Since the game launched I have been planning on playing with TAA + 4 x 4.5 DEFs. I really want to avoid using transfers in these positions this season, so I have been planning long term (16 GWs until the cut off for the first WC).
I will be playing 3 at the back, so I need to pick 2 DEFs each week from my pool of 4.I have taken a bit of a deep dive into the fixtures to find the most optimal four teams to select my 4.5 DEFs from. For the purpose of this I looked at ARS, SOU, NEW, BHA, FUL, WBA, LEE & WHU and what sort of fixture schedule you could get from the varying combinations of those teams.
When looking at different combinations, I took note of two data points:
1 – How many times will you be forced to play a fixture against the traditional top 6 (not including Wolves, Leicester etc).
2 – How many times can you play a home tie against a non-top 6 team.
You can get really good rotations.
Fixutres against top 6 | Favourable home fixture | |
ARS NEW FUL BUR | 0 | 24 |
ARS FUL WBA BUR | 0 | 24 |
LEE WBA ARS BUR | 0 | 24 |
LEE WBA WHU BUR | 0 | 23 |
LEE FUL WBA BUR | 1 | 23 |
LEE BUR ARS SOU | 0 | 22 |
LEE NEW WHU BUR | 0 | 21 |
The four 4.5 choices I would pick are Ayling, Taylor, Saliba & Kyle Walker-Peters. Barring injuries and new signings, I think they are all a good shout to start and if all goes well, I can let them sit & rotate in and out of my team until I choose to play my first wildcard. At which point I will look at new combinations.
Looking at the same data points for GKs, you get the following results:
Cost | Fixutres against top 6 | Favourable home fixture | |
SOU FUL | 9,0 | 0 | 9 |
SOU BHA | 9,0 | 1 | 7 |
FUL BHA | 9,0 | 2 | 9 |
WBA WBA | 8,5 | 5 | 5 |
BHA BHA | 8,5 | 5 | 4 |
As you can see, the three rotation pairs give you much better fixtures than the king & heir options, although you do save 0.5 million. I have been pretty heavy in favour of the SOU FUL rotation purely because of the fixtures but with the news that FUL have signed a keeper that ‘could’ compete with Rodak, I am changing to SOU BHA, to hopefully minimize the risk that I have to spend a transfer on a keeper before my wildcard.
Yours sincerely,
Thomas Bracken
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