The Elite XI: Team Reveal feature allows Fix Premium Plus members exclusive access to the greatest Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers. The combined Elite XI boasts an extraordinary 36 top 5k finishes and 46 top 10k finishes. Offering real-time tracking data, push notifications and detailed insight into manager’s strategies, the Elite XI is unlike any other team reveal.

This weekly article will take you deep into the mindset of the world’s best FPL managers, allowing you to match your playing style to individual members of the Elite XI and use their incredible insight to help inform your own FPL decisions.

Dan Bennett

• Top 5k Finishes: 7
• Top 10k Finishes: 10
• Best Overall Rank: 917

This week we talked to Dan Bennett, another veteran of the game and a manager who boasts an astonishing seven top 5k finishes and ten top 10k finishes. In the 2014/15 season, he came 917th in the world. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of Dan’s career history is the fact that he has never finished outside of the top 50k despite playing since 2007.

Playing Style

Dan’s playing style could rather lazily be described as ‘safety first’, with an emphasis on trusting the template to identify which players have the best fixtures and form. Part of Dan’s reasoning for this is that he only has a limited amount of time for watching football. With a busy day job and a young family, Dan puts his faith in the law of large numbers and is therefore drawn to the safer and more popular picks.

This might sound simple, but playing FPL ‘safe’ is itself an art form. If simply following the template led to consistently great results, then managers with Dan’s enviable record would be more commonplace. Therefore, another key ingredient is required: planning.

In terms of chip strategy, Dan once again demonstrates a straight-forward and sensible approach, planning his chips around blank and double Gameweeks. While there can be variation between seasons because of external factors such as Covid-19 and the upcoming winter World Cup, generally there is a discernible pattern to the schedule in a regular season. Dan uses his Free Hit chip to navigate the largest blank Gameweek and plays his Bench Boost in the largest double Gameweek, saving the Triple Captain chip for a smaller one. Simple but effective.

Unlike some of the other members of the Elite XI, Dan does not really like taking points hits and relies on forward planning and sensible strategy to ensure that he does not need to go beyond his free transfers. Of course, there are always exceptions, as Dan explains:

Favourite Fix Tools

The Fixture Planner is powered by the Algorithm (rather than opinion) to produce accurate difficulty ratings for attack and defence

As someone who likes to track the template closely, it is hardly surprising that Dan’s favourite Fix feature is the Transfer Analytics tool. In addition, he always keeps an eye on the Price Change Predictor and uses the Fixture Planner as a basis for his notes whenever he pulls out his pen and paper.