and then have less to play with later in the season for strengthening their squad. Equally, titles are won by a well judged decision to zig when everyone else is zagging and get a player who delivers points just for you. Over the last couple of seasons I've become convinced that managing the value of your team is one of the keys to success. In my other league, by December of last season myself and one other manager had a team value of around £106m. The advantage that gave us with transfers is the main reason that we made the league a two-horse race from February onwards. Then again, looking at how I'm doing so far this season, you might be well advised to ignore everything I have to say on the subject of Fantasy Football!
Captain, out of interest how did you get such a wealthy squad value? My only frustration with the rules are if you sell a player who's value has risen £1m since you bought him - you only receive £1/2m profit. So if you want to eventually buy him back your squad value is a lot less than if you hung on to him. Do you keep 5 or so key players and never sell throughout the season in order to maintain the wealth? To clarify the Wildcard situation; if I don't use the current wildcard before Jan, will I have 2 to use after Jan (I don't know this as I've generally picked a rubbish initial team and used the first one immediately)! Has anyone spotted any hidden gems - players playing out of position? I remember last season, Liverpool's LB Enrique played as a winger for quite a few games - unfortunately I only noticed this 5 weeks after he started playing there! Are we allowed to divulge tips like these given that we're in a competitive league?
Whilst not in your fantasy league I am in one at work - the Yahoo one which is very similar to yours but no wild-cards. I agree with the Captain on his point regarding following the pack. Virtually everyone in oue work mini-league has RVP. Not only that, most of us also have him as Captain which doubles his weekly points tally. If he has a good week, we all have a good week and move precisely nowhere against one another. The trick for me is to find the players who will get you points but won't be picked up by the pack and this means managing your team closely on a weekly basis because you can almost guarantee that the guy from Cardiff City who scored you 27 points last week will score an own goal and get sent off the next. It's time consuming but worth it to get the monthly prize, or even better the big payout at season's end. It also means that you have to pay close attention to MoTD and read quite a few newspaper reports to ensure you get a good idea of who to rotate into your team the next week. Also looking at double game weeks and loading your team with those players is key. I scored 198 points in the first week by making sure my team was packed with Chelsea players none of whom were in the team for week two. Not sure if this tip applies in your league but we get points for set piece delivery so try and have some set piece takers in your team - for example Baines of Everton takes Penalties, free kicks and corners. If he scores, or a goal is scored by a team mate, from any of his deliveries, he will pick up points. My last tip is looking at who is playing whom. Don't put that Crystal Palace Striker in if they are up against the meanest defence in the league, although going for a defender from, for example, Everton if they were playing Hull might be a winning move. The one way I have found of guaranteeing failure is to leave your team as is for a couple of weeks because all the players seem to be doing alright. You have to be bold in the world of Fantasy Management and if that means dropping Berba so be it. Sorry if this is all a bit obvious but thought I'd share just in case.
Ignore the Wildcard clarification question. After re-reading it, I realised I was being a lazy git! I've now bucked my ideas up and checked the rules: You can play 2 wildcards a season.One wildcard can be played at any time. The January Wildcard can only be used after Gameweek 20 starts (1 Jan 11:30) until Gameweek 23 ends (1 Feb 11:30). Wildcards are played on the transfers page but aren't active until you have confirmed the transfers.
Some very sound advice their Fuhaman. You'll have to join our league next season (although you do sound a bit too 'decent and knowledgable', which will no doubt cement me down another position in the final table)! Bizarrely, my best ever game week points tally was when I completely forgot about my team and didn't make any changes. The previous week, I put Berba as captain - he don't do anything at home against a week team. However the following week, he knocked in 5 goals away at Blackburn scoring 25 points (50 for me as he was captain)! I wouldn't mind Berba putting in another performance like that!
You get that value of squad by lots and lots of small increments. For example, last season when Sagna got injured, I signed Jenkinson knowing that he'd play regularly for 6-8 games and rise in price. Once Sagna was fit again I sold him before his price dropped back down to its natural level, using the money to sign someone else whose moment was just arriving. Players like Ben Davies and Joey O'Brien each added something like half a million over the time I had them. . The trick is knowing the right moment to sign a player, before he starts a steady price rise, and the right moment to sell him. To be honest, I was better at the first part than the second last year. I signed Steven Fletcher as soon as he joined Sunderland and saw his price go up virtually every week when he went on a scoring spree, but I should have sold him two or three weeks earlier than I did, so he didn't add as much value for me as he should have done. The profit-sharing rule stops short term speculating (buy one week, see a small price rise and sell immediately) which is probably a good thing, and it makes it harder to know what to do when someone whose price has risen gets a short-term injury. It's a bit annoying, but I think it's a good rule on balance. It's worth adding that all of the players I signed were ones who I thought would be useful in the squad - either a regular starter or a decent, reliable back up. I don't go for signing players solely because I think they'll rise in value. I generally have key players who are permanent fixtures, but nobody who I won't consider selling. For the last two seasons I've got to the end of the season and realised that nobody from my original 15 has been ever-present (although some may have been sold and subsequently bought back!). Sadly, I'm a bit of Redknapp-esque wheeler dealer. I'm even typing this through my car window.
Wildcard played. I need to spark some life into my side, this has been my worst start ever - and that's saying something!
I had a nice Saturday, with 20pts from just five players and all of my big guns still to come. Then Walcott and van Persie withdrew injured on Sunday, Giroud and Eriksen failed to produce anything, and it's all gone wrong again. And I picked the wrong Captain for the fifth week in a row. David Moyes is making a better job of defending a title than me - that's how bad it's getting!
The Steve Sidwell Shield - Quarter Finals Results: please log in to view this image Not a week for indiscipline, as the Premier League (sans Ross Barkley) seemed to be on best behaviour. Nic's team finally lost to 6th place Legen-waitforit-dary. Not a great day for the WWDW family either, as both fell. The semi finals will take place this weekend (gameweek six). The draw is as follows: SBM Legion v Ciall Nonnolly's XI It's A Taarabt! v Legen-waitforit-dary fulhamireland is not looking a bad shout to retain the Shield... now, what does that say about the type of player he looks for in his teams? Good luck everyone, we're getting close to the end now!
Scotty Parker launches FIFA14 with a bit of Keepy-uppy. Hope you've got him in your squad. [video=youtube;ypBbEJxXjaE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ypBbEJxXjaE[/video]
After my worst performance last week, the wildcard helped reshape my squad - so my sights are set on climbing back to mid-table.
