The Offside Fantasy League: It’ll Make You Spit

By: Daryl | July 26th, 2007

Mourinho FFL The start of The Offside Fantasy League is just over two weeks away, so prepare to kiss your social life/significant other/steady employment goodbye. Kick off is August 11th, so you’ve got until then to sign up for a team, give it a silly name and choose the 11 players you’ll lead to glory.

Below is a very short guide to how the league works and setting up your team, as well as some highly dubious hints and tips:

Admin Stuff: If this whole thing is new to you, then follow these steps: Click on this link, click on “join this group,” then click on “sign up.” Give SquadGod a valid email address and password and you’re registered. Now you should be able to join The Offside Fantasy League group.

The Basics: It’s hosted by the fine folk at SquadGod and all based around the English Premier League and the stat-tastic OPTA index. Champions League, UEFA Cup, FA Cup and Carling Cup games don’t count.

Scoring Points: A rundown of how points are scored can be read here. But basically:

You get points for goals, assists, shots on goal, interceptions, passes, tackles, clean sheets (except strikers) and penalty saves.

You lose points for goals conceded (GKs and defenders only) yellow cards and red cards.

You also nominate a captain who will score a bonus 50% on all his points.

Rules: Good news is you get £100million to spend. Bad news is you can only spend it in the game, not on a Beckham-esque new house, and even in the game £100million sounds like more than it actually is.

Current default formation is 4-4-2 (an option for 4-3-3 will be added by SquadGod in the future) and you can’t sign any more than two players from one Premier League club. Once you have your 11 players selected, you’re allowed one “free” transfer per gameweek, provided you don’t exceed the £100million budget. If you make more than one free transfer per week, it’s going to cost you 20 of your hard won points.

Dubious Hints and Tips: Everything above is fact, but everything below is subjective and very possibly wrong. Like any advice you’re free to take it, leave it, or (more likely) mercilessly mock it.

Drogba slide As with any capitalist system, there’s a basic law of supply and demand. Based on last seasons points haul, and projected performance for 2007/8, the top players will cost you around £15 million each. You can see the top performers from 2006/7 here. So based on last season, guys like Didier Drogba and Beni McCarthy are going to score you goals and therefore going to cost you money. Cristiano Ronaldo and Frank Lampard will get goals and assists and make a lot of passes, Ricardo Carvahlo and Jamie Carragher will make tackles and interceptions while Pepe Reina and Tim Howard will get clean sheets. So they won’t come cheap either.

You can’t afford to fill your entire team with these players because your stingy chairman has only given you £100 million to spend. It’s up to you to decide which of these big name players are worth your fake cash. Does Lampard have another big season in him? Can Ronaldo repeat last seasons devastating form? A further thing to think about with these players is squad rotation. For example, I’ve personally chosen Fat Frank over Ronaldo not because I think he’s a better player or because he’s a great writer, but because he’s more likely to play more Premier League games. With the signings of Nani and Anderson and one eye on the Champions League, I’m gambling that there’s a good chance Ferguson will rest Ronaldo for some of the easier Premiership games. Doesn’t matter how good the winking winger is, if he’s resting those twinkly toes on the bench then he’s not scoring any points.

If you’ve got Drogba or Lampard or Rooney or Ronaldo in your eleven, then you’re probably not the only one. The difference will be what you do with the rest of the money, so here’s a quick rundown of a few cheaper players who could do the business for you this year. Remember, nothing’s guaranteed and this is all just food for thought, but here are 5 cheaper players who may be worth a gamble:

Joleon Lescott (Everton) £8.5m
The defender scored a very impressive 450 points in 2006/7, his first Premiership season. He may suffer from the sophomore blues, or he may get even better. But he’ a little cheaper than the top tier defenders like John Terry, who will cost £11.5m but scored less points than Lescott last season (mostly because he was injured.)

Scott Sinclair (Chelsea) £7m
The young lad is pretty much unproven in the Premiership, but they loved him on loan at Plymouth Argyle last season. Jose Mourinho has mentioned Sinclair as a youngster he expects to play a role in Chelsea’s 2007/8 Premiership campaign. He’s also listed as a midfielder, which could make him extra valuable as he usually plays as more of a striker. Sinclair will get his chance and if he impresses and seals a place in the Chelsea first team, he’ll be a bargain at £7m. Alternatively, we’ll only see him in the Carling Cup and you’ll have wasted your money.

Clint Dempsey (Fulham) £5.5m
The American took a while to win his place in the Fulham first team, but he made his mark by scoring the goal against Liverpool that guaranteed Premiership survival. I’ve no idea how new manager Lawrie Sanchez feels about Dempsey (he seems to only like Northern Irish players) but Deuce has the skills to impress, and a knack of arriving in the box at the right time to score, so he could be an absolute steal at £5.5m.

Mark Noble (West Ham) £6m
All the attention was on Carlos Tevez as West Ham went on their late season run to secure Premiership safety, but Noble was just as important. After a successful 3 month loan spell at Ipswich, Noble opted to return to West Ham and win a place in the first team. The 20 year old did exactly that and contributed a couple of important goals in the last few games of the season, winning the Young Player of the Year Award from popular West Ham site Knees Up Mother Brown with a landslide 99% of the vote.

Kieran Richardson (Sunderland) £7m
Richardson didn’t play too regularly for Manchester United last season, and so only amassed 72 points. But cast your mind back to 2004/5 season when he spent January onwards on loan at West Bromwich Albion. As a guaranteed starter he was outstanding, probably The Baggies best player as he scored 3 goals in 12 games from center midfield. He may not be good enough to play there for Man Utd, but Roy Keane – the world’s sternest judge of character – likes him enough to sign him for Sunderland. Given a more influential role Richardson could repeat his form of 2005 and be well worth £7m of your SquadGod money.