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I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

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sunbather
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I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by sunbather »

For the last two years at least I have wildcarded in GW3. Hours of careful pre-season planning has generally gone out of the window as my nailed on picks let me down and the bandwagons start emerging.

I'm thinking that this year I might try something new: just blitzing the first three gameweeks without a long term strategy at all. So fixtures, form, rotations etc. would only involve the first three gameweeks maximum. I was thinking that it would be just two like the last few years but it looks like the international break is before GW4 this year. I could still wildcard earlier of course.

This would mean simply maximising what I see as the players which will score the most points those three weeks, which could entail having a more expensive defence than I normally would have. For example, I'd probably be looking at City, Spurs, Man U defenders or goalies (where I would normally go cheaper) and Swansea, Burnley and Middlesbrough attackers (where I might normally have more premium players).

Glancing at the fixtures now I'm not even sure if this plan would drastically affect my team if it was set up longer term. The main differences might be things like avoiding Liverpool, Arsenal and West Ham players if their prices aren't right or I don't fancy their first few fixtures.

What do people think? If it goes well then I will have some nice points on the board and probably wildcard to strengthen the squad anyway. If it doesn't work then at least I've tried something a bit different to mix things up.

Finisher1
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Re: I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by Finisher1 »

Seems completely reasonable to me (assuming that a wildcard rule is similar to last season of course).

I have a similar strategy. I think it's non-sense to build my inital team with a long-term strategy, when I know it's very likely I will play my wildcard early.

Well, if price changes are slower than what we are used to, then it would decrease the effect of an early wildcard at some extent. I'm afraid we don't know the price change formula until we get some price change data, so before the season begins it's only guesswork and doesn't really affect my strategy (unless the rules specifically tell us there are no price changes at all, which I think is unlikely).

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Mav3rick
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Re: I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by Mav3rick »

The way the fixtures are laid out, it doesn't seem to me that there's really a different way that you'd play if you pick a 2 week squad compared a 6 week squad as nobody really has an amazing opening two games and only really Swansea have a decent first two followed by a run of games you might not want. For that reason, I wouldn't worry about pre-determining a wildcard in GW3 specifically.

Assuming that we get two wildcards again, then to me it's obvious you should play the wildcard early to gain the team value benefit, but you might play it in GW2 or in GW6 depending on how many early performers you happen to nail. The most important thing IMO is not to unbalance the squad too much. Give yourself an opportunity to carry on without a very early wildcard by (for example) not deliberately picking three non-starting (but cheap) subs or by over spending in defence because you don't want to pick a 10m midfielder with fitness question marks in the opening game.

Given the lack of obvious fixtures and defensive rotations, I do think it might be sensible to pick 3 decent defenders rather than trying to setup defensive rotations, that will require careful thought if base price defenders are definite non-starters (as expected). I also think there might be an argument to start this season with plenty of cash in the bank (due to the lack of obvious fixture runs but where the better ones are from unpredictable mid range teams and also the (presumably) likely rest issues around players that have played an international tournament in the summer).

My initial thought is that I might want to start with more mid range players than is normal, but with a "normal" defensive spend and cash in the bank to upgrade when good premiums emerge, however we need the game to open to see the prices before you can really define any strategies in detail.

Finisher1
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Re: I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by Finisher1 »

Mav3rick wrote:The way the fixtures are laid out, it doesn't seem to me that there's really a different way that you'd play if you pick a 2 week squad compared a 6 week squad as nobody really has an amazing opening two games and only really Swansea have a decent first two followed by a run of games you might not want. For that reason, I wouldn't worry about pre-determining a wildcard in GW3 specifically.
I haven't pre-determined any specific gameweek when I would play my wildcard and no doubt it would be a nice bonus if I'm able to save it over the early season. But my own experience says it's unlikely. Bandwagons usually start very early and I don't want to be late because this game sucks when you have to chase others. Usually the biggest twists in FPL happen in early season, so I don't have any specific need to save it for November or December - usually FPL is very settled by then. Furthermore, like sunbather says there is an international break after GW3 (?), you'd might want to cover that.

So in summary, the early wildcard is not my object itself but I think it's very likely I have to do it anyway. That's why I rather maximize my points for GW1-GW3 and forget the fixtures after that. If a 6-week-squad would be similar than my 2-3-week-squad then that's a nice plus, but I'm not going to make any adjustments anyway.

cesc408
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Re: I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by cesc408 »

It's all guess work until the player prices and rules/format is released. I have a couple players in mind should they be the expected price, but apart from that it's not worth putting much thought into the game as of yet

sunbather
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Re: I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by sunbather »

Thanks for the feedback both of you. I certainly wouldn't want to pick three non-starting subs: been burned by too many non-starters before to consider that (Walcott springs to mind!). I would still have a fairly sensible starting squad but the main point is to focus on the first few weeks rather than longer term options.

I've normally kept a cheap defence and might well go that way depending on premium pricing this year, but I seem to consistently get burned by rivals with expensive players like Alderweireld or City or United defenders. This maximising strategy would therefore aim to cover some expensive defenders like City, Southampton, Spurs.

Yep if the wildcard rules are different then I will definitely reconsider the whole strategy of course. And yes I know it's very early but I'm talking about a quite vague general concept as opposed to season-specific. Plus it's just nice to think about something to pass the time until it opens!

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Carlos Kickaball
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Re: I'm only concentrating on the first three gameweeks, what do you think?

Post by Carlos Kickaball »

It depends, in 14/15 I had a great run after a fairly early wildcard, last season the early wildcard worked brilliantly for others as many of the week 1 bandwagons just rolled on, personally I'm not sure how normal that is but in line with what Mav's said I'll probably just pick a general squad and wildcard when I feel it's appropriate.
Mav3rick wrote:The way the fixtures are laid out, it doesn't seem to me that there's really a different way that you'd play if you pick a 2 week squad compared a 6 week squad as nobody really has an amazing opening two games and only really Swansea have a decent first two followed by a run of games you might not want. For that reason, I wouldn't worry about pre-determining a wildcard in GW3 specifically.
cesc408 wrote:It's all guess work until the player prices and rules/format is released. I have a couple players in mind should they be the expected price, but apart from that it's not worth putting much thought into the game as of yet
I think these are great points.
Mav3rick wrote:My initial thought is that I might want to start with more mid range players than is normal, but with a "normal" defensive spend and cash in the bank to upgrade when good premiums emerge, however we need the game to open to see the prices before you can really define any strategies in detail.
I think that's a fairly decent idea, not sure if I'll do that exactly but I'm definitely going to try not to back myself into a corner by picking more expensive players when cheaper ones will do.

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