Kick off your fantasy premier league & IKTS!

Great progress, guys! Now we have 94 people signed up for the BlueChampions.Com mini-league in the Fantasy Premier League. Hope we cross the century before this weekend. I’m really charged up about this whole fantasy league business primarily because of the interest and support that you have shown. As promised, we will have regular (weekly?) posts or updates on the progress of our fantasy league. I have also create a separate category (you can see it in the menu bar) for the fantasy league related posts.

Today, I thought I should write about the basics of a successful fantasy league team. Before I could apply my thoughts, I came across this crisp and neat article on the premier league site and I thought this is what I would have written as well. Go on, be enlightened.

Building a Fantasy Premier League team seems easy but it actually takes a good deal of thought and preparation. A few careless selections can leave you lagging behind fellow competitors from the off, but that scenario can be avoided by doing just a little homework. Setting yourself up for a good season is the aim here, so follow these five pointers and give yourself the best chance of getting off to a good campaign.

1. Make sure your selections will play…

This is the golden rule with any player you pick. After all, if he doesn’t make it on to the pitch, how can he score you points? Check through last year’s statistics to see if one of your fancies is a regular performer or a reserve team member. Does he play both home and away? Is he used as an impact substitute? In fact, while you’re looking at the ‘minutes played’ stat, arm yourself with as much information as possible by taking a good…

2. Look at last year’s stats

These numbers are your friends if you’re striving to gain an edge on fellow managers. A host of information is contained within from the simple – goals scored – to the more obscure – teams selected by – for instance. All are there for a reason and should be interrogated to gain an edge on your less studious competitors.

3. Study the transfer market

New arrivals can be significant as they can signal the end of the line for some former favourites or could be bought to form a partnership with another player. The loss of Cristiano Ronaldo from the Barclays Premier League will cause plenty of managers to have a rethink for 2009-10. The Portuguese winger was a fixture for many and the regular choice as captain in most teams. But Sir Alex Ferguson will surely have planned for life at Old Trafford without this regular provider of goals. Antonio Valencia has been brought in on the right wing, and we are likely to see more from Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney upfront. All three – though high profile already – have big seasons ahead of them.

4. Check the first month of fixtures

The fixture list is hugely important. Few teams are going to relish a month that includes games against Manchester United, Everton, Chelsea and Liverpool, yet that is what faces Burnley after their opener at Stoke, itself not an easy game. It is, of course, possible to have two players from any Premier League team, and a canny manager will load up on these performers when a relatively easy patch of games or – even better! – a double gameweek comes around.

5. Look beyond the big names

We all want a midfield featuring Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Cesc Fabregas. The good news is you can have one, the bad is that it will leave you with very little cash for anyone else. With that pot of £100m the goal is to achieve a balance between the big names and lesser known players, attacking flair and defensive solidity. Again, check over the stats for solid performers from less glamorous clubs. These purchases can free up the funds for big name signings and can prove to be effective pointscorers themselves.

I don’t think this is comprehensive but it covers the key points. One other important thing is to be updated on the injury situations. Be sure to track the availability of your players and also keep an eye on value-for-money players becoming available after injury. The other thing is the choice of captain. See, this is not a real team that’s going to be put on the pitch to perform. So don’t go for the leadership qualities, behaviour and discipline of the player and all that. Just take a guess which one of your players will earn you the maximum of points and make him the captain. Finally, when you choose players based on stats don’t go just by the points they earn, check their points per million rate. That’s where you’ll get your value-for-money players.

To reiterate, do look at the stats. Any guesses on who topped the overall premier league list in the fantasy league? Ok, that’s easy, the one and only Super Frankie Lampard. Below are the toppers in various categories.

If you have not signed up yet, do sign now. The name of the mini-league: BlueChampions.Com League. The joiners’ code: 897502-183475. Here is the SIGN-UP page for Fantasy Premier League & here is the RULES page of this fantasy league.

Also remember that there is a I Know The Score (IKTS) mini-league as well. IKTS is in the same fantasy premier league website and it works with the same login that you have for the fantasy premier league. It’s very simple. This page shows you the list the of all games of the next game week and allows you to update the scores. You get points based on whether you got the correct result or correct score or the correct goal difference.

For instance, let’s take the match on 10-May-09. Chelsea thrashed Arsenal 4-1 at the Emigrants stadium. If you had predicted this correctly as 4-1 to Chelsea (correct outcome, correct score), you’ll win 30 points. If you had predicted, a 3-0 to Chelsea (correct outcome, correct goal difference), you’ll win 15 points. If you had predicted 5-0 to Chelsea (correct outcome, wrong goal difference), you’ll win 10 points. If you had predicted a 1-1 draw (wrong outcome), you’ll get minus 10 points. If the game was a draw and you predicted the draw with a wrong scoreline, you get 20 points. Also, you can choose one of those results (banker chip with the dollar sign) which you’re sure about whose points will be doubled. If you are unsure about a certain result you can choose (insurance chip with lock symbol) that as well where your minimum points will be zero.

Sounds interesting and fun? The name of the mini-league is again BlueChampions.Com League. The joiners’ code: F9E63-GKV. The premier league website is on single sign-on. So if you already have a login for the fantasy premier league, it would work for IKTS as well.

Now what you see above are my predictions for the first game week. Now you can comment on my predictions but also do join this mini-league as well and update your predictions there. Let’s who’s the best predictor in the BlueChampions universe