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FanTeam’s season-long Premier League Fantasy game is well underway, with another guaranteed £1m up for grabs.
And who better to turn to for tips on the big-money FPL-style game than Josh Wooldridge, the winner of last season’s €200k first prize.
Josh will be writing for Fantasy Football Scout throughout the season, and in this, his latest article, he offers his thoughts on the new Shots on Target Bonus.
After a very close Twitter poll (@CheckjoshFF), the Fantasy Football community narrowly chose for me to write my next article on the Shots On Target (SOT) bonus in FanTeam.
So, without further ado let’s get right into it!
WHAT IS THE SHOTS ON TARGET BONUS AND HOW IS IT AWARDED?
After its successful implementation during FanTeam EURO 2020, the Shots on Target bonus is now part of this season’s £1m Premier League Fantasy game.
It is awarded in the following way:
- Midfielders and Forwards – 0.4 points per SOT
- Defenders – 0.6 points per SOT
- Goalkeepers (just in case!) – 1.0 point per SOT
I like it because it is extremely simple for FanTeam users to understand, so everyone is on a level playing field from the off.
It is also a clever way of rewarding assets who are very involved in games, but perhaps have been unlucky not to score.
HOW TO IMPLEMENT THE NEW RULE INTO OUR FANTEAM STRATEGIES
So, now we have gone over what it is, let’s try to implement this new rule into our FanTeam strategies.
I am going to start at the very top with the premiums, as this is the simplest to deal with.
The reality is, I don’t think it changes our selections too much.
We pick the likes of Mohamed Salah (£12.6m), Son Heung-min (£9.5m), Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) and Harry Kane (£12.0m) because they are all heavily involved and like to take lots of shots. They will all equally benefit from the SOT bonus and I will continue to select them throughout the year when they have favourable fixture runs.
So, the impact of this rule on the premium midfielders and forwards is minimal.
However, one of the most crucial spots where we need to apply this rule is on mid-price midfielders and forwards, particularly in the £6.0-8.0m bracket.
Whilst in Fantasy Player League (FPL), owning a player who shoots a lot can be a disadvantage as it can cost on the Bonus Points System (BPS), there is no drawback to ‘greedy’ mid-price assets here.
So, the likes of Diogo Jota (£7.5m), Anwar El Ghazi (£6.0m) and Tomas Soucek (£6.0m) could all be astute picks who will benefit from this new SOT bonus.
Soucek ranked first amongst all mid-price assets in 2020/21 for shots in the box, while Jota and El Ghazi are both well known for their shoot-on-sight policy.
This bonus could be a very subtle but significant way across the season of making such players ‘stand out’ from other similarly-priced assets.
Soucek could benefit even more than others, due to the fact that he always completes 90 minutes too – the perfect FanTeam asset!?
For defenders, I think it does shift the way we should think about them and influences who we should pick in our FanTeam squads.
Centre-backs become much more attractive as a result of this bonus, because they tend to have a lot more shots than full-backs overall.
That being said, it does not mean that full-backs and wing-backs are not in play, but merely that we should be a lot more selective with which ones we pick in our teams. Full-backs with high assist potential will still have a place at times in our squads, but I will be paying much more attention now on whether they have at least SOME goal threat.
There you have it. I am going to end by recommending three mid-priced players in each position who I think will finish near the top of the rankings for shots on target this season:
- Defenders – Lewis Dunk (£5.0m), Harry Maguire (£5.5m), Romain Saiss (£4.5m)
- Midfielders – Jota, Soucek, Ismaila Sarr (£6.0m)
- Forwards – Ivan Toney (£6.0m), Adam Armstrong (£6.5m), Ollie Watkins (£7.5m)
Thank you all for reading and let me know what you think in the comments below!
Josh joined Az earlier this week on our new, dedicated FanTeam channel, to offer his thoughts on the upcoming UEFA Champions League game. You can watch the video here
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