Let me be honest with you. There is no magic formula. No secret algorithm. No single template that guarantees a top finish every season.
What there is, however, is a way of thinking about the game that separates the managers who consistently finish well from the ones who spend half the season wondering where it all went wrong.
Here is how I approach it.
1. Process over panic
The first thing to understand is that FPL rewards process over panic. It rewards the manager who spends twenty minutes on a captaincy decision over the one who goes with their gut at 11pm on a Tuesday.
It rewards the manager who checks the next five fixtures before making a transfer over the one chasing last week's points. None of this is complicated, but it requires discipline, and discipline is harder than it sounds when your rank is tanking and your mini league rivals are pulling away.
2. 'How' over 'whether'
Start by thinking about how a player scores points rather than whether they score points. A midfielder who takes penalties, wins bonus points regularly, contributes defensively, and rarely misses a minute is worth far more to your squad than a flashier name who hauls a banger every four gameweeks and disappears in between. Build around reliability first and upside second, not the other way around.
3. Fixtures, fixtures, fixtures
Fixtures matter more than most managers give them credit for, especially in the opening weeks of the season. The early gameweeks can shape your entire rank before September arrives, and a premium asset stuck in a brutal run of away games at title contenders can cost you weeks of progress before they find any rhythm. Map out the first six fixtures for every team in your squad before you finalise anything. Do this every single week when you are making transfer decisions. It takes ten minutes, and it will save you countless headaches.
4. Captain holds the key
Captaincy deserves its own conversation because it genuinely cannot be overstated. Double points from your captain means a single decision defines your week. I have had gameweeks where nine players barely contributed and still posted a score worth smiling about purely because the armband went to the right player. The reverse is equally brutal, and there is nothing worse than watching a popular alternative haul while your captain sits on eight points. Take it seriously every week without exception.
5. Think hard about Haaland
Now for the one that trips people up more than almost anything else. Ownership. Erling Haaland is over 70% owned heading into this season. Seventy percent. And right now, I am building a Bench Boost Gameweek 1 squad without him. Not because I think he will blank, but because it suits my squad structure and chip strategy at this particular moment. The lesson here is simple: ownership figures tell you what other people are doing, not what you should be doing. Pick a player because you believe in them. If you are putting someone in purely because you are scared of what happens if you do not, that fear is not a strategy. That is just noise.
5. Beware new signing syndrome
New signings are another annual trap. Pre-season excitement has a way of inflating expectations for arrivals who then spend their first two months adjusting to a new league, a new system or a new country. Unless the minutes are genuinely nailed down, patience is almost always the smarter call.
6. Chipping forecast
Chips are powerful and they are finite. Have a rough plan for each one before the season starts. Not a rigid schedule, but an idea. Managers who use chips reactively after bad weeks tend to waste them. Managers who have a framework tend to deploy them at exactly the right moment.
7. Trust the process (even if you're in six millionth place)
And finally, be patient with your process. Last season I was ranked around six million overall after Gameweek 5. Six million. I changed nothing. I finished ranked 837. The process works if you give it time, and the managers who end the season at the top are almost never the ones who were making the most noise in October.
Trust yourself, do the work and back your convictions. The rest tends to take care of itself.
