Building your Fantasy Premier League team? Different FPL positions can offer different things to your side
(Image credit: Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Fantasy Premier League is just like real football: different FPL managers have different philosophies. With £100.00m to spend, where is all that money going to go?
There are many different ways to play. Some managers choose to go for goalscoring midfielders, as they have a higher reward for goals and assists and forwards. Others, however, would rather pick reliable forwards. Some managers want to cram in as many expensive players as possible, while others take more of a measured approach.
Which way is best? There's no way to say definitively - but we've collated all the different FPL philosophies in order to show you how you might want to structure your side.
What's the best way to spend your FPL money? The 5 Fantasy Premier League philosophies
1. Go big in midfield
(Image credit: Future)
There are only a few midfielders worth over £10.0m. Of course, you can't pick all of them…
But you can go with four or five premium midfielders and then scrimp across the rest of the team. You get more goals for a midfielder than you do a forward – so if Salah and Harry Kane were to have identical goalscoring seasons, you'd get more for Salah's.
Having five premium midfielders means that you can play a 3-5-2 or 4-5-1, relying heavily on the middle of the park to get you points. Of course, most players will go for one or two high-price midfielders – but this might be a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
2. Quality in key positions
(Image credit: Future)
There are expensive players across all positions in FPL. You might fancy getting a few in each.
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In this particular side, we went for an expensive spine that we expect to get us our majority of points. That's Ederson in goal, Alexander-Arnold and Cancelo in defence, Son and Salah in midfield and Kane and Vardy up front. These players were likely to be in our starting line-up every week – the others can then rotate around.
This is a good tactic if you want to hedge your bets across the superstars and the different areas of the pitch, plus it gives you the flexibility to move formation. It also gives you extra cash if you look to switch out someone like Ederson or Cancelo for a high-performing – but cheaper – player later on.
The only problem is that you might not get much quality outside of your spine.
3. Strong at the back
(Image credit: Future)
Remember, you get more points for assists and goals from defenders. If you're feeling like parking the bus, this might be the philosophy for you.
The ever-presents in the Premier League tend to be defenders and goalkeepers. With that in mind, you can do a lot worse than picking the ones you think will perform, giving yourself a back-five formation and then choosing smaller talents up the pitch.
While this is a good philosophy for relying on those appearance and clean sheet points, the bigger values might be harder to come by. Those weeks that someone captains Salah and he gets a hat-trick? You're unlikely to have those. How strong is your nerve?
4. Team Chemistry
(Image credit: Future)
So many managers worry about whether or not their players are even going to play. So why not bring in your starting XI's replacement onto your bench, too?
When executed well, this idea is fantastic. Look at our team above from last season: we had three Manchester City players, so we were guaranteed points if they're on a good run and rotating their XI. We had all three Arsenal strikers and they're a team that don't get many goals from midfield. If Robert Sanchez of Brighton were to miss a game, we had his deputy; if Timothy Castagne was out, Luke Thomas probably replaced him.
The one issue is the obvious one, however. If Leicester, Brighton, Arsenal and Brentford all lose – a big possibility last season – then none of our defence, attack or goalkeepers would score highly. Of course, you can't just pick players from in-form sides either – that'll be too expensive.
Use this tactic if you have a good feeling about a team as a whole. Maybe Brentford are underrated or Arsenal are on the up? It might also be a tactic to hedge your bets when trying to rack up points early.
5. Focal points
(Image credit: Future)
Identifying a team's focal point should be something you do with any FPL signing. Here, we've built an entire team of them.
For example, Bukayo Saka is Arsenal's best player and one of the best players in FPL. Salah and Bruno are penalty-takers. Everything goes through Grealish and Lanzini when they play, meaning assists are likely. Last season, we had Burnley defenders since they were more defence-minded than Leeds, for example, while in Toney, Calvert-Lewin and Pukki, we had three strikers likely to play in one-striker systems and therefore not share as many goals as teams who play with two up top.
This philosophy means that you look less at the individuals involved and more at the tactical set-up of the teams in the league. The downside, however, might be that you're not great at identifying or second-guessing what managers are going to do.
Maybe you're going to need a mix of philosophies to manage this FPL season…
Mark White has been at on FourFourTwo since joining in January 2020, first as a staff writer before becoming content editor in 2023. An encyclopedia of football shirts and boots knowledge – both past and present – Mark has also represented FFT at both FA Cup and League Cup finals (though didn't receive a winners' medal on either occasion) and has written pieces for the mag ranging on subjects from Bobby Robson's season at Barcelona to Robinho's career. He has written cover features for the mag on Mikel Arteta and Martin Odegaard, and is assisted by his cat, Rosie, who has interned for the brand since lockdown.
