Fans of the English Premier League – how difficult is it to guess the starting eleven for all 20 clubs, week in, week out, throughout the whole campaign? Short of having a little crystal ball of your own, it’s nigh on impossible to predict every lineup. It’s tough enough to pick Pep Guardiola’s starting lineup for Manchester City alone. Throw in the rest of the 20 teams, and you have a full-time job on your hands. That’s all well and good if you have the time for that and it pays you well. But neither of those things are true, are they? Our FPL dedication is done for our love of the beautiful game. That and bragging rights, of course. Yet, it’s tough to take the upper hand in those FPL conversations when you’re stuck in the bottom half of your mates’ league.
Let us guide you towards one of the more under-administrated and easy-to-use tools in the fantasy football world. Yes, it’s predicted lineups.
The Benefits of Predicted Lineups
Every week throughout the Premier League season that FPL deadline looms large. That’s because you have so many decisions to make – decisions that could make or break your season. Okay, so that may be a tad dramatic, but two or three good weeks in succession can change your hopes for the FPL. Unfortunately, the same can be said for a few bad rounds in a row. It’s heart-wrenching, in football-fan terms. Your hopes for winning your FPL leagues can be dashed.
Fear not, however. We are here to help with some sound advice that will assist you greatly between now and May.
The big questions pop up every week regarding potential transfers, selecting your captain and your vice-captain, deciding on your first-choice goalkeeper, and prioritising your substitutes in the best way possible.
For all of these ‘obstacles’, a good site that shows you the expected lineups in the Premier League for the coming game week can be a metaphorical life-saver.
Such pages are a fantastic source of information that can assist you in making the best decisions possible. The predicted lineup pages are not done by guesswork either. Plenty of statistics are considered as well as the fitness levels of every player. Thought is also given to each team’s fixture schedule in case managers rotate some players in or out of a starting eleven due to fatigue.
Suspended Players in the FPL
We’ve all had that feeling. You know the one. You’re pretty sure you’ve picked a fantastic FPL eleven for the weekend only to realise that one (or more) of your players are not even in their club’s starting lineup. How can this happen? Well, you can avoid it by making sure you use a solid site with reliable predicted lineups each week.
One of the reasons players can be missing from a starting eleven is through suspension. The official fantasy football site is probably the best place to see who is suspended and for how long.
Here are some notes about suspensions to give you an idea of when they occur:
- Yellow cards – if a player gets five yellow cards in the first half of the season (first 19 games), they will serve a one-game suspension. This rule continues for the following five yellow cards, and so on, throughout the campaign.
- Red cards – if a player is sent off for a second yellow card in a game, he will also miss one game through suspension. A straight red card for a professional foul carries the same one-game suspension. Any form of dissent leading to a red card comes typically with a two-match ban. If someone is sent off for what is deemed violent conduct, they will be suspended for three games, maybe more if the conduct is considered to be excessively violent and dangerous.
Injuries in the FPL
The other apparent reason for players being out of action is injuries. Check a reliable injury list to keep tabs on who’s fit and who’s not.
Remember, regarding players coming back from long-term injuries, and they will likely make some short substitute appearances first to gradually get their fitness levels back to the level needed to start a game. Please don’t put them straight back in until you’re sure they are fit enough to start for their team.
