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            <h3 class="p1"><span class="s1">Right here we go....</span></h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">We’re almost there, the season will finally kick off on Friday evening with Liverpool hosting Norwich at Anfield. But are you all set for a season long battle in Sky Sports Fantasy Football? </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">There has been a few new signings, a few players to leave the league and a lot to look at. The fixtures are out, the TV games have been decided and it’s time to create your final team ahead of the big kick off. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Firstly you should have looked at the tools at your disposal on FFH. Ian’s spreadsheet and Carl’s articles in particular.</span></p>
<h3>Twitter Teams</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">If your an avid twitter user then you may have seen a few of the prominent Sky players posting their teams. I’ve avoided doing this as I didn’t want everyone copying my team as I feel it is a great side - naturally. Plus I also didn’t want to put anyone off picking their own side and just going with someone else’s team with little or none of their own thought put in. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Fantasy football for me is the challenge of picking your own side, sticking with your own thoughts and being your own person. I mean you may be certain that Teemu Pukki will score a brace at Anfield, who am I to tell you your wrong.</span></p>
<h3>Creating an XI</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">I created my team a while back with the intention of leaving it a few weeks and then redoing it with fresh eyes right before the season starts. To be honest I’m still on pretty much the same team as when the game launched. I don’t like to look at it each day as you’ll end up with loads of draft teams and you’ll spend many hours picking and re-picking teams. You may even forget which one was your favourite team. Plus all it takes is one transfer or injury late on and all that time has been wasted. I prefer to spend more time looking at fixtures and best captaincy picks.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Take Pepe for example, just signed for Arsenal and listed as a midfielder at 9.8m. And now people will be making changes to their team to get him in. I think he’s a great price and will be a great pick this season.</span></p>
<h3>Consensus Teams</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">To my dismay pretty much everybody has the same team on twitter. I’m not sure if this is group mentality now. I could blame a few people for sharing their teams. It seems everybody is on the same lines with a team. Whether it’s just simply we can all see the value in certain players/positions I don’t know. Or that seeing people with a good record at Sky pick a team is enough for some to go with it. You can’t argue against it. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">I know that when I saw these guys teams and they were pretty similar to mine I thought that I must have a pretty good side. So that just backed up my own thinking. </span></p>
<h3>How to Play it</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">But now is the issue of what to do? If we all have the same basic team is it worth the risk of changing it and getting left behind the general consensus? I know with captains and transfers that it will soon be enough to start putting some distance between you and your rivals. But my thoughts are that why risk it. Just go with the flow. There are only four game weeks until the Overhaul so let’s get to there on autopilot and see where we are then. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">But then there is the part of me that wants to rebel and go 3-4-3 and hope the strikers can get their shooting boots on and that we are not going to be sitting down to be cheering on clean sheet after clean sheet. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">I always say you can’t win it in August, but you can rule yourself out of winning it. So what I mean is don’t blow loads of transfers. Formulate a plan and stick to it. </span></p>
<h3>Captains/Transfers</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Have a captain for each day, and if you don’t want to or can’t, stick to your plan. If you’ve decided that for Aston Villa v Everton on the 23rd of August that you just don’t particularly fancy anyone - just leave it. Don’t make any rash moves before kick off if you’ve had second thoughts. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As always I don’t feel you should be making like for like transfers before a ball is kicked. So, for example, you have Salah on Friday, take him out Saturday for Aguero and then Aguero to Aubameyang on Sunday. You don’t want to be in the situation where you have Aguero then on the 17th you don’t fancy him for Spurs at home so switch him out for Salah away to Southampton. That’s just bad planning in my opinion. </span></p>
<h3>My XI*</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">So here is my XI...</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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