<p>Patient play, turning defence into attack and a <strong>Kevin de Bruyne </strong>haul helped Fantasy Football Hub member Peter Marshall to be crowned Telegraph Fantasy Football winner 2021/22 and scoop the game&#8217;s £5,000 top prize.</p>
<p>Here, Peter shares the story of the key moments of his season and a &#8216;nerve-shredding&#8217; final day, which saw him beat fellow Hub member James Bailey by 10 points.</p>
<p>Oxford-based Peter, who last month retired from his job as managing director of the English Language Teaching division at Oxford University Press,  said: &#8220;It&#8217;s amazing to have won TFF overall and I still can&#8217;t quite believe it.&#8221;</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/telegraph-fantasy-football-tips-the-ultimate-guide">Telegraph Fantasy Football tips 2022/23: the ultimate guide</a></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/how-to-play-telegraph-fantasy-football">How to play Telegraph Fantasy Football: a beginner&#8217;s guide</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/how-to-win-at-telegraph-fantasy-football">How to win at Telegraph Fantasy Football: the complete guide</a></strong></li>
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<div id="attachment_46711" style="width: 1526px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-46711" class="wp-image-46711 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard.jpg" alt="" width="1516" height="1404" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard.jpg 1516w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard-300x278.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard-1024x948.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard-768x711.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard-610x565.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Telegraph-Hub-members-leaderboard-1080x1000.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1516px) 100vw, 1516px" /><p id="caption-attachment-46711" class="wp-caption-text">The TFF Hub members&#8217; league leaderboard, showing the overall rank of the top-performing Hub members</p></div>
<h2>Peter&#8217;s fantasy football history</h2>
<p>While Peter&#8217;s family do not share his love of fantasy football, his friends are a different matter.</p>
<p>He said: &#8220;I’ve been playing TFF for about seven years. I joined a mini-league with a group of close friends, most of whom know a lot more about football than me.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think I got the wooden spoon for the first two seasons but then something clicked and I did a lot more planning ahead of my third season.</p>
<p>&#8220;I basically got hooked on the game and started to listen to podcasts and pay more attention to <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="FPL Stats by OPTA - Player and Team Stats">stats</a>.&#8221;</p>
<p>From a slow start, Peter (pictured below) has now won his friends&#8217; mini-league for the past four years and last year finished just inside the top 200 in TFF overall.</p>
<p>He is also a fan of Sky Sports Fantasy Football and has been playing the game for the last two seasons, securing top 1,000 finishes.</p>
<div id="attachment_46713" style="width: 250px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-46713" class="wp-image-46713 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Peter-Marshall-rotated.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="320" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Peter-Marshall-rotated.jpg 240w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Peter-Marshall-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" /><p id="caption-attachment-46713" class="wp-caption-text">Peter Marshall</p></div>
<h2>Key moments which helped Peter win Telegraph Fantasy Football</h2>
<p>TFF managers are allocated 40 transfers for the season.</p>
<p>Using them wisely &#8211; and at the right time &#8211; are therefore key to success.</p>
<p>&#8220;TFF suits patient managers and so I set up a solid team that, barring injuries, could tick along to the new year with minimal transfer usage and hopefully stay in contention,&#8221; Peter said.</p>
<p>He began with a 5-4-1 formation with budget Brighton goalkeeper <strong>Robert Sanchez </strong>and premium Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea players in defence.</p>
<p>His midfield included <strong>Mohamed Salah</strong> and &#8216;proven, consistent performers&#8217; such as <strong>James Ward-Prowse </strong>and <strong>Youri Tielemans </strong>and <strong>Diogo Jota </strong>spearheaded Peter&#8217;s attack as his sole striker.</p>
<p>Save points, consistent minutes, steady points accumulation and, in Jota&#8217;s case, a &#8216;good differential&#8217; were all considerations when Peter picked his team.</p>
<p>He also spotted Crystal Palace midfield enabler <strong>Conor Gallagher&#8217;s </strong>early form and the Chelsea loanee was one of his few early transfers in.</p>
<p>Peter added: &#8220;I resisted all temptations to make luxury transfers, and by end of October, I’d used three, one of which was Bowen, which turned out to be a key one.</p>
<p>&#8220;By the beginning of January my transfers used count was up to seven.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Making gains in 2022</h2>
<p>Peter began to make real progress in the new year and by the middle of February, he was just inside the top 50.</p>
<p>&#8220;At this point I knew I was in contention for the whole thing,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;I swapped Jota for <strong>Luis Diaz</strong>. I also dabbled with other premium strikers for periods, including <strong>Cristiano Ronaldo </strong>and <strong>Harry Kane</strong>.&#8221;</p>
<p>It was not until mid-March that Peter approached the halfway point in terms of transfers used.</p>
<p>By then, he had moved even closer to the top spots.</p>
<p>He said: &#8220;By mid-March I’d used 19 transfers &#8211; including one or two poor choices including  <strong>Armando Broja </strong>and <strong>Phil Foden</strong> &#8211; and had moved into the top 30.</p>
<p>&#8220;With 21 left for the final nine gameweeks, I was definitely in contention, especially when compared to the weekly average TFF transfer usage.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was able to plan transfers around double gameweeks and take advantage of two, three and even four-for-ones and having a good number of transfers meant that I could navigate injuries and rotation relatively easily, both of which seemed to be increasingly important factors as the season progressed.</p>
<p>&#8220;By the end of March I was in the top 20, and I moved into the top 10 during April.&#8221;</p>
<div id="attachment_46605" style="width: 1106px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-46605" class="size-full wp-image-46605" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41.jpg" alt="Luis Diaz" width="1096" height="716" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41.jpg 1096w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41-300x196.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41-1024x669.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41-768x502.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41-610x399.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screenshot-2022-06-16-at-13.13.41-1080x706.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1096px) 100vw, 1096px" /><p id="caption-attachment-46605" class="wp-caption-text">Luis Diaz. Picture: Getty</p></div>
<h2>TFF: The final frontier &#8211; how the last few weeks played out</h2>
<p>Peter went into the last three gameweeks with five transfers remaining.</p>
<p>At this point, he took what he considered to be a high-stakes move.</p>
<p>&#8220;I took what felt like a risk in swapping Salah for <strong>Sadio Mane </strong>and in gameweek 35 I swapped Mane for de Bruyne, to take advantage of City&#8217;s extra games, and I benefited from his 21 points against Wolves.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think that was a season-defining points haul for lots of managers, especially those who weren&#8217;t fortunate to own him.</p>
<p>&#8220;It propelled me into second place overall and kept me in contention with the leader, James Bailey, who was still 24 points ahead and had been top for quite a while.&#8221;</p>
<h4>Attack-focused transfers</h4>
<p>Having started the season with heavy investment in his defence, Peter shifted funds to attack and brought in Kane, Jota and <strong>Son Heung-min </strong>with his final three transfers.</p>
<p>&#8220;The extra Liverpool and Chelsea games at the beginning of the last gameweek nudged me into first place by three points &#8211; including <strong>Joel Matip&#8217;s</strong> dodgy goal &#8211; as we headed to the final Sunday,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;I felt a bit exposed having no transfers left for any last-minute injuries or no-shows but I was fortunate to have 10 players on the final Sunday.</p>
<p>&#8220;I held on to win by 10 points after a nerve-shredding couple of hours.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Final-day drama</strong></p>
<p>After kick-off, both Peter and James had agreed to make their teams public, so both would be aware of the ramifications of what played out on the pitch.</p>
<p>Peter said Paul Quinn, who eventually finished third, threatened to spoil the Hub one-two, moving into second at one point before dropping back.</p>
<p>Describing the last day, Peter said: &#8220;Going into the final day I had already made plans to go waterskiing with the family, so I was constantly checking the scores on my phone while we were out, including in the boat.</p>
<p>&#8220;My family, who definitely don&#8217;t share my enthusiasm for fantasy football, suddenly became more interested as the afternoon unfolded and started to speculate on how I could spend the prize money.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was a great finale.&#8221;</p>
<h2>How Fantasy Football Hub helped Peter to win Telegraph Fantasy Football</h2>
<p>Three Hub members finished inside the TFF top 10, while our £200 members&#8217; league top 10 all finished in the top 50 overall.</p>
<p>Lewis Stevenson finished just behind Peter and James in sixth place overall.</p>
<p>Speaking about his Hub membership, Peter said: &#8220;I&#8217;ve been a Hub member for a couple of years and I really like the WhatsApp groups for TFF and Sky.</p>
<p>&#8220;These two formats have quite a bit in common, so planning for one helps to inform decisions in the other.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Tips to become a Telegraph Fantasy Football winner</h2>
<p>Sharing some of the secrets of his success, Peter said: &#8220;I do like to use <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="FPL Stats by OPTA - Player and Team Stats">stats</a> but probably not as much as some.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think any advantage I managed to achieve was due to quite a lot of forward fixture planning; being very disciplined about transfer usage for most of the season and then not being afraid to use them quite quickly later on.</p>
<p>&#8220;Luck plays a big part of it too – and I was lucky with having few injuries in the first half of the season.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am quite obsessive about TFF and spend more time on it than I probably should!&#8221;</p>
<h2><strong>Tools to help you become a Telegraph Fantasy Football winner</strong></h2>
<p>Want to emulate Peter&#8217;s success and become a Telegraph Fantasy Football winner yourself?</p>
<p>Upgrade your membership and chat all things Telegraph in one of our popular WhatsApp groups:</p>
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How Fantasy Football Hub member Peter Marshall was crowned Telegraph Fantasy Football winner 2021/22

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