My #FPL Season so far and some Thoughts about it!

First of all i have to say that season 2014/15 has been nothing short of "Frustrating" to say the least! Before it all began,i had high hopes of a finish of around 14500 position as this would have been my 2nd best finish ever having finished 23rd overall in season 2012/13.

It all started disasterously and after GW 1,i was ranked 1.6 million and having picked my original team which included Rooney,Mata,Ramsey,Baines,Terry and Costa! It didn't look too bad at the time but it is so important to get a good start when playing this game and i did not!

GW2 i took a hit and rose from 1.6 to 1.0 mil,yes i was going in the right direction! The next week,the ship was steadied and i stayed in the same position! It was now time for that lovely WC to be played and i did so in GW4!

So from GW 4-9 it was all progression and i went from 1.0 mil position to 12 k overall. A lovely position to be in and now to kick on i thought! I hovered around positions 15-18 k for the next few GW's until the time came around GW14 when i just could not pick the right Captain at all! Nomatter who i picked,he did nothing at all and almost every week,my VC was scoring well!

12 consecutive weeks in a row with wrong Captain choice was killing me and by GW and my overall dropped to around 30k! Oh what could have been if only i keep telling myself!

I continued my "Captain Curse" what it was now called for a few more GW' s and dropped even more to 52k by GW 30 and i was so disappointed with myself! It worked out that i had picked the right Captain for 2 weeks out of the previous 16 or so which meant 14/16 weeks of no return from my main man!

GW 31-33 saw an overall rise of 22k before a disasterous Double week 34 which seen my team have Schlupp and Moreno in and having got rid of Siggy for Henderson too! I thought i was set up having 7 doubles and with only a -4 hit! As of after GW 34, i now sit in 39k position overall and my aim is now top 1% finish! I am going to play it the way i like to play it and have a rather reckless approach to it from now until end of season and see where it takes me! I have been way too cautious this season which has frustrated me so much! One of the reasons for my cautious approach has been the fact of H2H games which i am involved in and it has influenced certain decisions that i have made!

I dont usually do too many posts on my blog about FPL but i just feel like writing a few thoughts down about the current season!

First of all i want to say i am extremely disappointed in myself at the way i have played the game this season! I have been far too cautious as i have already stated which goes totally against my team name of "Reckless Hollie's X1" and this is the one thing that annoys me the most!

When i had a very successful season in 2012/13, i played the game my way with no distractions and a very reckless approach where logic was concerned! I took hits of -4 and the odd -8 too that year because if i wanted someone in my team,i just got him and did not mind the consequense of the hit! I was not concerned about who was in anybody else's teams and was not influenced in any way by anybody at all as i was not on twitter or any form of social media!

I reached a high that season of 19th position and finished in 23rd overall position! I remember these guys in particular all of whom are such awesome players Matt Martyniak, Julian Zipparo,Matej Podobnik and Kelvin Travers who i never thought i could possibly catch these awesome guys but they were in my sights and i also finished behind all 4 just for the record!

I was so proud of myself as i was playing this awesome game with no overthinking at all and getting results and the fact that i was a girl in a mainly male dominated game made me so happy!
 
The following season 2013/14 was a season that i dont remember much about tbh as i was going through a divorce and other personal problems and my team sailed as a ghost ship for many weeks and i finished 268k overall,lets best forget this one yes!

Now this season! I started the season having joined twitter for the first time on 31st July! I have made many new friends and am very honoured to be followed by some of the best #fpl people out there,infact they are "The Best".

Anyway i started the season feeling for the first time playing this game under pressure! I let it get to me in the fact that i was now a cautious player and not playing the game as i had hoped to! My team suffered as a result and i found myself playing it with regrets almost every week! The BOTS leagues were created and i believe this is one of the most successful and interesting things to happen to fpl in all my few years of playing! It has proved that Girls can play this game too and i am so proud of all the girls i have got to know since it started! And a massive Thank you to the amazing Walt!

This season has changed in certain ways ie BP's are sometimes what i would call a joke! One that sticks out for me was Man United's 2-1 defeat at the Liberty to Swansea and as we all know ADM has been pretty awful this season in general! Now in this game,he has an assist and the rest of the game he does very little,no tracking back and generally is not in the game! After the game,the BP's are distributed and low and behold, ADM is awarded 3 bonus points! I mean how is this possible! I am still confused at this! The BP system needs to be looked at in my opinion! And i still cant believe that Albrighton was awarded 3 BP's in last nights match between Leicester and Chelsea!

The price rises/falls is so slow this year and i for one much preferred for the sake of the game,when players prices rise/fall quicker as it made it more exciting! This season when playing WC,it was not beneficial at all to buy early and gain before re selling and making money! Old way was best in my opinion!

Now what has happened more than i can ever remember in previous seasons is the "Template Team"! This has created a situation that even one bad week can result in a big Red arrow and even a relatively good week can also see red arrows! A good friend of mine,the great Fpl man that is Walt had a score of 72 points,captain hatrick and still manages to fall 10k places overall! This is unbelievable and so disheartening to an fpl player! There is very little points difference between for example 40k and 115k so one bad captain choice can mean a massive drop! And the so called template team is scattered all over the top 150k teams in my opinion! So if you want to try and move up,it creates a situation that you have to mix it up abit and hope for the best but it would not take too long to fall 50k places if it all goes pear shaped! This whole template thing has made the game less interesting and exciting as if one of our players does really well,no doubt another 50k players are also tweeting that they have the same player! I know we all have choices regarding who we have in our teams and we as individuals have created these template teams but it certainly has removed some of the enjoyment out of the game!

Now on to the rather dubious awarding of assists and goals! This season more than ever i have seen so many points awarded for assists and goals that to me look very dubious! An example of this is a Crouch goal for Stoke that hits 2 defenders,bounces from one side to another before going in,and the ball having taken a different direction twice before hitting the net! Goal awarded to Crouch and 4 points to him and 3 points for an assist to someone else! Gomis scores for Swansea v West Ham if i remember right from a Siggy corner but as the ball clips the post before going in off the West Ham goalkeeper,it is givin as an own goal and thus resulting in only an assist for Gomis and obviously no award of assist to Siggy! How many times have we seen a shot that was goalbound but could have hit the post, then hits a defender on the way in and the striker is awarded the goal and the points,it does not go down as an OG! These are only a couple of small examples and i am sure there are many more obvious ones where the ball has hit 2 or 3 players before going in or same thing and and assist is awarded! Inconsistancy in this is frustrating and so annoying to me this year!

These are just a few thoughts on the season and with only 4 GW's to go now,i think it could be worth playing around with now.

I am looking at obviously having a few doubles for GW 37 and wondering which Arsenal guys to get in keeping in mind that there will more than likely be rotation with the cup final in mind! To find 3 that will start could be difficult but the higher finish in the prem is also important too! This is  a tough one as i would like Ramsey,Sanchez and one of Giroud or a defender! And a couple of Sunderland guys would be nice too, possibly Defoe or Wickham, Pantillimon and PVA! Would be nice to have a team that just might get a few points in the penultimate week of FPL! Hopefully that is! I would have brought Sanchez and Ramsey straight into my team now if i had not got 3 defenders on yellows/red at this present moment in time! So a bit of thinking is needed before this weeks FT's,

Thanks for reading this rather long post and if you managed to get through it all,well done lol! It has been a different season for me but although frustrating,it has been the most enjoyable season ever as i have met so many new fpl friends which has made it so special,

Hollie