Life hacks to starting FPL well

Let's skip the fluff on going for teams that start with easy fixtures (especially when things are less straightforward next season); and go straight to the meaningful life hacks:

Make educated guesses (i.e. big assumptions) on who will perform better/worse in the next season, as they represent your differential delta.

Last year's FPL winner avoided Haaland while building his team around Salah; and leaving out England players due to their Euro 2024 run (interview with Premier League). I'd argue that the bet against Haaland was a bit of a luck, given his good performances until Rodri's injury; but either way this shows the need to be rigorous about your big assumptions for the year.

Pre-season fixtures can offer you clues if you know how to read them.

Some examples: Rogers was the best-performing Aston Villa player in pre-season; as was Murphy who then performed well as the season progressed (his weak start was due to an unlucky injury); Chris Wood also shone.

Calibrate accordingly. Some tips:

• Ignore any good performances by newly promoted teams, who are inherently high-risk/low-reward. None of Southampton's players did well last year; Ipswich players remained largely disappointing even for Davis and Delap; Leicester City were essentially whipping boys.
• Good performances are never a "must-buy" and only serve as a minimum requirement to be considered, along with other factors. You can still have plenty of non-performers such as Schlupp (Crystal Palace), Bobb (Manchester City) who wasn't a team starter despite speculation, and Kulusevski (Tottenham) who was held back by his club.
• So focus on using weak pre-season performers to eliminate choices, rather than buying players based on good performers. This applies at club-level too: Manchester City's lacklustre performances (draw for Community Shield, draw to Barcelona, and losses to Celtic and AC Milan) were arguably an early warning for their poor performance this season.

FantasyFootballHub has a user-friendly page on the latest pre-season results here.

Develop "macro-theses" to guide your choices and avoid being seduced by exciting players.

• Davis was an exciting prospect as a budget attacking defender, but never delivered on his promise due to Ipswich's poor performance.
• A few years back, it was sensible to assume that Matt Doherty could not replicate his form as Tottenham which preferred having fullbacks to attacking wing-backs.

Generally assume that new players will not live up to their promise until they have proven that they can adapt.

• Haaland's maiden season was the exception that proved the rule, as he was supported by the shots machine Manchester City.
• Otherwise, FPL players generally pay the price for betting early that players will do well - think of Nkunku, Werner, and Solanke.

Stay tuned for our dossier on which players fall under which basket for Gameweek 1.