Fantasy Premier League, the game where you pick 15 English league footballers who you think will perform in real life, is becoming increasingly popular.
Last year there were over eleven million “trainers” registered, and this year there could be even more.
New rules in the Fantasy Premier League
For the first time in a very long time, there are now new rules to the game, which change the way you as an FPL player should think and plan during the season.
Here are all the new rules in Fantasy Premier League and how to adapt to get more points.
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Goalkeepers get more points for goals
Goalkeepers now get ten points for scoring a goal. In previous seasons, there were significantly fewer than that, namely six points.
Since a keeper goal basically never happens, this shouldn’t have any impact on your strategy, but it’s definitely a fun change.
Changes to the bonus system
However, something that can have a greater impact on your game is the changes made to the bonus system.
After a match, some players may receive one, two or three bonus points.
Which players get the points is determined by a system that gives plus or minus points for various actions on the pitch, such as goals, assists, clean sheets, tackles, passes, mistakes leading to goals and so on.
This system has now received several changes:
These changes benefit offensive players who usually have a lot of shots on goal, for example Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salahand skilled dribblers who Phil Foden and Bukayo Thinga.
Centre-backs, who have a greater chance of clearing balls on the goal line than other players, benefit more from the change than full-backs and goalkeepers who are disadvantaged.
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Save five free trades
Goalkeeper goals and bonus points in all glory, but the biggest and most important change for this year’s season is that you can now save up to five free substitutions between rounds – three more than before.
It will now be much easier to make big changes to your team without having to take minus points or activate your Wildcard.
A good strategy might be to save up three or more changes before activating your Bench Boost. The following round, you can move your money from the bench to the starting eleven for free to make your team more impactful.
You can also take advantage of a favorable game schedule in a more flexible way. By selecting several players from a team that has easier matches at the beginning of the season, for example Arsenal, you can then replace them without taking a minus when the matches then become more difficult.
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Save the spoils – despite the Wildcard
Previously, it was not possible to save free changes to the round after you activated Wildcard or Free Hit, but now you can.
So you can save five free trades, activate Wildcard or Free Hit, and then keep the five free trades for the next round.
This can make handling double and blank rounds smoother. For example, if a double round comes before a blank round, you can activate Free Hit to attack the former, then use your saved loot to deal with the latter.
Unknown chip
FPL has also announced that there will be a “Mystery Chip” in January.
Nothing about the chip has been revealed yet, which unfortunately makes it impossible to plan for.
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