Mixing Premiums and Value
Premium players are safe picks. Yes, they’re expensive, but you can be pretty sure they’re going to get you a decent haul of points. However, with a £100m budget in the game, you can’t just pick premium players; you need some cheaper players that are going to be good value.
Lauren Hemp, Ellie Carpenter, Bunny Shaw and Alexia Putellas are all examples of premium players; they’re all £7m or more, but have all returned at least 40 points in the first 5 matchweeks. It’s therefore unsurprising that all of these players are each in at least 30% of fantasy teams.
As for finding cheaper players that are good value, that’s a harder skill, and one that no fantasy manager will ever perfect. The game’s top scorer, Océane Hurtré (53), is only £6m. Even the most loyal Birmingham City supporter wouldn’t have predicted one of their players would be topping the list. And considering she’s selected in just 9% of teams, many fantasy managers still can’t quite believe it.
The best value player in the game (value = points per game / £m) so far this season has been Newcastle United’s Kaitlyn Torpey. Last season she would’ve scored just 19 points, so it was fair that she was valued as the joint-cheapest player in the game at £4m. Five matches in, Torpey has 43 points (more than double her total from last season) and is at 12% selection. If you needed value in your team in Leg 1, Torpey was the best player to pick.
But moving forward, what can we learn from that? Am I telling you to fill your MW6 team with £4m players? Absolutely not. But having a mix of premium players and cheaper points-scorers is certainly the way forward. With the unexpectedly high number of low-value players scoring a high number of points, it may sometimes be the case that you don’t even need to spend your full budget to get the best team possible.