Syracusefan.com group for the official Fantasy Premier League game

[JDubbin]

Haha so I’ve had a poorer start than I wanted, that’s for sure

I took a risk & dropped Mitoma (for Enciso) last minute on my original team to start my FPL season, bro ended up playing like 3 minutes first game… I drop Enciso for Tonali (who’s already on a yellow against Man City today as I type this) this week & he has 2 assists today, Mitoma shows up super strong too with 2 assists & a goal in 2 games & I have neither. I dropped Mbeumo from the original team too because he had a “knock” & went with Eze, Mbeumo has 3 goals in 2 games as well, Eze has blanked in 1 so far.

One of my primary defenders is John Stones. He starts the season with a muscle injury & is our unexpectedly. Cool. My backup defenders are Baldock for Sheffield & Bell for Luton. Baldock is a consistent & dependable starter, Sheffield plays on Friday & he’s not even in the squad with a knock… Luton Town vs. Burnley is POSTPONED due to some grounds construction & Stones is still out, Automatic 0 for one of my defensive slots. I didn’t want to take a -4 on my 2nd week in transfers & that decision was not wise. Sheesh!

 

[ROCcuse]

Haha so I’ve had a poorer start than I wanted, that’s for sure

I took a risk & dropped Mitoma (for Enciso) last minute on my original team to start my FPL season, bro ended up playing like 3 minutes first game… I drop Enciso for Tonali (who’s already on a yellow against Man City today as I type this) this week & he has 2 assists today, Mitoma shows up super strong too with 2 assists & a goal in 2 games & I have neither. I dropped Mbeumo from the original team too because he had a “knock” & went with Eze, Mbeumo has 3 goals in 2 games as well, Eze has blanked in 1 so far.

One of my primary defenders is John Stones. He starts the season with a muscle injury & is our unexpectedly. Cool. My backup defenders are Baldock for Sheffield & Bell for Luton. Baldock is a consistent & dependable starter, Sheffield plays on Friday & he’s not even in the squad with a knock… Luton Town vs. Burnley is POSTPONED due to some grounds construction & Stones is still out, Automatic 0 for one of my defensive slots. I didn’t want to take a -4 on my 2nd week in transfers & that decision was not wise. Sheesh!

We are both missing out on Brighton's best asset I guess . . . Solly March!

Lol always go with your gut.

I have some similar feelings so far to start the season.

Last second I changed my other forward from Isak to Watkins.
Isak had 2 goals against AV in the first week.
Hopefully that still pays off though.
I captained Watkins this week b/c I knew Haaland had a tough match with Newcastle and Everton is absolute trash.

Went without Salah; instead chose Trent at 8.0 in defense. At that price you need clean sheets and attacking returns.
Dude shouldn't even be on the field.
He does a ton of ball watching and is a stuff defender.
Idk why Klopp doesn't drop him.

I really like Eze, but last second I changed him out to Kulusevski.
I only saw highlights today and Kulu did some good things.

I have no idea why Gabriel didn't start last week for Arsenal, but that's another problem I have to take care of if he doesnt start this week.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Haha so I’ve had a poorer start than I wanted, that’s for sure

I took a risk & dropped Mitoma (for Enciso) last minute on my original team to start my FPL season, bro ended up playing like 3 minutes first game… I drop Enciso for Tonali (who’s already on a yellow against Man City today as I type this) this week & he has 2 assists today, Mitoma shows up super strong too with 2 assists & a goal in 2 games & I have neither. I dropped Mbeumo from the original team too because he had a “knock” & went with Eze, Mbeumo has 3 goals in 2 games as well, Eze has blanked in 1 so far.

One of my primary defenders is John Stones. He starts the season with a muscle injury & is our unexpectedly. Cool. My backup defenders are Baldock for Sheffield & Bell for Luton. Baldock is a consistent & dependable starter, Sheffield plays on Friday & he’s not even in the squad with a knock… Luton Town vs. Burnley is POSTPONED due to some grounds construction & Stones is still out, Automatic 0 for one of my defensive slots. I didn’t want to take a -4 on my 2nd week in transfers & that decision was not wise. Sheesh!

One piece of advice I can share - Don't chase points that you've already missed out on.

 

[IthacaMatt]

So, shockingly - and thanks to the EPL's somewhat obscure "automatic substitutions rule" - I have leap-frogged The Bhoys, last year's 100 point winners on the season, to claim first place in our Fantasy Premier League.

It's only Week 5 out of 38, so it's never really too late to join, just to get the hang of it for next season. It's a lot more fun to play than that rudimentary Fantasy Game that they used to have ESPN.com. That one was like playing checkers. This official one is so much better.

 

[ROCcuse]

So, shockingly - and thanks to the EPL's somewhat obscure "automatic substitutions rule" - I have leap-frogged The Bhoys, last year's 100 point winners on the season, to claim first place in our Fantasy Premier League.

It's only Week 5 out of 38, so it's never really too late to join, just to get the hang of it for next season. It's a lot more fun to play than that rudimentary Fantasy Game that they used to have ESPN.com. That one was like playing checkers. This official one is so much better.

Thanks for hypin it up/trying to get more folks to join

Last year though, JDubbin ran away with it. Can't remember by how many points; feel like it was at least 150+

Everyone's got some strong teams.
I have some big decisions to make this week, one of them being what to do with injured Trent, taking up 8.0M of my budget.

Have your teams set by Saturday morning!

 

[JDubbin]

Thanks for hypin it up/trying to get more folks to join

Last year though, JDubbin ran away with it. Can't remember by how many points; feel like it was at least 150+

Everyone's got some strong teams.
I have some big decisions to make this week, one of them being what to do with injured Trent, taking up 8.0M of my budget.

Have your teams set by Saturday morning!

Thanks for acknowledging my league win last year, much appreciated!

Because honestly, I need it, haha. The last few years I’ve finished as high in the FPL world rankings as in the top 20,000 out of 10,000,000 participants or so… last year I think I cracked top 150,000 in the world in my final rankings (I’ll have to double check)… but this year?! Absolute struggle bus. Week after week just mid-level to low end mid scores, just average across the board. I’m not even significantly unhappy with my overall team, but I’m just not finding the right player combos for some reason. Same thing again this week, just average to under average bleh. It’s been brutal.

However, I will happily take a crappy FPL season for Liverpool to keep playing the way they’ve been playing this season in the EPL!

 

[Guy Fawkes]

It’s early but dropping the wild card this week. Last year I held on to it for way too long.

 

[samspann1]

Admittedly, I’m not a huge follower of soccer, but I’m heading out to my first game - Crystal Palace/Nottingham Forest - shortly

 

[ROCcuse]

Admittedly, I’m not a huge follower of soccer, but I’m heading out to my first game - Crystal Palace/Nottingham Forest - shortly

Awesome man, how was it?! Game, atmosphere/experience, everything?

I was thinking of going to London for a Spurs game around Thanksgiving, but it seems tickets aren't as easy to come by as going on a "Stubhub" type site over there.

 

[samspann1]

Awesome man, how was it?! Game, atmosphere/experience, everything?

I was thinking of going to London for a Spurs game around Thanksgiving, but it seems tickets aren't as easy to come by as going on a "Stubhub" type site over there.

It was a blast - the game ended in a 0-0 draw (that's "nil - nil" to you neophytes), and the atmosphere and experience were awesome. Everyone was so into the game - nobody was on their phones, etc. Just completely different from the American sports experience.Palace was apparently ravaged by injury coming into the game, so their fans were generally pleased with the draw.

The game was in Croydon, which was about an hour away from Westminster, and the stadium was in a working class part of town, in a mostly residential area with small mom-and-pop type businesses...and then, boom - out of nowhere, a 35,000ish seat stadium.

My friend got our tickets through a friend who has season tickets, but there were a lot of Bills fans at the game, so the tickets had to have been available somehow on the secondary market. I highly recommend - just a super memorable experience.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Not looking to brag, but after a couple very good weeks, I am in the top 1% worldwide, at a 0.00757 rating, that's like the top three quarters of the top 1%. Number 77,000 out of 10.16 million people.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Numbers are really going to tighten up when this league's table is made final. Looking like a 3 team race for now, but it's still early in the season.

 

[JDubbin]

Not looking to brag, but after a couple very good weeks, I am in the top 1% worldwide, at a 0.00757 rating, that's like the top three quarters of the top 1%. Number 77,000 out of 10.16 million people.

It’s really satisfying when you’re that high in the worldwide rankings… great job so far!

 

[IthacaMatt]

It’s really satisfying when you’re that high in the worldwide rankings… great job so far!

We still have a long way to go, and all of you guys gained about 20 points on me this week, for me not captaining Haaland, and taking the gamble on Ollie Watkins as my captain vs. Luton Town, one of the leakiest defenses in the EPL. Aston Villa did score 3, but he was not among the goal getters. Taking a chance on a hot scorer as your captain (but not too often) seems a key to me.

 

[IthacaMatt]

ChuToys with a massive 96 points this week heading into the break. Have we ever had a higher scoring week? Great job!

 

[IthacaMatt]

AFC Richmond with a massive week, making up nearly 20 points on everyone else!

 

[IthacaMatt]

Player injury status for Week 15 at the link:

Premier League team and injury news ahead of matchweek 15

Premier League teams do not have long to recover between matchweeks 14 and 15 of this Premier League season, with only a few days of rest afforded between rounds as we enter the busiest period of the campaign. The next set of matches begins on Tuesday, just 48 hours after the final whistle in...

theathletic.com

 

[ROCcuse]

Thanks for that info Matt.
I missed the deadline . . .
Stuck with Archer in against Liverpool instead of playing a solid 5 man midfield

 

[JDubbin]

Well crap, first gameweek of the season I’ve missed setting my lineup… I swore I checked to make sure there wasn’t a Friday game, but I got it wrong. This one may cost me, I have a number of potentially injured players on my team/bench, I may not be able to field a full team without some 0’s on the board this week.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Well crap, first gameweek of the season I’ve missed setting my lineup… I swore I checked to make sure there wasn’t a Friday game, but I got it wrong. This one may cost me, I have a number of potentially injured players on my team/bench, I may not be able to field a full team without some 0’s on the board this week.

That must have happened to me five times last season, and then I got caught short other times when there were some teams playing double games that match week, while others were inactive, due to European commitments.

I had a lot of good weeks last season, and even 1 or 2 of the 9 months that I had the high score. So, yeah, not missing your deadlines is key.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I want to share a recent change in philosophy on my part. I'm starting to think more about value for money, as opposed to just focusing on the top scorers at their positions. I think this will improve depth, and if a guy gets hurt, you have some adequate subs on the bench, instead of investing heavily in a few big names - who admittedly provide big returns - and having mediocre players at a few positions to save the budget to afford your target "star players".

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I changed after dropped down to fourth in the standings. I don’t mind eating points for new players which I previously avoided. I actually enjoy Haaland and Salah being out as it makes our rosters much more diverse week to week.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I changed after dropped down to fourth in the standings. I don’t mind eating points for new players which I previously avoided. I actually enjoy Haaland and Salah being out as it makes our rosters much more diverse week to week.

I did that and bought 4 new players coming into last "game week" (midweek). Even after giving up 16 points in penalties, I had a very good week. And then I used the $$ still in the bank from dumping Harland and Sala and Son while they've been out to buy DeBruyne, and I still have a lot of money in the bank for when they soon come back.

 

[JDubbin]

Man, I absolutely had an opportunity to move up the Syracusefan league rankings this week… still overall good week, but I’m sick over the fact that I dropped Foden (hat trick today!) for Jota (2 point haul), had Watkins as my Vice-Captain to DeBruyne’s Captain, & had Cunha on my bench… would have been an absolute haul if I had played those correctly!

 

[JDubbin]

Haha it’s so wild, I moved up into 3rd, but I benched Palmer this week & needed a poor game from him with a few others having him in… he blanks until the 90th & then gets back to back assists in like 2 minutes, what looked like the best scenario possible turns into a bad one that quickly, it drives me crazy but it’s also what make FPL fun