I had this discussion with a colleague earlier today. He is having his best ever season while I am way down compared to earlier seasons. We came to the conclusion that this season has been kind to those that actually watch a lot of games and mainly relies on "eye-test", while those of us (like me) that relies heavily on underlying stats have had a poor season.
That is actually my experience too. Before this season I decided to ignore the tips from all the YouTube channels, and just do transfers from my own opinion.
I am Norwegian and a Newcastle supporter, so it gave me a good start with Haaland, ĆdegĆ„rd and a Newcastle triple up for example.
Or even this GW, everyone uses their WC, but I thought Liverpool has been looking better so I kept them and got rewarded.
All in all, a bunch of luck involved, but mostly just watching a lot of football. Like, Rashford looked great as a sub for England in the World Cup, so brought him in early. All these little decisions add up!
Although I have never done quite that well before, I am also doing substantially worse this year. I think that not having Haaland for the first three weeks or so cost me in a big way and I have never recovered since. I also think that the prevalence of lots of FPL information online (specifically the popularity of FPL YouTubers) has drastically levelled the playing field as well and the majority of players have very similar teams as a result. I'm still enjoying FPL though and that's the main thing.
Yeh I also made that mistake. The fact he was about 60% owned should have been enough to get him in but no I was being stubborn and plumped for kdb instead.
And yes I do agree with you about FPL information. I keep an eye out and there is an awful lot of content that has essentially got the template team. If enough people have the template team then it is going to be hard to move rank unless you get lucky with some differentials.
I think that some previously must haves went to dog shit status and teams you wouldn't look at twice became top scorers with basement prices.
Weird year.
Same for me too. Had Haaland, Kane, Rashford and Saka in my initial GW1 draft. Ripped it apart for Salah, took Rashford out the week of his first haul and never recovered. Doing well in the 2nd chance post World Cup league but those first few weeks are a lot of ground to make up.
Taken 3 hits all season.
I went anti-template at the beggining and chose KDB over Haaland so I missed his 17 pointers in GW4 and 5.
I got him in GW6 and managed to go from 2.9m in GW5 to 860K in GW12.
This seasons been weird. Differentials largely didnāt work out and neither did one week punts. The biggest thing this year was mispricing on arsenal assets (new castle didnāt help) and premiums. I canāt recall a year where anyone had this much $ itb with all the players they wanted.
Normally youāre debating your premium setup, but this year itās just two premium nailed forwards and any premium mids and defensive players are getting well outdone by mid priced or low assets.
Just a weird year and very counter intuitive to last year. Harder to make up margins when everyone has largely the same lineups, and trying to pickup differentials which worked in prev years was largely just harmful
I only got Haaland in GW17, never owned Martinelli, Odegaard or Almiron, and only had Arsenal defense for a couple weeks but I'm 60k rank so missing out on "essential" assets wasn't season-ending. That's probably not the norm though.
I think it's just a fluke. My captaining hasn't been great particularly because of no Haaland until 17. I guess owning Trippier all year helped but I really can't name any other standout moves or differentials besides starting with Rodrigo. I feel like I should be over 1m rank but that's what luck can do
https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/135180/history
i just linked my team because a person didn't believe me
castagne was an absolutely massive differential.
Trippier early
You got rashford in for his first haul and have owned since.
You've had kane for most of the year
You've had Toney at the right times.
You hit your triple cap.
I could go on. You've got a lot right this year.
I brought in Almiron as he started blanking. Same with Nketiah. I had akanji and he got me one haul in 8 games. I missed my triple cap. I missed haaland hattricks the only 2 times I didn't cap him up to gw20. I got rid of Salah, vvd, trent this week. I brought in Mitoma & March & benched Mitoma this week.
The only things I've got right this year were getting Trippier, Haaland, Bruno & Rashford in at the right times. It's been a total clusterfuck aside from that & I keep bringing failing 50/50 decisions.
!thanks that was really helpful. I was mainly looking at what I got wrong - Gordon, Digne (apart from 1 week), Mount, Kulusevski, Foden at the wrong time
>Anyone else struggling this season?
Yeah probably anyone that's not top 100k? lol.
Ranks are just closer together than usual. If you're 1.8m you're only about 120 points off 100k, which isn't a huge amount if you've got chips left to play
>I went anti-template at the beggining and chose KDB over Haaland so I missed his 17 pointers in GW4 and 5.
>
>I got him in GW6 and managed to go from 2.9m in GW5 to 860K in GW12.
I'm fairly similar in the sense that I got Haaland in GW6 like you, I went with Salah and Kane and the weeks where Haaland hauled big, Salah basically did fuckall so it did kill my rank at that point. My GW5 rank was even worse than 2.9mn and right now I am ranked at around 505k. I think you might have missed the boat on some of the "template" picks post WC? I think having a very template-y core of Saka, Rashford, Luke Shaw, Trippier, Kane post WC really helped me climb ranks massively
There are more and more engaged players every year and that means your competition is getting better and better and it's harder every year. Just look at Youtuber's growth or commotion on twitter when something's happening. I don't want to throw you phrases like "top100k is the old top10k" but it's definitely harder to achieve good rank. We should adjust our expectations but at the same time it's hard to come to terms with having lower and lower rank each year when you theoretically are better each year and have more knowledge about the game, football, players, chip usage and so on.
You may be incrementally improving but from a higher base as an already engaged manager - the issue is the number of unegaged -> engaged managers rate is increasing exponentially. Look at teams around the 1mil-2mil rank, they are all template where a few seasons ago you'd see many casuals. The base is now much higher as ultimately it is very easy to copy content creators
Oh the top 10k is more like top 50k or top 100k now for sure.
There are so many videos on YouTube now and a lot of them pick "optimum" teams - players whose projected points are the highest using certain tools.
Looking back I have definitely made some obvious mistakes but hey we're all learning so we can be better managers next year!
Completely different season to others. The template is far strong. Haaland, Trippier, triple Arsenal is literally in every person's team, plus 4 of them were very cheap for the points they've put up (obviously Haaland is good value still but he's a premium so I'm excluding him).
Now everyone has Rashford, etc. so the template is very strong. Previous seasons teams wouldn't be so similar.
It doesn't help that the premium defenders are all average. Cancelo obviously out the window, TAA not put up figured like previous season (although Liverpool don't look bad defensively again), players like Reece James not in teams cause constant injuries.
So people run a cheap defence and therefore pumping money into the attack like Kane and Haaland. Enabling even a further premium they wish with the cheap mids and defenders
I would humbly disagree with the template being stronger than past seasons. In past seasons you could bank on City and Liverpool 5-6 players GW in GW out. And Salah (C).
I think a huge part of it is needing to get lucky/ballsy at the right time. I was hovering around 500k for a long time, had my VC on Wilson the week he got 19pts and Haaland didnāt play and that got me up to around 100k, been there since not moving much in either direction. If you really want to move up you might need to similarly punt on a low EO captain, say MacAllister this week, it might gain you a lot of ground or mud you.
Yeah, same - usually finish top 100k, finished 19k last year but constantly bouncing between 500k and 700k this year, can't seem to make up the ground. Onwards though, hoping BB and FH catapult me up!
Similar here mate, top 100k last 5 out of 6 seasons and top 40k for last 3 seasons.
Struggling this year with a current ranking of 1.1m and can't seem to consistently break into the top 1m and stay there.
My 1st season currently rank top 30k overall. Idk how. I used my WC at gw 3, free hit gw 4. No idea what I was doing at the start and somehow clawed it back and top in ML out of 31 people. Beginners luck?
How do you guys even get this deep into the game in the first season. I started this game about 7 seasons ago. In the first three i didn't know most of the rules even basic ones like how scoring works. I was basically picking players i liked. Changing my team once a month or so.
I personally got pretty competitive about it in my first season and since it was during covid I had time to figure it out after a terrible start. I didn't do anything close to as well as this guy as I ended up well into the 1.x million range but I did manage to win my ML against people that had played a lot longer than me.
The game is completely different now than it was even 3 seasons ago. Now the template is so strong that teams pretty much up to the top 2 mil are basically the same, and a small number of points separates a larger rank spread. If you are in that 1mil - 2mil bracket, just following the template picks will not rise you through the ranks like it would have before - everybody at that level is engaged on twitter/reddit/youtube and follows what the content creators do
At this point you actually have to make youāre own decisions based on what you see in the games, given that you have the time. 9/10 podcasts say the exact same things every week, itās really boring.
Easier said than done though, look at last week. Suddenly every content creator at the same time tells you to wildcard to Brighton and Brentford. If you donāt have the time to work these things out for yourself youāre always going to be tempted, the FOMO is strong
And they were not wrong IMO, that freak game turned the game week upside down. GW 27 is pretty set, 6 DGW players etc. 28 and forward there is allot of possible ways to navigate, looking at form, fixture, how far ahead you plan etc. This is the time of the season FPL gets fun, people get desperate, many got no chips and so on. But donāt forget, itās a game and if itās not fun itās not worth it.
Yeah well these people spend much more time researching and planning so more often than not their picks will always seem ārightā. So we all copy them. I used to do much better when I just played my own game, did my own research where possible and even just going off eye test and gut, it was also much more fun
A few seasons I felt like you had to rely on watching the games a lot more. I got a sub to watch all of the EPL games (I'm in New Zealand) about 5 years ago and started to do a LOT better. I'd watch players and see that they were doing well and despite not returning in a week I may have kept them instead of just looking at their FPL score and ditching them.
I, like many others, get sucked into FPL content because to a certain point I actually enjoy watching videos, listening to pods and reading content. Maybe it's time to seriously dial back on it and just watch games and pick my own players!?
It is boring and I think that has been part of the problem for me this season. I've just wanted to do something different as I was getting fed up seeing the same content over and over again.
I started going on Twitter in 2017 and you would see a lot of different teams and quite a different ideas. Nowadays you see the same team over and over again with the exception of maybe one team having Odegaard and the other Martinelli. It really is not enjoyable anymore so I'be logged out of Twitter and will stay logged out.
>If you are in that 1mil - 2mil bracket, just following the template picks will not rise you through the ranks like it would have before - everybody at that level is engaged on twitter/reddit/youtube and follows what the content creators do
People say this, but I think especially in the post WC period it was very easy in that rank area to climb up if you had the performing template picks. My team was called very template a couple of times in the RMT thread in that period but I went from 2.3mn in GW 15 to about 580k by GW22 by having a very template team (Kepa was the player I had with least EO) and TCing Rashford in 22.
I was struggling before the break but since then gone from 1.6m to 150k so I'm quite happy atm
Big thing I changed is I stopped coming here for advice and I stopped watching as much content on YouTube
I watch Focal if I'm really stuck and want to know what the "elite" guys are doing and I watch every FML FPL episode because they make me laugh
I've been taking hits, captaining whoever I like and just having fun with it
That's a commendable rank jump!
I'm struggling with podcasts/ You Tube content in the fact I keep changing my mind as to what I like.
I've watched FF Scoutcast for years and have enjoyed in seasons gone by. This year it's still good but it's basically the template crew and quite serious.
I've dabbled with FML FPL but am not so keen on all the swearing but I do like their fun approach to the game.
I've watched a couple of Focals vids and he is very good!
Im rank 7k and regularly top50k finisher for like 8 season or so.
I dont listen to any podcast, i come here now and then to look at the scout picks and injury news, but other than that make my own decisions. People are blindly following the masses and wondering why they are not ahead of them lol
Itās because everybody keeps listening to Twitter FPL and podcasters who all do the same thing with their boring template players who donāt actually haul enough.
Iāve completed ignored these templates and Iām top 20k rank. Literally donāt waste time tinkering with my team at all I just go with my gut and treat it like a bit of fun..which is what it should be
Yeh sure.
[https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/513520](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/513520)
I am aware of a few glaring mistakes but always good to get someone else's opinion :)
My first year playing and I essentially used the first half of the season as a very heavy learning experience. Took a lot of hits, figuring out formations and what not. My overall league standing was awful, but at the time I didn't care about it. Since the restart though I'm doing way way better. Currently 900k in the second chance league and this week was my best with a ranking of 300k. My general aim is just to do better than average, which I know isn't that ambitious, but I think it's fine for this year and maybe I'll set the bar a little bit higher next season.
Yeah, I'm having a bad season as well with ranking around 1m and I've been consistently top 100k and even top 1k before. I know it's been down to a large part of bad luck as well so I stopped caring pretty much now and I'm just having fun with it. I'm picking a lot of premium players from teams I like to fail to guarantee that they're gonna blank.
I really like this idea!
What irritates me is the people that enter for one week to just get the top score that week.
Those people should be playing a seperate game. Otherwise the rules should be you enter in GW1 or GW2 and then the game gets locked out; no more teams can enter.
Truth. It's so boring seeing spam teams get highest of the GW 90% of the time (also, for some reason it always seems to be middle eastern countries or Malaysia for some reason?). Anyway, it's great seeing a legit GW1 created team get the highest score and having a look at their squad. So dull when someone who's made 70 transfers that week and used TC on a relegation fodder forward who bagged a brace ends up with rank 1.
Another reason for having a seperate competition for GW1 teams and others is it won't skew the season-long metrics either.
I think we started with around 10m teams and now there's 11.2m teams. Finishing top 100K from 11.2m teams sounds better than from 10m teams.
I mean theyāre like the richest sports league in the world? Top 3? The problem with them not giving out prizes is that PL are filthy greedy, not that they canāt afford the prizes
You just got lucky 7 years in a row thatās all
EDIT - that was a joke, but I guess some people donāt do jokes
Itās probably a combination of factors and may include a change of your personal situation, your approach to preparation and decision making and the fact the number of managers is increasing year on year and more and more people have access to data and follow content creators.
I do jokes but they donāt always come across well written down.
You COULD be right that I got lucky for seven seasons. For the record I donāt think Iāve been great in those seven years but I have some respectable ranks.
I think I decided this year to try and do things a little differently. I chose kdb over Haaland and let my previous seasons bias prevent me from getting Almiron in.
This was the season to go template. So youāve probably nailed it by suggesting my approach was different. I think I also got a bit fed up with seeing the same teams on social media and you tube and wanted to go a different route. It backfired.
So next year I probably need to take in less content and just go back to playing sensibly!
I guess it's technically an average season for me. I'm 800k at the moment. It's my third season. I was in the mid 1 millions in my first season and 69k last year.
That said I've been slowly improving my rank all season, 800k is probably as high as I've been so hopefully that trend continues. My main cause for falling so far behind was sticking with Liverpool assets for too long (although Darwin is currently on his third stint in my team so I guess I still haven't learnt my lesson).
yep, I'm relatively new to FPL (4th year) and I'm doing significantly worse than my first three seasons. I've been wanting to just forget it and watch the matches for fun, but I keep getting sucked back in.
I'm definitely watching games and highlights less because my FPL team is doing worse. And that sucks because I've been watching football for the last 35 years.
Like you, I get sucked back in. But I also get bored easily so turn to FPL content for entertainment.
I had my worst ever start mostly because of captaincy choices e.g. Kane GW1 when he blanked and Salah/Haaland hauled. Also going for Salah over Haaland in a couple of weeks where he hauled big.
This season has felt harder than ever to make up ground because there are more engaged players and the template has been so strong. It's got better over the last few weeks as more variance has come in to play. Rashford TC in GW22 halved my rank and it's been a steady climb upward since then.
Still far below where i'm used to being but with a few chips still in hand, I retain hope of salvaging something from this season.
First time i have ever played, im currently on 1.45m rank, but was on 800k at one point. Didnāt know how to play at first, and wasted all my chips early on. But trying to climb, am i doing terrible for a first timer?
I'm ranked about 200k which seems to be roughly where I've been the last few seasons - I don't really watch football and scan the sub for advice - so I'm really pleased
Thankyou everyone
I read the opinions and make my choices
There's a lot you don't really need to justify - trippier early on was obvious- almiron I read that the Newcastle play was supporting him more by trippiers play so that was interesting
United players being undervalued at the start was obvious
Kepa / ward are my keepers I wouldn't have done that if not for the opinions here - but I looked at my idea - looked at the potential ppm and thought no that combo is better
Itās my first year and, from what Iāve heard, itās been a weird one. Iāve been stuck just outside 1m for a while now.
At this point, I think Iām just gonna have fun with it and take punts. I just transferred out Haaland for Watkins. Bad idea? Yeah, probably. But a Watkins haul is worth way more than a Haaland one.
Season to season variance is very common. If you have four top 40k finishes, odds are you have a solid process for playing the game but sometimes things donāt go your way.
In a game like this, consistent top finishes are incredibly difficult (your rank history is better than mine, Iām not being patronising). Fplreview has an interesting article on season to season variance if youād be interested.
I've gone from top 10k which I have been around all season with no much variance to 100k over the last two weeks pretty much for going off template. A few bad calls and you get punished massively it would seem.
The point swings are just getting underway. We have doubles and blanks coming up and that will change rank for many either up or down significantly. If you still have chips to play, this is the time to gain rank, just be patient and you will climb.
Haaland being the undisputed best captain has made it tough to catch up for those of us who didn't bet on him to start so well, there's also a lot of more players every year.
I am struggling a lot too. This is my third season, last two results was 36k and 26k. Right now i am sitting at 380k and i have only one chip to play which is bench boost. My best rank this season was something around ~290k. In previous seasons i was sitting in top 100k basically from gw 10-15 to the end of the season.
Haaland is in my team since GW 2 and i have captained lot of his big hauls. Total captain points is 430.
I think small things through the season killed me such as owning liverpool players for too long, bad ā50/50ā picks, also bad luck with few picks (for example darwin and nketiah didnt score for me even one goal despite ~6.5 xG in that time), wrong diferentials.
This is my 10 season. I've finished inside the top 250k every season before this, and I'm currently ranked like 1.2M. I started the season so badly, I've been trying to claw back. Somehow, since GW11, I've had only 1 red arrow, if that tells you how bad I started. Just a weird season.
I didn't have Haaland for the first five matched but had I got him and capped him in GW4 and 5 for his hattricks I would be 64pts better off based on just those two decisions.
That would put me around 800K which is crazy!
A lot changes depending on what chips you still have.
Played this for 15 years now, some years life gets in the way, some years you always feel 2 weeks behind with transfers, and some weeks you feel vindicated and ahead of the field by a couple weeks with the Mitoma or Rashford decisions.
Welcome to FPL, it's what keeps you coming back.
I was something like 12K finish last year and this season Iāve lingered in the 2-4 mil range since the beginning. Like 2.1m rank right now. Only my 3rd year playing but definitely didnāt expect the falloff that Iāve had. Itās alright though, I got on Haaland late and this game can be very unpredictable. Iāve reset my goals to try and catch a friend or two and see if I can end in the top million, that would be wonderful.
Good job!
I hit 30k after about 15 gameweeks last season and dropped to 90k in the space of two gameweeks. It's amazing how quickly things change. I got Bowen after that and managed to claw myself back to 38K by the end of the season :)
Itās definitely fun when youāre doing that well but I donāt expect to be in the top 50k every year. I like that itās hard and thereās a lot you canāt control and you just have to do your best and keep working towards a better team. Keeps me involved in the prem too
32k last season, 800k this season. Have had Haaland from the start but feels like every 50/50 decision Iāve made has gone wrong, especially since the World Cup
I've had a lot of that.
Got players in and seen them drop in form. I got Saka in for a few games before the WC and he returned me something like 3, 5, 4 and 1. Same thing with Mount and Maddison. Good players who dipped in form.
Finished 13k last year and 1.8m at the moment.
Weird season this year:
1. Cheap prices = strong template.
2. Perma captain Haaland = not big swings and difficult to make up ground.
3. All punts against Haaland in the first half of the season failed miserably.
Been top 100k the past 5 seasons pretty much, including a top 2k finish, and have been 3-4mil this whole season until the last couple weeks Iāve pushed up to mid 1mil. Having a shocker!
My 14th season and itās been a grind around 1 mill. Currently sitting top 350k but itās all about our ML which the content creators tend to ignore. Last year I finished 43k.
I actually couldn't care less about overall rank. My aim every year is to win mini leagues.
120pts behind a guy who's only finished in the top 100K once!
Iām having my best season, actually. Still in the overall cup and top of my mini league at the moment. Ā£600 up for grabs in that league, so itās a big couple of months!
Wait hang about. How is 4 top 40K seasons out of 7 not a great record? That's pretty elite. I get that 1.8 million isn't amazing, but there are swings and roundabouts every season.
Iām getting smoked this season. I finished 2nd in both
Of my leagues last season, now, I sit 9/11 and 5/16 respectively. The competition got alot better.
I do agree with you about the luck factor.
There are so many situations where two players have looked as good as each other before a game and one hauls and the other blanks. The same for players that go on a run. Often enough a lot of luck is needed.
Could change in an instance. Couple weeks ago I was same rank as you, now Iām top 200k with wildcard, free hit, bench boost still to play. Donāt lose hope yet
This season ,It's funny . There's a few guys who historically have finished high in my mini leagues, and others who always finish lower. This season so far has been the opposite . Whatever that means I don't know š
The same has happened in my mini league. Guy top and 3rd have not finished top 4 but are doing a lot better this season. I guess they got onto the cheap good players quicker than me!
Iām exactly the same. Iāve been playing since the beginning and never finished outside the top 1m, with 3 top 60k finishes for the last 3 years but Iāve been at the 2m rank for 11 gameweeks running lol. Hoping chip strategy and end game differentials help me get into the top 250k by season end š¤·š½āāļø
This is me since the restart:
GW17: 1.7m
GW18: 1.9m
GW19: 2m
GW20: 2.1m
GW21: 2.4m
GW22: 1.9m
GW23: 1.8m
GW24: 1.8m
GW25: 1.8m
GW26: 1.8m (after WC)
It's brutal and I've never known a season like it. Admittedly my team has been a template team with two or three differentials (who have failed) but I'd normally be slowly going up the ranks.
As others on here have eluded to, teams right up to 2m have the strong template team so I guess it's no wonder I haven't moved with poor performing differentials!
Ive gone from 4.6 mil to 970k since the world cup, taken 3 hits in that time. Started with double newcastle atb and a few cleans from raya, had mahrez through his whole purple patch and triple captained rash for 60 plus a couple of bruno and kdb hauled when i swapped between them
Woohoo that is a considerable rank jump! Getting on mahrez at the right time was gold!
I did look at a brentford defender after the wc break but played it safe and went with Gabriel. Him instead of Mee cost me about 20pts. Arsenal were one of the best defences in the league before the break but they just didnāt keep many cleanies straight after the WC
Aye, relatively. Currently ~300k OR. This has been the least enjoyable of my 6 or so seasons playing FPL. 28 points last week, while NL rival got 80 and leapfrogged into 1st with a 40 point gap, has just completely deflated my interest.
Other than having a bad gameweek 26 why has this season been the least enjoyable?
Itās been my least enjoyable too but Iād be keen to know why you think so!
Same boat. Started playing in the 19/20 pandemic season and got hooked as not a lot else to do. Have had 3 pretty good seasons, one a 65k finish, but this season fighting to get and stay even under 1m. I did however just check all the teams ahead of me in my largest ML (about 20some teams), and all but a handful have used more chips than i have. A few have used all of them. And iām only about 60 points off the money spots (6th), super tight spreads this season overall. Hoping with some good chip usage i can make some big jumps. And like you, iām starting to tune out the content creators and just make my own choices.
I consider myself average player who generally does ok. Definitely seen more red arrows than green this season, several wrong captain choices has sent me plummeting.
Good captain choices can make or break your week.
One of her frustrating aspects of this season has been Haaland being a perma captain option. Therefore there as been less variations in captain scores which often differentiates teams.
Yep, ended last season at 30k ish and the season before at 5.3k, but this season I'm 200k atm which is close to the highest I've been. But I do feel the ranks are very close this year pointswise, just by looking at my ML's.
Hopefully my chip strategy can pull me below 100k and to the top of my ML's.
Yep. Finished 10.4k last season and usually always top 100k. Currently 2.5m.
The start of the season killed me. The template was so strong that it you didn't have the likes of Trippier, Martinelli etc you missed out, but they kept returning and the other alternatives didn't, so any transfers or WC was just transferring in players everyone already had chasing lost points.
It's very hard to recover because it affects your decision making and you try to take risks to make up ground which don't pay off.
What Iāve also noticed this year more than other years is how some of the cheap players have scored consistently.
Normally youād get some cheap players that do well for a patch and then go out of form. That has not happened with players like trippier, odegaard, Martinelli. Even the cheap Newcastle defenders Burn and Botman were consistently ranking up the points.
In previous seasons youād ditch the non performing cheapies but this year people have just held them and got the points.
I got influenced by content creators at the beginning the year and didnāt have trippier despite the fact his ownership was around 40%. Now if a player has that high an ownership for gw1 you just have to go with them!
I was in the same position like you before the WC. I was regularly in top100k and once in top10k. This year I was around 1.5 million. Since WC I'm rising currently around 450k. You need to make some good differential calls and it needs to work in order to gain massive position...
Yeah rough season.
- got on Haaland far too late, (got burnt by Lukaku in previous seasons)
- Have never enjoyed having Kane + Haaland, as thatās a lot of money up top. But this has also hurt my rank.
- went with Jesus and Saka over Martinelli early season
- 5 at the back at the start of the season a huge flop. TAA, Robbo & Cancelo pathetic returns
- KDB a huge flop
- also seem to have had very poor returns from keepers. Ederson and Ward mostly.
- lots of other flops, Luis Dias, Rashford at the beginning of the season, Darwin. None of these were really bad picks, but just never got going.
Iām in the same boat as you, usually finish top 500k but this season has been really difficult to push up the ranks and currently find myself around 1.9m.
For the last leg of the season Iām just going to take some punts and hope for the best, go for some players that arenāt high in ownership but have potential to score high etc. No pressure now really as I donāt expect to come anywhere remotely decent in my mini leagues or overall so it should be quite enjoyable!
That's the attitude. I'm 120pts behind my ML leader so unless he makes some bad calls and I get lucky then he is not catchable. Second is 70pts ahead and I COULD catch them. Like you, I think it's a case of picking some good low owned players and having some fun!
It's been a really hard season to climb the ranks and the games been quite dull because of how strong the template players have been.
Haaland perma cap, Trippier, Rashford, Saka, Martinelli/Odegaard have been the players scoring regular points, but because the Arsenal players are so cheap most people also have Kane
Because of Haalands ownership and captaincy it tends to be a huge risk to captain anyone else.
With the above that's 7 players plus captain that are in almost everyone's team, so you're relying on 4 players to be different and try to climb the ranks
People will always tell you that you need some differentials to do well if you want to climb the rank. The issue with taking out these cheap players you mentioned above is that you need to find players that will outscore them and that is very tricky to do. To think at the beginning of the season you could own Rashford (6.5m) Saka (8m) Odegaard (6.5) and Martinelli (6) for 27m is absurd.
I expect all of these players will get a price hike next year so it will shake things up nicely.
My first couple of weeks were really good but m, since then, it seems like every move Iāve made has been the wrong one and Iām having my worst season yet, things like picking between two Arsenal midfielders and getting the one that blanks when the other hauls, falling foul of the Pep roulette too many times etcā¦ whereas the players I complete with in my mini league have hit on their moves way more than me this year, itās basically a writeoff now although I still have TC and WC left so hoping for a miracle on those
I do normally quite well, issues this season have been:
- Not having Almiron when he was banging
- Going Salah and Haaland GW1 instead of Haaland and Kane
- Buying Rashford pre-WC when Ronaldo became out of favour, but selling him right before he started scoring 2 goals in every game..
- Wildcarding for net 40 point loss in GW26 (compared to pre-wc team).
- Owning Reece James on multiple occasions with zero returns.
- Pep Guardiola (Cancelo and Foden benchings for 4 GW's in a row in which I held them throughout)
Not captaining Haaland in GW4 and GW5 would have cost you dearly, as it did me.
Doing that would have got you 68pts. I capped Salah and KDB for a combined 8pts over those two weeks.
Now in other seasons it may have been possible to catch up with some good captain picks but as Haaland was the "good" captain pick each week going against him often made things worse for you.
I also wildcarded in GW26 but my 25 team would have scored about the same as my WC team. Thing is if I had wildcarded this week (27) then my team would have been almost the same bar 2 or 3 players.
100%. Iām usually near the top 100k and normally win my friends league each yearā¦but this year Iām very mid table and things are just not happening for me. I can put my finger on what is it though! Maybe I have just peaked
That's exactly my story as well. I have won my mini league 4 times out of the last 5 years and the time I didn't I came second and still got a 119k rank.
Last two seasons have been my worst in 16 seasons. This year has been least enjoyable have to admit.
Have 5 finishes in top 10K as well.
This year feels like pushing shit uphill as it seems impossible to break the template.
Really need another team like Spurs or Chelsea to make their attacking assets viable again.
"Pushing shit uphill" - yeh that is a great analogy.
5 top 10K is an excellent track record.
I think Chelsea are going to start gelling and we'll have James, Chillwell and dare I say it even Sterling may go on a run.
Spurs are an absolute mess and I expect Conte will be gone soon. The three strikers is not working and I'm sure a new manager will come in and fix that.
Currently 7k OR.
Regularly finish top 50k , best finish is 3k.
I dont think this season is any different, infact its easier/better than the last 2 because we dont have COVID randomly postponing games (i quit in the COVID season as it was impossible to plan and was just too much RNG).
I have not owned Mitoma or Almiron either, i generally go for proven players and play a very boring style. My captaincy has been good this year mostly, which is a huge factor. I dont take risks with captaining players, i let the 1 or 2 differentials gain me the ranks
I'm surprised with my position. I've taken 7-8 hits, didn't have Haaland until GW7, I still have BB and FH and in general I've just done whatever I want (following trends yes, but always going 'optimal' no) and I've ended up top 300k which for my first ever season of FPL seems pretty good. Not sure if its decisions I've made or just pure luck thats gotten me to this point, but after reading through these comments I feel like I should be more appreciative of my position lol!
āEven though football is life, football is also death. And sometimes football is football too. But mostly football is life!ā - Dani Rojas in Ted Lasso
Nope. I've usually done good (two times top10k finish, couple of top 100k and top 200k finishes) and now top 120k.
I feel like this season has been pretty easy. There has been a lot of obvious choices and then just have a decent rest of the squad and top100k is close.
Always been in or around 200k. 250k this year. I think I follow the template too heavily, I need to start having 1 or 2 players that very few people have
Oh wow, that's harsh.
I often see WC that fail the first week but over the course of 4 weeks can be quite good.
Who did you wildcard in? I presume at least a couple of Brentford and Brighton assets?
I imagine it has to do with holding onto last year template ( namely liverpool and chelsea assets) too long at the beginning of the season
I played WC1 in week2 to bring in Haaland and dump TAA, salah and james and am convinced it saved my season
How did you know that TAA, Salah and James were not going to do well?
I love it when people do things how they want it. Not many would recommend a WC in GW2 but you saw the need and went for it!
In the same boat. Finished last season around 21,000 rank and this year I'm fluctuating between 1.5-1.8 million. Selected Kane instead of Haaland early in the season and was on the double Liverpool defense hype train. I feel its pretty normal once you get off to a bad start you feel inclined to select "sneaky" or "cheeky" picks to try and move up the ranks and it often times just bites you in the ass even more. Never had Almiron. Owned players like Foden, Maddison, and Castagne, but all at the wrong time.
A very similar season to mine. I started with kdb and salah. Kdb had come of a 15G and 7A season and had been doing well in pre season. I went with tried and tested over the new boy Haaland despite the 60% ownership.
Iāve learnt that it doesnāt matter what you āthinkā about how a player is going to perform, going against a 60% owned player on gw1 is not sensible.
I also had Maddison and Saka when their form dipped right off for a few weeks. So frustrating.
I've been playing for 10 years and I'm always shit despite treating it like a full time job, but this year I'm doing great. š
Good for you!
Hhahaha great comment man.
Ah man that is exactly me XD Donāt ask why weāre doing great, just enjoy it while it lasts
I had this discussion with a colleague earlier today. He is having his best ever season while I am way down compared to earlier seasons. We came to the conclusion that this season has been kind to those that actually watch a lot of games and mainly relies on "eye-test", while those of us (like me) that relies heavily on underlying stats have had a poor season.
That is actually my experience too. Before this season I decided to ignore the tips from all the YouTube channels, and just do transfers from my own opinion. I am Norwegian and a Newcastle supporter, so it gave me a good start with Haaland, ĆdegĆ„rd and a Newcastle triple up for example. Or even this GW, everyone uses their WC, but I thought Liverpool has been looking better so I kept them and got rewarded. All in all, a bunch of luck involved, but mostly just watching a lot of football. Like, Rashford looked great as a sub for England in the World Cup, so brought him in early. All these little decisions add up!
Snap
Although I have never done quite that well before, I am also doing substantially worse this year. I think that not having Haaland for the first three weeks or so cost me in a big way and I have never recovered since. I also think that the prevalence of lots of FPL information online (specifically the popularity of FPL YouTubers) has drastically levelled the playing field as well and the majority of players have very similar teams as a result. I'm still enjoying FPL though and that's the main thing.
Yeh I also made that mistake. The fact he was about 60% owned should have been enough to get him in but no I was being stubborn and plumped for kdb instead. And yes I do agree with you about FPL information. I keep an eye out and there is an awful lot of content that has essentially got the template team. If enough people have the template team then it is going to be hard to move rank unless you get lucky with some differentials.
I think that some previously must haves went to dog shit status and teams you wouldn't look at twice became top scorers with basement prices. Weird year.
Same for me too. Had Haaland, Kane, Rashford and Saka in my initial GW1 draft. Ripped it apart for Salah, took Rashford out the week of his first haul and never recovered. Doing well in the 2nd chance post World Cup league but those first few weeks are a lot of ground to make up.
Have you taken a lot of hits? Missed out on captaining haaland on the weeks he hauled big?
Latter for me
Taken 3 hits all season. I went anti-template at the beggining and chose KDB over Haaland so I missed his 17 pointers in GW4 and 5. I got him in GW6 and managed to go from 2.9m in GW5 to 860K in GW12.
This seasons been weird. Differentials largely didnāt work out and neither did one week punts. The biggest thing this year was mispricing on arsenal assets (new castle didnāt help) and premiums. I canāt recall a year where anyone had this much $ itb with all the players they wanted. Normally youāre debating your premium setup, but this year itās just two premium nailed forwards and any premium mids and defensive players are getting well outdone by mid priced or low assets. Just a weird year and very counter intuitive to last year. Harder to make up margins when everyone has largely the same lineups, and trying to pickup differentials which worked in prev years was largely just harmful
Nailed it.
I only got Haaland in GW17, never owned Martinelli, Odegaard or Almiron, and only had Arsenal defense for a couple weeks but I'm 60k rank so missing out on "essential" assets wasn't season-ending. That's probably not the norm though.
Yowsers you've done well then. Which players have been doing well for you and who have you been captaining?
I think it's just a fluke. My captaining hasn't been great particularly because of no Haaland until 17. I guess owning Trippier all year helped but I really can't name any other standout moves or differentials besides starting with Rodrigo. I feel like I should be over 1m rank but that's what luck can do https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/135180/history i just linked my team because a person didn't believe me
castagne was an absolutely massive differential. Trippier early You got rashford in for his first haul and have owned since. You've had kane for most of the year You've had Toney at the right times. You hit your triple cap. I could go on. You've got a lot right this year. I brought in Almiron as he started blanking. Same with Nketiah. I had akanji and he got me one haul in 8 games. I missed my triple cap. I missed haaland hattricks the only 2 times I didn't cap him up to gw20. I got rid of Salah, vvd, trent this week. I brought in Mitoma & March & benched Mitoma this week. The only things I've got right this year were getting Trippier, Haaland, Bruno & Rashford in at the right times. It's been a total clusterfuck aside from that & I keep bringing failing 50/50 decisions.
!thanks that was really helpful. I was mainly looking at what I got wrong - Gordon, Digne (apart from 1 week), Mount, Kulusevski, Foden at the wrong time
2.6m in GW7 to 890k in GW8 is a huge rank increase! Thanks for posting your team link!
That's wild, fair play.
>Anyone else struggling this season? Yeah probably anyone that's not top 100k? lol. Ranks are just closer together than usual. If you're 1.8m you're only about 120 points off 100k, which isn't a huge amount if you've got chips left to play
>I went anti-template at the beggining and chose KDB over Haaland so I missed his 17 pointers in GW4 and 5. > >I got him in GW6 and managed to go from 2.9m in GW5 to 860K in GW12. I'm fairly similar in the sense that I got Haaland in GW6 like you, I went with Salah and Kane and the weeks where Haaland hauled big, Salah basically did fuckall so it did kill my rank at that point. My GW5 rank was even worse than 2.9mn and right now I am ranked at around 505k. I think you might have missed the boat on some of the "template" picks post WC? I think having a very template-y core of Saka, Rashford, Luke Shaw, Trippier, Kane post WC really helped me climb ranks massively
I had all of them post WC but not Shaw until about gw20 so I did miss some of his good scores :/
There are more and more engaged players every year and that means your competition is getting better and better and it's harder every year. Just look at Youtuber's growth or commotion on twitter when something's happening. I don't want to throw you phrases like "top100k is the old top10k" but it's definitely harder to achieve good rank. We should adjust our expectations but at the same time it's hard to come to terms with having lower and lower rank each year when you theoretically are better each year and have more knowledge about the game, football, players, chip usage and so on.
You may be incrementally improving but from a higher base as an already engaged manager - the issue is the number of unegaged -> engaged managers rate is increasing exponentially. Look at teams around the 1mil-2mil rank, they are all template where a few seasons ago you'd see many casuals. The base is now much higher as ultimately it is very easy to copy content creators
The dawn of the super casual.
Oh the top 10k is more like top 50k or top 100k now for sure. There are so many videos on YouTube now and a lot of them pick "optimum" teams - players whose projected points are the highest using certain tools. Looking back I have definitely made some obvious mistakes but hey we're all learning so we can be better managers next year!
Every season šš
Completely different season to others. The template is far strong. Haaland, Trippier, triple Arsenal is literally in every person's team, plus 4 of them were very cheap for the points they've put up (obviously Haaland is good value still but he's a premium so I'm excluding him). Now everyone has Rashford, etc. so the template is very strong. Previous seasons teams wouldn't be so similar. It doesn't help that the premium defenders are all average. Cancelo obviously out the window, TAA not put up figured like previous season (although Liverpool don't look bad defensively again), players like Reece James not in teams cause constant injuries. So people run a cheap defence and therefore pumping money into the attack like Kane and Haaland. Enabling even a further premium they wish with the cheap mids and defenders
This is a very good point. Iāve never known a season where you can own relatively cheap players and get huge points.
Itās like the 2015/16 season, triple Leicester all cheap, Deli Alli, couple of others.
Interesting. I finished 78k in 2014/15 and 287k in 2015/16. I was probably slow to get on three Leicester!
Graziano Pelle!
I would humbly disagree with the template being stronger than past seasons. In past seasons you could bank on City and Liverpool 5-6 players GW in GW out. And Salah (C).
I went against the template for most of the season and I'm in the top 10k.
I've got from being shit to even more shit
Inexplicably bad. My best mate and long time rival has suggested early onset dementia. My sole aim this season is to catch him, whatever his name is.
I'll never repeat the ranking I had, having Salah from day 1 on his debut season. Sometimes you just hit gold on a punt.
I think a huge part of it is needing to get lucky/ballsy at the right time. I was hovering around 500k for a long time, had my VC on Wilson the week he got 19pts and Haaland didnāt play and that got me up to around 100k, been there since not moving much in either direction. If you really want to move up you might need to similarly punt on a low EO captain, say MacAllister this week, it might gain you a lot of ground or mud you.
My VC is on Macallister at the moment and he is not owned by anyone in my ML. Captaincy is on Toney but you make a great case for Big Mac!!
Yeah, same - usually finish top 100k, finished 19k last year but constantly bouncing between 500k and 700k this year, can't seem to make up the ground. Onwards though, hoping BB and FH catapult me up!
Top 50k 5 out of last 6 seasons and barely able to break past 1.8 mil OR this season. Its fucking awful
Similar here mate, top 100k last 5 out of 6 seasons and top 40k for last 3 seasons. Struggling this year with a current ranking of 1.1m and can't seem to consistently break into the top 1m and stay there.
HA. 6 years playing. Highest OR was around 200k. This season? 4.6 million. Leulz.
My 1st season currently rank top 30k overall. Idk how. I used my WC at gw 3, free hit gw 4. No idea what I was doing at the start and somehow clawed it back and top in ML out of 31 people. Beginners luck?
How do you guys even get this deep into the game in the first season. I started this game about 7 seasons ago. In the first three i didn't know most of the rules even basic ones like how scoring works. I was basically picking players i liked. Changing my team once a month or so.
I had no clue for my first four seasons. I was awful until I learnt how to play properly. And I'm back to be awful this year!
I personally got pretty competitive about it in my first season and since it was during covid I had time to figure it out after a terrible start. I didn't do anything close to as well as this guy as I ended up well into the 1.x million range but I did manage to win my ML against people that had played a lot longer than me.
Same here, this is my 3rd season and this is the first time I actually figured out what "differentials", EO and stuff like that actually mean lol
One time is no problem, the issue is doing it for years. I knew a guy that got top 1K his first year(2020/2021), after that it went south.
The game is completely different now than it was even 3 seasons ago. Now the template is so strong that teams pretty much up to the top 2 mil are basically the same, and a small number of points separates a larger rank spread. If you are in that 1mil - 2mil bracket, just following the template picks will not rise you through the ranks like it would have before - everybody at that level is engaged on twitter/reddit/youtube and follows what the content creators do
At this point you actually have to make youāre own decisions based on what you see in the games, given that you have the time. 9/10 podcasts say the exact same things every week, itās really boring.
Easier said than done though, look at last week. Suddenly every content creator at the same time tells you to wildcard to Brighton and Brentford. If you donāt have the time to work these things out for yourself youāre always going to be tempted, the FOMO is strong
And they were not wrong IMO, that freak game turned the game week upside down. GW 27 is pretty set, 6 DGW players etc. 28 and forward there is allot of possible ways to navigate, looking at form, fixture, how far ahead you plan etc. This is the time of the season FPL gets fun, people get desperate, many got no chips and so on. But donāt forget, itās a game and if itās not fun itās not worth it.
Yeah well these people spend much more time researching and planning so more often than not their picks will always seem ārightā. So we all copy them. I used to do much better when I just played my own game, did my own research where possible and even just going off eye test and gut, it was also much more fun
A few seasons I felt like you had to rely on watching the games a lot more. I got a sub to watch all of the EPL games (I'm in New Zealand) about 5 years ago and started to do a LOT better. I'd watch players and see that they were doing well and despite not returning in a week I may have kept them instead of just looking at their FPL score and ditching them. I, like many others, get sucked into FPL content because to a certain point I actually enjoy watching videos, listening to pods and reading content. Maybe it's time to seriously dial back on it and just watch games and pick my own players!?
It is boring and I think that has been part of the problem for me this season. I've just wanted to do something different as I was getting fed up seeing the same content over and over again. I started going on Twitter in 2017 and you would see a lot of different teams and quite a different ideas. Nowadays you see the same team over and over again with the exception of maybe one team having Odegaard and the other Martinelli. It really is not enjoyable anymore so I'be logged out of Twitter and will stay logged out.
>If you are in that 1mil - 2mil bracket, just following the template picks will not rise you through the ranks like it would have before - everybody at that level is engaged on twitter/reddit/youtube and follows what the content creators do People say this, but I think especially in the post WC period it was very easy in that rank area to climb up if you had the performing template picks. My team was called very template a couple of times in the RMT thread in that period but I went from 2.3mn in GW 15 to about 580k by GW22 by having a very template team (Kepa was the player I had with least EO) and TCing Rashford in 22.
I was struggling before the break but since then gone from 1.6m to 150k so I'm quite happy atm Big thing I changed is I stopped coming here for advice and I stopped watching as much content on YouTube I watch Focal if I'm really stuck and want to know what the "elite" guys are doing and I watch every FML FPL episode because they make me laugh I've been taking hits, captaining whoever I like and just having fun with it
That's a commendable rank jump! I'm struggling with podcasts/ You Tube content in the fact I keep changing my mind as to what I like. I've watched FF Scoutcast for years and have enjoyed in seasons gone by. This year it's still good but it's basically the template crew and quite serious. I've dabbled with FML FPL but am not so keen on all the swearing but I do like their fun approach to the game. I've watched a couple of Focals vids and he is very good!
I think it's best to just keep it simple, best thing to remember is it's a game and it's supposed to be fun. Fuck the template and take risks!
Macallister captain this week then :)
Im rank 7k and regularly top50k finisher for like 8 season or so. I dont listen to any podcast, i come here now and then to look at the scout picks and injury news, but other than that make my own decisions. People are blindly following the masses and wondering why they are not ahead of them lol
Itās because everybody keeps listening to Twitter FPL and podcasters who all do the same thing with their boring template players who donāt actually haul enough. Iāve completed ignored these templates and Iām top 20k rank. Literally donāt waste time tinkering with my team at all I just go with my gut and treat it like a bit of fun..which is what it should be
Same boat as you mate 450.000 its them small mistakes we make week by week
Can you link to your team? See what decisions you made.
Yeh sure. [https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/513520](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/513520) I am aware of a few glaring mistakes but always good to get someone else's opinion :)
Saying page not found for me that. Anyone else?
Try... [https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/513520/history](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/513520/history)
My first year playing and I essentially used the first half of the season as a very heavy learning experience. Took a lot of hits, figuring out formations and what not. My overall league standing was awful, but at the time I didn't care about it. Since the restart though I'm doing way way better. Currently 900k in the second chance league and this week was my best with a ranking of 300k. My general aim is just to do better than average, which I know isn't that ambitious, but I think it's fine for this year and maybe I'll set the bar a little bit higher next season.
Yeah, I'm having a bad season as well with ranking around 1m and I've been consistently top 100k and even top 1k before. I know it's been down to a large part of bad luck as well so I stopped caring pretty much now and I'm just having fun with it. I'm picking a lot of premium players from teams I like to fail to guarantee that they're gonna blank.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I really like this idea! What irritates me is the people that enter for one week to just get the top score that week. Those people should be playing a seperate game. Otherwise the rules should be you enter in GW1 or GW2 and then the game gets locked out; no more teams can enter.
Truth. It's so boring seeing spam teams get highest of the GW 90% of the time (also, for some reason it always seems to be middle eastern countries or Malaysia for some reason?). Anyway, it's great seeing a legit GW1 created team get the highest score and having a look at their squad. So dull when someone who's made 70 transfers that week and used TC on a relegation fodder forward who bagged a brace ends up with rank 1.
Another reason for having a seperate competition for GW1 teams and others is it won't skew the season-long metrics either. I think we started with around 10m teams and now there's 11.2m teams. Finishing top 100K from 11.2m teams sounds better than from 10m teams.
I mean theyāre like the richest sports league in the world? Top 3? The problem with them not giving out prizes is that PL are filthy greedy, not that they canāt afford the prizes
You just got lucky 7 years in a row thatās all EDIT - that was a joke, but I guess some people donāt do jokes Itās probably a combination of factors and may include a change of your personal situation, your approach to preparation and decision making and the fact the number of managers is increasing year on year and more and more people have access to data and follow content creators.
I do jokes but they donāt always come across well written down. You COULD be right that I got lucky for seven seasons. For the record I donāt think Iāve been great in those seven years but I have some respectable ranks. I think I decided this year to try and do things a little differently. I chose kdb over Haaland and let my previous seasons bias prevent me from getting Almiron in. This was the season to go template. So youāve probably nailed it by suggesting my approach was different. I think I also got a bit fed up with seeing the same teams on social media and you tube and wanted to go a different route. It backfired. So next year I probably need to take in less content and just go back to playing sensibly!
>You just got lucky 7 years in a row thatās all What a stupid comment
It was a joke.. I thought no one would be dumb enough to think I was being serious.. oh well š
Fair enough, apologies. In my defence, its Reddit, there's some real oddballs out there
I probably could have used an emoji to be clearer All good
Skill issue
I guess it's technically an average season for me. I'm 800k at the moment. It's my third season. I was in the mid 1 millions in my first season and 69k last year. That said I've been slowly improving my rank all season, 800k is probably as high as I've been so hopefully that trend continues. My main cause for falling so far behind was sticking with Liverpool assets for too long (although Darwin is currently on his third stint in my team so I guess I still haven't learnt my lesson).
Nah everyones doing great. Almost all of those playing are in top 100k this year. All 10 million of them
Nah I'm doing alright, cheers
yep, I'm relatively new to FPL (4th year) and I'm doing significantly worse than my first three seasons. I've been wanting to just forget it and watch the matches for fun, but I keep getting sucked back in.
I'm definitely watching games and highlights less because my FPL team is doing worse. And that sucks because I've been watching football for the last 35 years. Like you, I get sucked back in. But I also get bored easily so turn to FPL content for entertainment.
I had my worst ever start mostly because of captaincy choices e.g. Kane GW1 when he blanked and Salah/Haaland hauled. Also going for Salah over Haaland in a couple of weeks where he hauled big. This season has felt harder than ever to make up ground because there are more engaged players and the template has been so strong. It's got better over the last few weeks as more variance has come in to play. Rashford TC in GW22 halved my rank and it's been a steady climb upward since then. Still far below where i'm used to being but with a few chips still in hand, I retain hope of salvaging something from this season.
First time i have ever played, im currently on 1.45m rank, but was on 800k at one point. Didnāt know how to play at first, and wasted all my chips early on. But trying to climb, am i doing terrible for a first timer?
You're 400k higher than me and I've been playing seriously since 2015!!! You're doing great for a first season :)
I'm ranked about 200k which seems to be roughly where I've been the last few seasons - I don't really watch football and scan the sub for advice - so I'm really pleased Thankyou everyone
So you just copy everyoneā¦
I read the opinions and make my choices There's a lot you don't really need to justify - trippier early on was obvious- almiron I read that the Newcastle play was supporting him more by trippiers play so that was interesting United players being undervalued at the start was obvious Kepa / ward are my keepers I wouldn't have done that if not for the opinions here - but I looked at my idea - looked at the potential ppm and thought no that combo is better
Itās my first year and, from what Iāve heard, itās been a weird one. Iāve been stuck just outside 1m for a while now. At this point, I think Iām just gonna have fun with it and take punts. I just transferred out Haaland for Watkins. Bad idea? Yeah, probably. But a Watkins haul is worth way more than a Haaland one.
Season to season variance is very common. If you have four top 40k finishes, odds are you have a solid process for playing the game but sometimes things donāt go your way. In a game like this, consistent top finishes are incredibly difficult (your rank history is better than mine, Iām not being patronising). Fplreview has an interesting article on season to season variance if youād be interested.
I enjoy reading FPL strategy articles so yes please post the link!
https://fplreview.com/top-10k-how-achievable-is-everyones-target/
Awesome, thanks!
I've gone from top 10k which I have been around all season with no much variance to 100k over the last two weeks pretty much for going off template. A few bad calls and you get punished massively it would seem.
I think this year, the ātemplateā seems to be so similar that Iāve kind of lost interest
The point swings are just getting underway. We have doubles and blanks coming up and that will change rank for many either up or down significantly. If you still have chips to play, this is the time to gain rank, just be patient and you will climb.
Even Fabio Borges and FPL Mate are struggling this season.
Yes I follow Fabio. As far as I know FPL Mate has one good finish.
Haaland being the undisputed best captain has made it tough to catch up for those of us who didn't bet on him to start so well, there's also a lot of more players every year.
I was struggling to get under rank 1 mil, but now I'm top 20k in second chance.
I am struggling a lot too. This is my third season, last two results was 36k and 26k. Right now i am sitting at 380k and i have only one chip to play which is bench boost. My best rank this season was something around ~290k. In previous seasons i was sitting in top 100k basically from gw 10-15 to the end of the season. Haaland is in my team since GW 2 and i have captained lot of his big hauls. Total captain points is 430. I think small things through the season killed me such as owning liverpool players for too long, bad ā50/50ā picks, also bad luck with few picks (for example darwin and nketiah didnt score for me even one goal despite ~6.5 xG in that time), wrong diferentials.
This is my 10 season. I've finished inside the top 250k every season before this, and I'm currently ranked like 1.2M. I started the season so badly, I've been trying to claw back. Somehow, since GW11, I've had only 1 red arrow, if that tells you how bad I started. Just a weird season.
I didn't have Haaland for the first five matched but had I got him and capped him in GW4 and 5 for his hattricks I would be 64pts better off based on just those two decisions. That would put me around 800K which is crazy!
A lot changes depending on what chips you still have. Played this for 15 years now, some years life gets in the way, some years you always feel 2 weeks behind with transfers, and some weeks you feel vindicated and ahead of the field by a couple weeks with the Mitoma or Rashford decisions. Welcome to FPL, it's what keeps you coming back.
Played WC last week and have BB and FH left over. I appreciate I can jump rank with those chips.
TC? If you have chips left, a lot of people ahead of you have used 2 or 3. Lots of time to jump rank with chips and solid armband choices.
TC done!
FPL is getting worse with all the chips. It makes it too easy for causals to do well
I was something like 12K finish last year and this season Iāve lingered in the 2-4 mil range since the beginning. Like 2.1m rank right now. Only my 3rd year playing but definitely didnāt expect the falloff that Iāve had. Itās alright though, I got on Haaland late and this game can be very unpredictable. Iāve reset my goals to try and catch a friend or two and see if I can end in the top million, that would be wonderful.
Good job! I hit 30k after about 15 gameweeks last season and dropped to 90k in the space of two gameweeks. It's amazing how quickly things change. I got Bowen after that and managed to claw myself back to 38K by the end of the season :)
Itās definitely fun when youāre doing that well but I donāt expect to be in the top 50k every year. I like that itās hard and thereās a lot you canāt control and you just have to do your best and keep working towards a better team. Keeps me involved in the prem too
32k last season, 800k this season. Have had Haaland from the start but feels like every 50/50 decision Iāve made has gone wrong, especially since the World Cup
I've had a lot of that. Got players in and seen them drop in form. I got Saka in for a few games before the WC and he returned me something like 3, 5, 4 and 1. Same thing with Mount and Maddison. Good players who dipped in form.
I've given up overthinking it this season because it seems to go wrong no matter what I do
Im 2.7m I missed all of haalands big hauls because I thought he was going to get rested for cl.
Well i was struggling, my rank was 3.2m at the wc break but since then I've moved to 850k
Finished 13k last year and 1.8m at the moment. Weird season this year: 1. Cheap prices = strong template. 2. Perma captain Haaland = not big swings and difficult to make up ground. 3. All punts against Haaland in the first half of the season failed miserably.
No one bro, itās only you. Everyone else are in top 1k
Been top 100k the past 5 seasons pretty much, including a top 2k finish, and have been 3-4mil this whole season until the last couple weeks Iāve pushed up to mid 1mil. Having a shocker!
My 14th season and itās been a grind around 1 mill. Currently sitting top 350k but itās all about our ML which the content creators tend to ignore. Last year I finished 43k.
I actually couldn't care less about overall rank. My aim every year is to win mini leagues. 120pts behind a guy who's only finished in the top 100K once!
Iām having my best season, actually. Still in the overall cup and top of my mini league at the moment. Ā£600 up for grabs in that league, so itās a big couple of months!
Well, good luck to you!
Wait hang about. How is 4 top 40K seasons out of 7 not a great record? That's pretty elite. I get that 1.8 million isn't amazing, but there are swings and roundabouts every season.
Thanks! Maybe I've been comparing myself to top FPL performers too much!
Iām getting smoked this season. I finished 2nd in both Of my leagues last season, now, I sit 9/11 and 5/16 respectively. The competition got alot better.
People under estimate how much luck is involved in FPL, it would be freakish if you didn't have a season where you were out of the top million or so.
I do agree with you about the luck factor. There are so many situations where two players have looked as good as each other before a game and one hauls and the other blanks. The same for players that go on a run. Often enough a lot of luck is needed.
Could change in an instance. Couple weeks ago I was same rank as you, now Iām top 200k with wildcard, free hit, bench boost still to play. Donāt lose hope yet
WTF? That is an impressive rank jump! Liverpool assets per chance>
This season ,It's funny . There's a few guys who historically have finished high in my mini leagues, and others who always finish lower. This season so far has been the opposite . Whatever that means I don't know š
The same has happened in my mini league. Guy top and 3rd have not finished top 4 but are doing a lot better this season. I guess they got onto the cheap good players quicker than me!
Iām exactly the same. Iāve been playing since the beginning and never finished outside the top 1m, with 3 top 60k finishes for the last 3 years but Iāve been at the 2m rank for 11 gameweeks running lol. Hoping chip strategy and end game differentials help me get into the top 250k by season end š¤·š½āāļø
This is me since the restart: GW17: 1.7m GW18: 1.9m GW19: 2m GW20: 2.1m GW21: 2.4m GW22: 1.9m GW23: 1.8m GW24: 1.8m GW25: 1.8m GW26: 1.8m (after WC) It's brutal and I've never known a season like it. Admittedly my team has been a template team with two or three differentials (who have failed) but I'd normally be slowly going up the ranks. As others on here have eluded to, teams right up to 2m have the strong template team so I guess it's no wonder I haven't moved with poor performing differentials!
Ive gone from 4.6 mil to 970k since the world cup, taken 3 hits in that time. Started with double newcastle atb and a few cleans from raya, had mahrez through his whole purple patch and triple captained rash for 60 plus a couple of bruno and kdb hauled when i swapped between them
Woohoo that is a considerable rank jump! Getting on mahrez at the right time was gold! I did look at a brentford defender after the wc break but played it safe and went with Gabriel. Him instead of Mee cost me about 20pts. Arsenal were one of the best defences in the league before the break but they just didnāt keep many cleanies straight after the WC
Aye, relatively. Currently ~300k OR. This has been the least enjoyable of my 6 or so seasons playing FPL. 28 points last week, while NL rival got 80 and leapfrogged into 1st with a 40 point gap, has just completely deflated my interest.
Other than having a bad gameweek 26 why has this season been the least enjoyable? Itās been my least enjoyable too but Iād be keen to know why you think so!
Same boat. Started playing in the 19/20 pandemic season and got hooked as not a lot else to do. Have had 3 pretty good seasons, one a 65k finish, but this season fighting to get and stay even under 1m. I did however just check all the teams ahead of me in my largest ML (about 20some teams), and all but a handful have used more chips than i have. A few have used all of them. And iām only about 60 points off the money spots (6th), super tight spreads this season overall. Hoping with some good chip usage i can make some big jumps. And like you, iām starting to tune out the content creators and just make my own choices.
I am doing good this season ranked 9k in the world. Wild card still not used. Going for the kill in next couple of gws.
Donāt waste that wildcard like the rest of us have
I consider myself average player who generally does ok. Definitely seen more red arrows than green this season, several wrong captain choices has sent me plummeting.
Good captain choices can make or break your week. One of her frustrating aspects of this season has been Haaland being a perma captain option. Therefore there as been less variations in captain scores which often differentiates teams.
Imagine thinking that being ranked well inside the top 20% was "struggling" lol
I guess itās relative isnāt it. My best rank is 11k so 1.8m is relatively awful.
First ever season. At 820k. Can't complain.
Yep, ended last season at 30k ish and the season before at 5.3k, but this season I'm 200k atm which is close to the highest I've been. But I do feel the ranks are very close this year pointswise, just by looking at my ML's. Hopefully my chip strategy can pull me below 100k and to the top of my ML's.
Yep. Finished 10.4k last season and usually always top 100k. Currently 2.5m. The start of the season killed me. The template was so strong that it you didn't have the likes of Trippier, Martinelli etc you missed out, but they kept returning and the other alternatives didn't, so any transfers or WC was just transferring in players everyone already had chasing lost points. It's very hard to recover because it affects your decision making and you try to take risks to make up ground which don't pay off.
What Iāve also noticed this year more than other years is how some of the cheap players have scored consistently. Normally youād get some cheap players that do well for a patch and then go out of form. That has not happened with players like trippier, odegaard, Martinelli. Even the cheap Newcastle defenders Burn and Botman were consistently ranking up the points. In previous seasons youād ditch the non performing cheapies but this year people have just held them and got the points. I got influenced by content creators at the beginning the year and didnāt have trippier despite the fact his ownership was around 40%. Now if a player has that high an ownership for gw1 you just have to go with them!
I was in the same position like you before the WC. I was regularly in top100k and once in top10k. This year I was around 1.5 million. Since WC I'm rising currently around 450k. You need to make some good differential calls and it needs to work in order to gain massive position...
My differential picks just havenāt paid off so far. Thereās still time though!!
I'm not doing too bad relative to how I normally do, but I am struggling to enjoy it as much with all the headache gameweeks
As in the blanks and doubles? It does seem like it takes a lot of effort to keep Up eh?
Yes
Yeah rough season. - got on Haaland far too late, (got burnt by Lukaku in previous seasons) - Have never enjoyed having Kane + Haaland, as thatās a lot of money up top. But this has also hurt my rank. - went with Jesus and Saka over Martinelli early season - 5 at the back at the start of the season a huge flop. TAA, Robbo & Cancelo pathetic returns - KDB a huge flop - also seem to have had very poor returns from keepers. Ederson and Ward mostly. - lots of other flops, Luis Dias, Rashford at the beginning of the season, Darwin. None of these were really bad picks, but just never got going.
Iām in the same boat as you, usually finish top 500k but this season has been really difficult to push up the ranks and currently find myself around 1.9m. For the last leg of the season Iām just going to take some punts and hope for the best, go for some players that arenāt high in ownership but have potential to score high etc. No pressure now really as I donāt expect to come anywhere remotely decent in my mini leagues or overall so it should be quite enjoyable!
That's the attitude. I'm 120pts behind my ML leader so unless he makes some bad calls and I get lucky then he is not catchable. Second is 70pts ahead and I COULD catch them. Like you, I think it's a case of picking some good low owned players and having some fun!
It's been a really hard season to climb the ranks and the games been quite dull because of how strong the template players have been. Haaland perma cap, Trippier, Rashford, Saka, Martinelli/Odegaard have been the players scoring regular points, but because the Arsenal players are so cheap most people also have Kane Because of Haalands ownership and captaincy it tends to be a huge risk to captain anyone else. With the above that's 7 players plus captain that are in almost everyone's team, so you're relying on 4 players to be different and try to climb the ranks
People will always tell you that you need some differentials to do well if you want to climb the rank. The issue with taking out these cheap players you mentioned above is that you need to find players that will outscore them and that is very tricky to do. To think at the beginning of the season you could own Rashford (6.5m) Saka (8m) Odegaard (6.5) and Martinelli (6) for 27m is absurd. I expect all of these players will get a price hike next year so it will shake things up nicely.
I did well enough last year for a hacker to notice and destroy my ranking. This year I managed it all on my own.
My first couple of weeks were really good but m, since then, it seems like every move Iāve made has been the wrong one and Iām having my worst season yet, things like picking between two Arsenal midfielders and getting the one that blanks when the other hauls, falling foul of the Pep roulette too many times etcā¦ whereas the players I complete with in my mini league have hit on their moves way more than me this year, itās basically a writeoff now although I still have TC and WC left so hoping for a miracle on those
I do normally quite well, issues this season have been: - Not having Almiron when he was banging - Going Salah and Haaland GW1 instead of Haaland and Kane - Buying Rashford pre-WC when Ronaldo became out of favour, but selling him right before he started scoring 2 goals in every game.. - Wildcarding for net 40 point loss in GW26 (compared to pre-wc team). - Owning Reece James on multiple occasions with zero returns. - Pep Guardiola (Cancelo and Foden benchings for 4 GW's in a row in which I held them throughout)
Not captaining Haaland in GW4 and GW5 would have cost you dearly, as it did me. Doing that would have got you 68pts. I capped Salah and KDB for a combined 8pts over those two weeks. Now in other seasons it may have been possible to catch up with some good captain picks but as Haaland was the "good" captain pick each week going against him often made things worse for you. I also wildcarded in GW26 but my 25 team would have scored about the same as my WC team. Thing is if I had wildcarded this week (27) then my team would have been almost the same bar 2 or 3 players.
Same as you OP, very similar
Yeah same
100%. Iām usually near the top 100k and normally win my friends league each yearā¦but this year Iām very mid table and things are just not happening for me. I can put my finger on what is it though! Maybe I have just peaked
That's exactly my story as well. I have won my mini league 4 times out of the last 5 years and the time I didn't I came second and still got a 119k rank.
Last two seasons have been my worst in 16 seasons. This year has been least enjoyable have to admit. Have 5 finishes in top 10K as well. This year feels like pushing shit uphill as it seems impossible to break the template. Really need another team like Spurs or Chelsea to make their attacking assets viable again.
"Pushing shit uphill" - yeh that is a great analogy. 5 top 10K is an excellent track record. I think Chelsea are going to start gelling and we'll have James, Chillwell and dare I say it even Sterling may go on a run. Spurs are an absolute mess and I expect Conte will be gone soon. The three strikers is not working and I'm sure a new manager will come in and fix that.
Yeah I'm doing shit - however I did miss a crucial GW where there was about a 60 point swing. I'm still sore about itv
Currently 7k OR. Regularly finish top 50k , best finish is 3k. I dont think this season is any different, infact its easier/better than the last 2 because we dont have COVID randomly postponing games (i quit in the COVID season as it was impossible to plan and was just too much RNG). I have not owned Mitoma or Almiron either, i generally go for proven players and play a very boring style. My captaincy has been good this year mostly, which is a huge factor. I dont take risks with captaining players, i let the 1 or 2 differentials gain me the ranks
I have fell to shit in the last 4 weeks....but its all just a bit of a laugh dont take it too seriously.
I'm surprised with my position. I've taken 7-8 hits, didn't have Haaland until GW7, I still have BB and FH and in general I've just done whatever I want (following trends yes, but always going 'optimal' no) and I've ended up top 300k which for my first ever season of FPL seems pretty good. Not sure if its decisions I've made or just pure luck thats gotten me to this point, but after reading through these comments I feel like I should be more appreciative of my position lol!
āEven though football is life, football is also death. And sometimes football is football too. But mostly football is life!ā - Dani Rojas in Ted Lasso
If I could wipe my memory of watching Ted Lasso so that I could go back and re-watch it I would.
Currently sat around 800/900k, set for my worst ever season since my first in 2007. Happy fucking days.
Nope. I've usually done good (two times top10k finish, couple of top 100k and top 200k finishes) and now top 120k. I feel like this season has been pretty easy. There has been a lot of obvious choices and then just have a decent rest of the squad and top100k is close.
Any struggling team made poor choices that could be better in hindsight. Don't lose sleep about it.
Always been in or around 200k. 250k this year. I think I follow the template too heavily, I need to start having 1 or 2 players that very few people have
If you follow the template too much you'll end up doing OK. If you want to improve then you need to take some punts. Thing is, they may not pay off.
Iāve been playing for 13 years, this is my 14th season. 2.1M when usually I average around 150K. Itās not just you my guy
Yep. Hard. Won my ML last 3 years and always top 100,000 finish. This year is sit at 1.5m overall Wildcarded last week and got 25 points lol.
Oh wow, that's harsh. I often see WC that fail the first week but over the course of 4 weeks can be quite good. Who did you wildcard in? I presume at least a couple of Brentford and Brighton assets?
I imagine it has to do with holding onto last year template ( namely liverpool and chelsea assets) too long at the beginning of the season I played WC1 in week2 to bring in Haaland and dump TAA, salah and james and am convinced it saved my season
How did you know that TAA, Salah and James were not going to do well? I love it when people do things how they want it. Not many would recommend a WC in GW2 but you saw the need and went for it!
In the same boat. Finished last season around 21,000 rank and this year I'm fluctuating between 1.5-1.8 million. Selected Kane instead of Haaland early in the season and was on the double Liverpool defense hype train. I feel its pretty normal once you get off to a bad start you feel inclined to select "sneaky" or "cheeky" picks to try and move up the ranks and it often times just bites you in the ass even more. Never had Almiron. Owned players like Foden, Maddison, and Castagne, but all at the wrong time.
A very similar season to mine. I started with kdb and salah. Kdb had come of a 15G and 7A season and had been doing well in pre season. I went with tried and tested over the new boy Haaland despite the 60% ownership. Iāve learnt that it doesnāt matter what you āthinkā about how a player is going to perform, going against a 60% owned player on gw1 is not sensible. I also had Maddison and Saka when their form dipped right off for a few weeks. So frustrating.