Onside - Tales of a Football Lover #8

Yesternight the Premier League Season on 2021-22 started. Hopes, Aspirations and Predictions galore with fans excited to be back in the grounds cheering and jeering the teams on it.

And obviously, unless you missed the deadline of 11 PM IST, Fantasy Premier League is back.

Oh no.

This would be my 4^th year in succession of playing Fantasy Premier League and ‘playing’ is a very loose term of what I do.

First of all, let me review the team I have made and the controversy surrounding such platforms. Often it’s two fold – expecting a rival to do well, and expecting your team’s opposition to do well.

Thankfully, the second isn’t applicable right now for me, but I can see Xhaka from Arsenal, Salah and TAA from Liverpool and James from Chelsea among the direct rivals (choosing a City player beyond Ederson is akin to playing with fire since Pep loves the depth of his team to the detriment on any FPL connoisseur who sees his selection who was in the matchday squad last week come on in the 89^th minute for 1 point) in my squad. So, now that begs the question.

To get a good point total, I need these 4 players to do well. If these 4 players do well, their team might be in a winning scenario. So, did I just declare my support for Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea?

While on surface, it might seem like treason it’s not quite. For example, despite my hope that these teams get relegated every year or suffer horrible losses, history and pedigree sometimes wins out.

These players are stalwarts of their squad with impressive displays in previous seasons (Arsenal fans would differ on Xhaka I think, but he’s your captain now guys. So, best of luck I guess) and when building a best 11, you have to give your begrudging respect to them. Especially when you can pick only three from the club you support.

It’s the place I come from when I talk about Xavi, Iniesta and even Messi despite those characters having contributed to some of the worst nights in my football loving days. They are wonderful footballers and deserve to have that admiration from opponents.

I feel you have three stages in your seasonal fantasy football journey

The first stage is where you are doing decently, and hoping to win your respective groups or get a good position. The next one is where you are in denial, hoping that if you keep changing you can catch up. The final stage is resignation, either abandoning your team or including opposition players hoping they share your luck.

Initial stages, my philosophy is that keep players who aren’t playing your team that week. And if you start doing badly and reach Stage Three within weeks, then maybe start including more rival players hoping your bad luck transcends into them. Good to see Bruno somehow managed to escape that bad luck because I couldn’t find a reason to remove him.

Shame I can’t bring entire rival teams to my roster – would love if they could share my misery once the initial high is gone and you are 30^th in a 50-member group.