Fantasy Football Picks - GKs and DFs

For this blog my focus is on the Premier League Fantasy Football although some of the principles and players will apply to other leagues.

Fantasy Picks

When you think about picking your fantasy team, the main misconception is to buy as many players from all the top teams as possible.

Goalkeepers

Tom Heaton may have been relegated with Burnley
but he got a lot of Fantasy points

Taking goalkeepers as a case in point. Keepers get a point for every 3 saves they make and -1 for every 2 goals conceded, so often Keepers from mid-table sides that face a lot of shots, outperform keepers from the top 4/5 teams.

Indeed of the top 5 keepers, only Joe Hart was from a top 5 team,  Fabianski (Swansea), Heaton (Burnley) and Mignolet (Liverpool) were the top 3 points scorers.

However, it is not always clear from last years points, as to who the best keeper to pick is.

Take Chelsea for instance, they changed keepers during the season, the combined points from their keepers was 159 a better combined total than any other team of keepers.

Lastly, as Heaton showed at Burnley, don't discount the newcomers. Of this years keepers Boruc at Bournemouth, Ruddy at Norwich and Gomes at Watford, represent the best value. At £4.5m each even if they only warm the bench of your team, they are all going to score points. They all have Premiership experience, and all conceded a similar amount of goals in the Championship, although I think Norwich are the most defensively resolute of the 3 teams.

Defenders

Chris Smalling scored 4 goals for United last year,
but played a lot less than the other top goalscoring defenders

Defenders are key in any team, the dream is a goalscoring and assisting defender, who also keeps clean sheets. Unfortunately, these players are rare and very expensive.

John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic of Chelsea fit this bill last season, keeping 17 clean sheets, as well as scoring 5 and 4 goals respectively. However, this season you'll pay the price for picking them, £7m each.

Managers who favour a defence style help, so Tony Pulis at West Brom, usually sets up with a staunch defence, and tries to score on the counter-attack. James Chester has come in from Hull, and along with Joleon Lescott and Craig Dawson, is valued at £5m, one of those would be worth having.

Lastly, for defenders don't always pick the best defender in a teams defence. Bonus points more often than not go to strikers and midfielders, whilst clean sheet points are the same for all the defenders as long as they play 60+ minutes. The only difficulty with this is making sure they play, Cesar Azpilicueta at Chelsea is a million cheaper than Terry and Ivanovic, but will like play the same amount of games and likes to push on, so will hopefully get some assists.

Tomorrow
Tomorrow I'll preview the Midfielders and Strikers.