Introduction

I am the manager of Wain’s Wonders and am currently ranked a career high of 13th in the world. After an average start to the season I have been in the top 1000 for 15 of the last 16 weeks and the top 100 for 11 of those. I am currently trying my hardest to break the top 10 and hopefully with a well-played wildcard, I will move towards the number 1 spot. Here is a short piece about my season and a few tips and rules that I try and stick by.

Previous Seasons 

As you can see from the table below, my previous seasons are nothing to write home about. 2011/2012 was my first taste of fantasy football and I joined with a group of friends a third of the way through the season. Having won my mini league on the final day of the season when Aguero scored the goal that no football fan will ever forget, I was left pining for more fantasy football over the summer months. 

I made sure I was signed up on time the following seasons and now understanding more of the nuances of the game, I proceeded to have two pretty strong seasons. I hoped to follow up last years result of breaking the top 10,000 barrier by repeating this and maybe even hitting the elite heights of the top 5,000…

Season            Points  Rank

2011/12           1337    2374634

2012/13           2147    32500

2013/14           2401    9697

Season Highs 

1) The best moment of the season so far was GW 8 when I scored a century in a single game week. It came about after Aguero (C) scored four, as well as missing a penalty, and Tadic grabbed a massive 23 points. I had been telling my friends, and anyone else who would listen, that Tadic would explode and I transferred him in to my team the week before. His haul helped me jump from 28,683 to 2,091 and really set my season alight.

2) Another high was in game week 18 when I broke into the top 100 and achieved the two figure rank for the first time. The grey arrow in GW 25 was also a particular highlight as I have been after one ever since joining fantasy premier league. Sad I know!

Season Low

 Having had such a good season it is hard to pick out a real low point but I guess for me it was very early on in game week’s two and three. I had a great start in week 1 finishing in 2,812 but by the start of week 4 I had plummeted to 26,792. It felt like all my hard work pre-season picking my squad had failed. However, I guess there is a lesson to be learned from this - remember the season is very long and a lot can change from week to week.

Gambles that paid off

1) The first major gamble that paid off was the decision to transfer in John Terry over Cesar Azpilicueta for an extra £0.3m. Although not a large sum, the consensus on the forums, Twitter and in the stats was that Azpilicueta was the better pick. In fact for the next two weeks it looked like a mistake as Azpilicueta racked up 19 points. However, rotation took hold at Stamford Bridge and Terry rewarded my selection with two goals and a bounty of clean sheets over the next seven games. Terry ended the period on 51 points whereas Azpilicueta scored a respectable 34. This gamble really boosted my rank as Terry was a big differential at that stage of the season.

2) Probably the best decision of the season was the captaincy of Charlie Austin in game week 17. The majority of the game captained Costa away at Stoke but I decided to punt on Austin. Costa had not been scoring many goals leading up to this game and I fancied Stoke to keep it tight with Austin standing a chance of scoring at home against the weak WBA defence. What I didn't expect was WBA to take a two goal lead before Austin hit back, completing his hat trick in the 86 minute. The hat trick helped me achieve a GW rank of 7,281 and it propelled me towards the top 100, which I reached the week after.

Gambles that failed

1) My moment of madness was in GW 25 when the Arsenal line up came out before the deadline closed. Already without Sanchez, I hastily rushed Giroud and Sterling out for Defoe and Sanchez when I saw that Giroud was being rested and Sanchez was up front. Neither player scored any points, Giroud came back into the Arsenal line up the week after and went on a scoring purple patch with goals in the last 3 game weeks and Defoe failed to score at all. A waste of transfers and a valuable lesson learned - don't make rash last minute transfers!

2) Possibly my worst transfer this season, based on watching him score 5 goals in as many weeks, was the transfer of Sahko in GW 11. In he came for Danny Welbeck, only for him to score 2 points, 0 points and then not play for the next 4 game weeks. Needless to say I transferred him out asap.

Strategy and Rules to stick to week in week out

1) Get a line up similar to the top 10,000 template and then diversify slightly with a punt or two. Admittedly this is a dull tactic but if a high overall rank is something that you are really aiming to achieve then following this works very well. Head on over to the team statistics page on fantasyfootballfix and you can see the current top 10,000 template. If you had followed the template and added Coutinho or Henderson as a fourth midfielder differential in the last month, you would have flown up the overall league table.

2) Follow the stats. I am a big believer in following the statistics and these are available all over the internet as well as on this very site. My greatest success was finding Tadic who had great stats early on in the season in terms of shots in the box, touches in the final third and he duly delivered with a huge points haul. However, a word of caution - statistics can mislead and should not be your only port of call. Watching matches live is a great way to back up the stats or help find holes in them. For example, Jesus Navas is one player who looks to have great underlying stats, a huge amount of crosses and touches in the final third, but doesn't deliver on them because of a poor final ball.

3) Keep an eye on the price rises. This is something that has been less important this season as players have risen much more slowly than before. Saying that, it is easy to find (Fantasyfootballfix has a feature predicting rises) and is still worthy of consideration. The fact that only one team in the top 20 has a team value of less than £105m shows that it is important and a £0.1m rise/fall in a game week can be the difference between being able to afford a dream transfer and not.

4) Try and keep 2 transfers. Having two transfers not only reduces the need for a points hit, something which I try to avoid, but also offers a much greater degree of flexibility when it comes to making transfers. Saving a transfer also suggests that you are not being swayed by an instant bandwagon that arises after a player slots home a few goals. This is something that separates the top 10,000 from the more casual player. Over 50,000 rushed to bring Jon Walters in after his hat trick but it has proven to be unwise as he has failed to score in the five game weeks after.

5) Don’t be afraid to let go of players who have done well for you or that you like to watch. This is one of the hardest rules to stick by and I have been found guilty of overplaying certain players, such as Tadic and Baines, both of whom have done well for me in the past and are exciting to watch live. It is also hard to know when is the right time to cash in on the price rises and move onto the next performer. Keep an eye on the stats and in particular compare the performances week on week.

Twitter @jawain04