How to Play Fantasy Premier League

Fantasy Premier League (FPL) is a daunting fantasy sport for beginners. In this article I will describe the basics of drafting a team, how scoring works, how transfers work, and how to use all that information to find a winning strategy.

The Basics

You are given $100 to spend on 15 players. There are 4 categories (or positions) of players. You have to create a squad consisting of 2 goalies, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders, and 3 forwards. Each player is assigned a price within a certain range depending on their ability and history.

Goalies and defenders have a minimum value of $4, while midfielders and forwards have a minimum value of $4.5. The sum total of the minimum prices for each position is $64, which leaves $36 is expendable funds. How you allocate the $36 is both the fun and frustrating part. It is important to understand the scoring system in order to decide how to allocate your funds, but my first tip is to use the vast majority of your funds on your starting 11, and only keep one sub, if any, with any value over the minimum. Bench players don’t accumulate points, so you should only keep one sub with any value over the minimum as an emergency option if a starting player gets hurt (or Covid).

The Scoring

Scoring in FPL is somewhat convoluted, but also fairly intuitive. For example, a clean sheet is awarded to a player if their team did not concede any goals in a game. Defenders and goalies deserve the most credit for a clean sheet, and as a result are awarded 4 points for a clean sheet compared to only 1 point for midfielders, and 0 points for forwards (who generally have very little influence on a team’s defensive ability).

FPL scoring for goals works a little differently, however, as it rewards goals scored by players who are less likely to score based on their position. A goalie or defender receives 6 points for a goal, 5 points for a midfielder, and 4 for a forward.

Understanding the scoring system is the most important aspect for a beginner FPL player because it allows you to understand the pricing of players. A defender for a defensively solid team who also contributes offensively carries a lot of value. Trent Alexander-Arnold (TAA), who plays right back for Liverpool, is the golden boy for this mould. Despite playing right back, TAA plays like a winger when Liverpool are in possession of the ball, and is one of the best crossers in the world, in addition to being one of the main free kick takers (i.e. TAA a threat for both assists and goals in a team that will get a lot of clean sheets.) As a result, TAA is the most expensive defender in FPL. The key to FPL is finding the next TAA in a lower price bracket; although I would not advocate against keeping TAA.

TAA, along with other right and left backs who tend to play on the wing is considered a “meta” player because his playing style works favorably with how the scoring system in FPL works. Another “meta” category is a winger (RW or LW) who is classified as a midfielder but actually plays striker for their team. In past seasons, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial of Manchester United were (at different times) “meta” because they each benefitted from playing in a position most likely to score goals, while also benefitting by being classified as a midfielder and receiving an extra point for each goal they score as well as a point for clean sheets.

Find defenders who either actually play midfield or on the wing, or strikers who are classified as midfielders. These combinations maximize the scoring potential of a player and tend to be underpriced as a result.

Bonus points end up making a big difference over the long run, but the formulation for them is complex and not worth understanding for beginners. I have a tenuous understanding, but the basics are that the top 3 players in a game (not just the winning team) are awarded between 1-3 bonus points based on their performance. If two players score a goal but one of them had more tackles and a higher pass completion then they might get the bonus point instead.

Setting Your Lineup

Setting your lineup is the easiest aspect of FPL. You have 15 players to choose from for 11 spots and, if you followed my advice, you only have one bench player to consider. Without any injuries or barring a really difficult fixture for one of your cheaper starting assets, you are likely to set and forget your lineup without much thought at all.

There really is only one consideration about setting your lineup which is to decide who your captain/vice captain is. Every week you can give those two designations to the two players you believe will score the most points in the game week, with the captain receiving double points. The vice captain only goes into effect if your captain doesn’t play for one reason or another.

Depending on how your team set up you may have only 1 or 2 options for captaincy, as your highest priced players are the only ones who are worth giving the honor. Considerations for who to choose should be based on form and fixture difficulty. If you have both Salah and Kane, with the former playing Fulham and the latter playing Arsenal, you should always choose Kane because he loves to score against them (jokes… kinda).

Transfers

Making smart transfers is a very difficult but rewarding task, and it is just as important as your initial draft. Once the deadline has passed for creating your team you can no longer freely change players without either making a transfer or using a one of your 3 “chips.” After every game week has passed you are given 1 free transfer to use as you wish. If you don’t use the transfer before the next week you will have 2 free transfers to use. Keep in mind, however, that transfers don’t continue to stack after you’ve reached 2, so if you don’t make a transfer after a third week you will still have just 2.

If the number of transfers you wish to make in a given game week exceeds your free transfers you can still make them but it will cost you 4 points. This strategy is sometimes necessary if one of your best players gets injured and you trust that your replacement for him will score over 4 points that week. It is best, however, to avoid making too many non-free transfers because it will add up fast.

Price Fluctuations

Fantasy Premier League is by no means a static game. As the weeks go by you will notice that player values incrementally change based on performance. This is because the game works like a stock market. While this process tends to only change a player’s price by 1/10 of a dollar at a time, this adds up over the course of a season and can make a huge difference towards the end of the year. Take Aubameyang for example. He started the year tied with Salah and Mane as the highest priced players in the game at $12. Aubameyang has only scored 2 goals in 11 game weeks (3 if you count his decisive own goal against Burnley). It is poor management to give up on a player who has a few poor weeks, but even worse not to jump off a sinking ship. Aubameyang has dropped from $12 to $11.5 since the start of the year. If you started off the year with Kane instead of Aubameyang, you would have profited 4/10 of a dollar, which could be used to upgrade another position.

Chips

Chips are single use modifiers which add another layer of strategy and novelty to FPL. There are 2 chips which you can use only once, and 1 chip which you can use twice and it resets after the new year.

The first chip is “triple captain” and, you guessed it, it triples the amount of points your captain scores for the week you apply it. This chip should be reserved for a time in which a high priced player has a double game week. Double game week’s happen when there is a conflict between Premier League games and cup competitions such as the FA Cup. Typically, the best teams progress further in the cup competitions which increases the likelihood of a Salah or a Kane with a double game week. As a result, you could potentially get 3 times the points of your captain for essentially 2 weeks. So while you can only use this chip once, if you play your cards right, you can reap twice the rewards.

The other single use chip is “free hit,” which allows the manager to make unlimited transfers at no cost for one game week. Remember that price fluctuations of your squad will dictate the amount you have to work with. After the game week has ended your squad will return to it’s previous state. This can either be used as a failsafe for when multiple players in your squad will be inactive or with bad matchups and you feel confident on a good return; or to take advantage of a double game week for top players such as Kane, Salah, De Bruyne.

Similar to the “free hit” but much more useful is the “wildcard chip,” which enables you to make unlimited free transfers with no penalty that becomes permanent after the start of the game week. Since the “wild card” chip resets after the new year, it is best to take advantage of it early on in the season to adjust for any flaws in your squad. I tend to use this chip within the first 6-8 week, which gives me enough time to learn about the players in my squad as well as the rest of the league before making any major changes, while also ensuring that my use of the “wild card” will still have plenty of time to be impactful.

Final Thoughts - A Series of FPL Clichés

Fantasy Premier League is a marathon, not a sprint. Most FPL managers have a short-term perspective and as a result the market is riddled with hyper-reactivity, which will impact your squad value for better or worse.

Don’t chase points. If you watched or kept up with the Premier League last year you may remember Norwich striker Teemu Pukki who scored 6 goals in the opening 5 games. He scored 5 goals in the remaining 33 games and frustrated FPL owners along the way.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Don’t waste transfers on players just because they have a few bad weeks. It is best to use transfers to switch around the higher value players who you would captain based on their form and their strength of schedule. Transferring out your low value players for other low value players does not create much value.

If it is broke, fix it. You should never keep a medium to high value player on your bench for more than 2 weeks as a result of injury or suspension. If you don’t have any transfers then take a 4 point penalty. You should be able to rely on their replacement to make up those points with hopefully some to spare.

You reap what you sow. When selecting your squad, you should try to find the right balance between safe picks and high risk high reward talents. Building squad value early in the year will enable you to eventually afford a third or fourth high value asset before the competition, which can only bode well for your chances to win.

Don’t throw the towel in too early. Thirty-eight weeks is a long time. If you think you are out of contention in whatever league you’re in, work on your strategy for the next year and set a target to finish in a better position.