<p>I&#8217;ve buckled. Try as I may to force my old diary team back into contention, this week was the final nail in the proverbial coffin. Over the weekend, I went <strong>Hazard</strong> &gt; <strong>De Bruyne</strong> &gt; <strong>Lingard</strong> with my captain strategy for a total of 10 points. In my top team, I went <strong>Kane</strong> &gt; <strong>Salah</strong> &gt; <strong>Pogba</strong> for a total 88 points &#8211; a huge points difference. As a result, I&#8217;ll be focusing my efforts on my top team for the home stretch and the diary will reflect this.</p>
<h3><strong style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">The Experiment</strong></h3>
<p>My two teams started off identical and only diverged several weeks into the season when I had to replace Pogba for his suspension. In one team, I went De Bruyne, the other I went Eriksen (I&#8217;m sure you can guess which team is the one doing well). In fact, it&#8217;s that one decision had a ripple effect on my whole team &#8211; meaning that there is now over 150 points separating my teams. Pretty remarkable considering I&#8217;ve only diverged transfer policy on a few occasions. It goes to show how much luck there can be in selecting the right players. Sure, we make our own luck and play the odds over the season, but there still remains a heavy dose of good fortune.</p>
<p>That said, I have been reminded of one important lesson (that&#8217;s it&#8217;s easy to forget). As my previous diary team fell behind, I&#8217;ve been taking punts to try and catch up. Needless to say, they have mostly failed. This reminds me of a horse racing analogy &#8211; picking a long shot feels great when it comes off, but more often than not, it doesn&#8217;t. Over the course of the season, it&#8217;s worth going with the percentage play. This doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean the most popular pick (Salah captain wasn&#8217;t on Sunday), but the one you believe to have the best chance of scoring well.</p>
<h3>My new dairy team</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3883" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-13.51.03.png" alt="" width="507" height="601" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-13.51.03.png 507w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-13.51.03-253x300.png 253w" sizes="(max-width: 507px) 100vw, 507px" /></p>
<p><strong>Transfer left </strong>12</p>
<p><strong>Bank</strong> 0.5</p>
<h3>My Team</h3>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Differences between teams</h4>
<p>Have to admit that I was a bit hesitant in showing this team as I&#8217;m in a lot of cash leagues with a lot of money at stake. Revealing my team could potentially give my rivals an edge. But, at least for now, I&#8217;d be surprised if anyone thought it was a good strategy to block my moves or captaincy. That said, I may have to go incognito towards the end of the season and will only reveal my overhaul team to FFH members.</p>
<p>Regular readers will recognise quite a few similarities between this and my other team. In fact, there are only three differences &#8211; <strong>Ryan, Pogba Richarlison</strong> over <strong>Pope, Silva </strong>and <strong>Lingard. </strong></p>
<p>The main difference is my transfer count is three less. Unfortunately, this has been pretty unavoidable with almost all my transfers over the last few months being forced through injury, suspension or other circumstances (<strong>Silva</strong> and <strong>Coutinho</strong>). Fortunately, I&#8217;ve brought in the right replacements and plan to not make another transfer until the Overhaul in four gameweeks time.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">The Good</h4>
<p>Between the sticks, <strong>Ryan</strong> has been a hero and chipped in with several clean sheets and MOTM displays. With decent fixtures before the overhaul, I&#8217;m happy to have him in my squad.</p>
<p>In defence, <strong>Alonso</strong> has been a great differential and continues to rack up the attacking and defensive returns. <strong>Otamendi </strong>and<strong> Kenny </strong>are probably owned by 80% of the top 100 teams, so their points are pretty irrelevant.</p>
<p>In the middle of the park, I&#8217;ve only ever held <strong>De Bruyne </strong>as a City asset. The Belgian would always be my preferred City captaincy option, so I&#8217;ve regrettably ignored <strong>Sterling, Silva </strong>and<strong> Fernandinho.</strong> This has almost certainly been a mistake and something I&#8217;ll take on board for next season or even at the overhaul.</p>
<p>Nothing needs to be said about <strong>Salah</strong> and <strong>Kane. </strong></p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Bad</strong></h4>
<p><strong>Hazard</strong> and <strong>Richarlison</strong> have toiled in recent weeks, but they both have the potential and fixtures before the overhaul, so will retain their places for now.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Ugly </strong></h4>
<p><strong>Christensen </strong>has been highly frustrating to own as he&#8217;s missed out on several clean sheets. That said, I expect him to start and score well before the overhaul, so he&#8217;s safe for now.</p>
<h3>What&#8217;s helped me this season?</h3>
<p>Over the last few months, I&#8217;ve started using <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/sky-fantasy-football-toolkit/">Carl Week&#8217;s spreadsheet</a>. Goodness, this thing is useful! Not only does it highlight captaincy blanks, but it also suggests who to captain and the best players to bring in for a position and price. Over the weekend, this was pivotal in my captaincy choices, especially opting for <strong>Pogba</strong> over <strong>Lingard. </strong>Sure predictions are not always accurate, but like the analogy above, it&#8217;s about putting the odds in your favour. It&#8217;s no surprise to see Carl sitting pretty in 16th. This stuff really does work and it becomes more powerful as the season goes on (as we have more data). It can take a little while to get your head around it, especially if you&#8217;re not used to excel or numbers, but once you do, it&#8217;s invaluable. My only wish is that I had started using it earlier!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3884" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-15.28.14.png" alt="" width="964" height="327" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-15.28.14.png 964w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-15.28.14-300x102.png 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-16-at-15.28.14-768x261.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 964px) 100vw, 964px" /></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The screenshot above is from Carl&#8217;s tool. It shows who to captain (green) and predicted points for each gameweek. Crucially, it also tells you your predicted points if you were to make a transfer. Once you put a value on a transfer (I typically gauge around 12-15 points), you can then decide if its &#8216;worth&#8217; making that transfer.</p>
<p>All that said, it needs to be used as a guide, not gospel. For instance, it recommends <strong>Otamendi</strong> over <strong>De Bruyne</strong> as captain on Saturday (albeit only just). I&#8217;ll probably still go with De Bruyne as I feel he has a higher potential upside. I&#8217;d be interested to know what Carl himself is doing (maybe he can chip in with a comment below).</p>
<p>Not to plug another members tool, but <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/ian-parrins-sky-transfer-toolkit/">Ian Parrin&#8217;s popular captaincy planning toolkit</a> is also invaluable. I&#8217;ve been running low on transfers since Christmas and this has saved me making unnecessary trades. Again, my only regret is not using it earlier in the season. Still, better late than never.</p>
<p>If you have any questions about the either of these, let me know in the comments.</p>
<h3><strong>The Wishlist </strong></h3>
<p>As I&#8217;m running low on transfers, this is a &#8216;wish&#8217;, rather than &#8216;watch&#8217; list. Having been frugal with transfers for a while it&#8217;s growing with <strong>Aguero</strong>, <strong>Arnautovic</strong>, <strong>Sterling, Stones</strong> and <strong>Aspilecueta</strong> currently top. If you&#8217;re flush with transfers, I&#8217;d look to them. For me, there&#8217;ll have to wait until the overhaul.</p>
<h3>Captaincy Polls</h3>
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<p>I&#8217;ll opt for <strong>De Bruyne</strong> on Saturday. The other two options are pretty straightforward with <strong>Kane</strong> and <strong>Salah </strong>easy picks. The one player I hope stays quite this weekend is Aguero &#8211; he could really hurt me as I expect many close to me in the rankings will captain him.</p>
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<p><em><strong>PS If you’re interested in joining our illustrious <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/contributors/">team of contributors</a>, fire me an email: <a href="mailto:will@fantasyfootballhub.co.uk">will@fantasyfootballhub.co.uk.</a></strong></em></p>
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