Citymancs fantasy league

[Gareth]

Here's this season's top 3, all north of 2000 points. Another good season for Brendan, but a crippling run of injuries around Easter spoiled his chances for the run-in.

[goat]

so he choked liked in nfl

[zacc]

well done Gareth

[Stephen Paul]

well done Gareth
credit mate 👍

[lee]

brendan and gav must have cheated to finish above me

[goat]

gareth is why i dont bother doing it

[Gareth]

Gavin should set up a Citymancs head-to-head league as well as the usual "classic" league. H2H is way less predictable.

[Lekos]

Gav made 5 transfers all season and still finished 4th! Not a bad showing that but a drop in the ocean compared to Gareth's 41!

Congrats (again) Gareth 

[goat]

ever considered fan duel gareth?

[Gareth]

Their head office is just down the road from me!

But i just play fantasy football for fun, not interested in money games.* And if you look at any of the mainstream fantasy premier league forums, the Fan Duel game appears to be a complete shambles, so I'm not tempted.




* so one way to get rid of me from the Citymancs league is for Gavin to turn it into a cash league!

[gavin]

Well done Gareth. Is there a year you didn't win yet? I'm concentrating on it next year! It's all too easy beating Lee though.

[Gareth]

My record's pretty good, but it's not like there's no competition. You, Lee, Brendan, Stephen and Bisto have all had great runs and come pretty close now and again. I always just set out aiming for Top 5 and then if I get there, I take a look at the opposition up there with me and try to work out a plan for the rest of the season.

[gavin]

Don't forget Goat won the world cup one  . In fact I'm surprised he's not mentioned it yet!

[zacc]

Ah  just need to copy your team each week then?

[Gareth]

Don't forget Goat won the world cup one  . In fact I'm surprised he's not mentioned it yet!

Ah but I never do the World Cup and the Euros, I'm strictly a Prem specialist!

Ah  just need to copy your team each week then?

I'm pretty sure that's been tried! The trick would be to be one week ahead...

[zacc]

Plus Gareth I'd have to start taking it more seriously 

[Gareth]

And then so would I, to keep up...

[goat]

Don't forget Goat won the world cup one  . In fact I'm surprised he's not mentioned it yet!

oh aye, i won the world cup one

cheers gav, bet you still celebrate that glorious day

won nfl thing an all

[gavin]

Makes me laugh that you've never done one since 

[goat]

i did, all started well then went to shit after about 5th game

[bluebrendan]

Congrats Gareth and Andy on the top two positions.

Gav and Lee need to get their act together for the admin battle, it's too easy. 

so he choked liked in nfl

Says the man who bottles out of entering. 

[goat]

fine, ill do it next season

[zacc]

fine, ill do it next season

[Gareth]

Some thoughts on City players in Fantasy League. The default position for many City fans is to pick an initial squad with Sergio as Captain and regard this as a 'set and forget' position. The upside of this is that we know he's going to score a shitload of goals over the course of the season. The downside is that he costs a lot of your fantasy budget (meaning compromises in the rest of the squad) and he gets cards and injuries, resulting in missed games.

Also - and this applies to all City players, not just Sergio - as far as Fantasy League goes, Pep is not your friend. Fantasy League requires great performances plus consistency of selection, and I think Pep changed his starting XI more than any other PL manager over the course of the season. It wasn't until very near the end of the season that he selected an unchanged starting XI. If you are going to pick City players, you are basically saying you can second guess Pep's selections. Good luck with that.

Defensively, John Stones should have been fantasy gold, since City bought him after he had been priced up in the game as an Everton reserve. Unfortunately this was an accurate assessment - he had feet like fresh bread. But the main problem with City defenders in Fantasy League was poor goalkeeping, which meant that clean sheets were a rarity. Basically, with Bravo in goal, no City defender was a sensible fantasy pick.

By the end of the season, I wound up with Caballero, Sane and G Jesus in my team. After Bravo got injured, Caballero was a certain starter and the remaining fixtures looked ok. By then, Sane and G Jesus were fit, in form and reasonably priced - although both are likely to be much more expensive next season. Apart from that, Sergio was in and out of my team all season, Sterling made a few appearances and Stones was in my season-starting squad until I could shift him. No-one else.

Over the years, it's not been easy to pick out City players who have been surefire fantasy gold. There was Yaya in his wonder season, of course, but my pick as the number one City player for Fantasy League in terms of return for investment would be Carlos Tevez.

[shandon]

I had Sane in my team for the last few months as well - and Jesus from when he came back from the injury - because unlike Sergio you knew Pep would pick him 

[lee]

Congrats Gareth and Andy on the top two positions.

Gav and Lee need to get their act together for the admin battle, it's too easy. 


Says the man who bottles out of entering. 

There must have been some cheating going on..The first time you have both finished above me 

[gavin]

KDB was our top scorer and 7th overall. I reckon he'll do even better next season when he finds his shooting boots.

[goat]

Some thoughts on City players in Fantasy League. The default position for many City fans is to pick an initial squad with Sergio as Captain and regard this as a 'set and forget' position. The upside of this is that we know he's going to score a shitload of goals over the course of the season. The downside is that he costs a lot of your fantasy budget (meaning compromises in the rest of the squad) and he gets cards and injuries, resulting in missed games.

Also - and this applies to all City players, not just Sergio - as far as Fantasy League goes, Pep is not your friend. Fantasy League requires great performances plus consistency of selection, and I think Pep changed his starting XI more than any other PL manager over the course of the season. It wasn't until very near the end of the season that he selected an unchanged starting XI. If you are going to pick City players, you are basically saying you can second guess Pep's selections. Good luck with that.

Defensively, John Stones should have been fantasy gold, since City bought him after he had been priced up in the game as an Everton reserve. Unfortunately this was an accurate assessment - he had feet like fresh bread. But the main problem with City defenders in Fantasy League was poor goalkeeping, which meant that clean sheets were a rarity. Basically, with Bravo in goal, no City defender was a sensible fantasy pick.

By the end of the season, I wound up with Caballero, Sane and G Jesus in my team. After Bravo got injured, Caballero was a certain starter and the remaining fixtures looked ok. By then, Sane and G Jesus were fit, in form and reasonably priced - although both are likely to be much more expensive next season. Apart from that, Sergio was in and out of my team all season, Sterling made a few appearances and Stones was in my season-starting squad until I could shift him. No-one else.

Over the years, it's not been easy to pick out City players who have been surefire fantasy gold. There was Yaya in his wonder season, of course, but my pick as the number one City player for Fantasy League in terms of return for investment would be Carlos Tevez.

whats your opinion on the old tactic of picking defenders that dont play, saves losing you a shedload of  points over the year

[Gareth]

So,my opinion, or at least 'what I do', is that I don't deliberately pick non-playing defenders.

At the start of the season, the cheapest defenders are usually priced at 4.0, and the next price-point is at 4.5. The FPL research guys are pretty good, and there's a good chance that none of the 4.0 defenders, and hardly any of the 4.5s, will be getting 90 minutes each week. If they're just going to warm your bench then picking a couple of 4.0s saves money to spend elsewhere, as you say. But I prefer to have a squad of 15 who all (under normal circumstances) play. You never know when you might need them.*

That said, you don't want to spend any more than necessary on your bench. For bench defenders, I usually look at newly-promoted teams who might play defensively (e.g., last season, Boro under Karanka). The newly promoted teams' players are usually priced lower, although next season the Mags might be an exception to that. Also, managers of newly-promoted teams can sometimes be conservative in terms of selection, so less prone to rotate their XI. So when the new season starts, I'll be doing my best to find two 4.5 defenders who will (usually) be on my bench, but who will be regular starters for their club. First stop Huddersfield or Reading.

Once the season gets going, sometimes an unexpected cheap option appears. Jordi Amat at Swansea was priced at 4.0 but was a regular starter - at least until Swansea started swapping managers, when he dropped off the radar. That reveals another problem with ultra-cheap picks - once they are in your squad, they are very difficult to replace, because all the likely alternatives are more expensive, so you may have to downgrade another squad position if you want to make the change. So Amat hung around in my squad for ages, not playing any more, because I couldn't afford to replace him. Best chance for that comes when you have a major re-think with a wild-card.




*This season's overall FPL winner was decided on the basis of an auto-substitution for a non-player made after the final week's games were over!

[zacc]

KDB was my main City player throughout other wise tend to steer clear of City players quite early on as ones I pick get injured!! 
So ensuring the real team stay fit by avoiding as much as possible. As per with me team did better towards the end than the start.   

[Gareth]

The problem with KDB as a fantasy pick last season is simply that he was overpriced. 7th highest scorer overall, ok, but he was the 2nd highest priced midfield player and only the 5th highest midfield points scorer. The fantasy budget doesn't allow ownership of many players from the top of the price range, so the ones you pick have to be the top performers. KDB cost 10.5 but performed like an 8.0 midfield player. He may start next season at 10.0, but even so, he'll have to up his fantasy game to justify that price-tag.

[gavin]

He just needs to finish like he did in his first season. He looked to be getting back to it towards the end of the season.

[zacc]

The problem with KDB as a fantasy pick last season is simply that he was overpriced. 7th highest scorer overall, ok, but he was the 2nd highest priced midfield player and only the 5th highest midfield points scorer. The fantasy budget doesn't allow ownership of many players from the top of the price range, so the ones you pick have to be the top performers. KDB cost 10.5 but performed like an 8.0 midfield player. He may start next season at 10.0, but even so, he'll have to up his fantasy game to justify that price-tag.

and there;s why you win your analytic research while i just use gut instinct