Fantasy Premier League is a difficult game.

I have played it seriously for over five years, fretting over every transfer, having my chip strategy in place well in advance, planning weeks, sometimes months ahead. My highest-ever rank is 14,308, achieved two years ago, and my second-best was last year, finishing 23,004.

Both were enough to win my Sunday league team’s mini-league. It’s fair to say I felt I was pretty good at the game. That is, until my cat, Victor, in his first season playing, achieved a rank of 222 — 222! — out of almost 13 million players.

I say it’s his first year playing the game — this is actually the second season his account has existed — after my brother and I wanted another way to show our love for the cutest cat ever to exist (factual).

Last year, we ran his account with an arbitrary rule that he was only allowed two players from each club; a way to differentiate his team from ours and keep it fresh. However, we felt we were unfairly limiting Victor and rethought our system this time around. We wanted him to have the absolute final say over his transfers and strategy to show what he was capable of.

Each week, we give Victor several decisions to make. We write down a question on a whiteboard, divide the board into several choices, and put a cat treat on each of the sections. Whichever treat he eats first is the move we make for him.

For example, for Gameweek 24, one of the choices was who to captain. We gave him the option of Erling Haaland, Bruno Fernandes, or Gabriel, and he had no hesitation in choosing Fernandes, who, of course, ended up getting two assists and two bonus points against Fulham. Victor does not always choose the treat that is closest to him, just in case you thought we could influence the results.

After careful consideration of predicted points (and treats), Victor gives Fernandes the armband (Conor Schmidt/The Athletic)

How many questions we give him each week and the choices we provide him are at the discretion of my brother and me. We are his research team, doing the legwork before the big-shot CEO makes the final call. Like many CEOs, Victor provides no feedback, offers no rationale, and has yet to acknowledge our contribution.

Victor can sometimes be hard to reach, just like any busy savant. He is often asleep or outside when we want to ask him questions, so his squad management is a whole-family job. My mum and dad are regularly recruited to ask the questions that my brother and I have curated when we aren’t at home. I chuckled when my mum sent a video of him selecting to transfer in Harry Wilson at midnight on a Friday.

His team name, Cresposcular (FPL ID: 1137467), has contributed to his aura. Cats are crepuscular animals, meaning they are most active in hours of twilight, i.e., before sunrise or after sunset. Merging this with the former Chelsea striker Hernan Crespo creates the perfect FPL team name. I do begrudgingly admit that my brother came up with it…

So what has been the key to his success? The most important thing was to get off to a positive start. We presented him with four initial drafts and he ended up choosing a team without Mohamed Salah and with Haaland, which was the main reason for his strong opening.

A back three was the way for Victor’s Gameweek 1 team (Conor Schmidt/The Athletic)

However, it was not all smooth sailing. Like many FPL managers, he fell into the Florian Wirtz trap, trusted the DEFCON numbers on the Nottingham Forest defence, and selected Jeremie Frimpong, who got injured in Gameweek 1.

You will notice the inclusion of Jarrod Bowen. He is a player my brother and I frequently selected last season, and one that Victor has repeatedly trusted this year.

We like to think Victor is a West Ham fan because my mum had to trek to East London to collect him as a kitten almost four years ago. Perhaps his West Ham fandom explains why he has been less keen to watch football on TV this season.

Victor as a kitten, years before his FPL managing days (Conor Schmidt/The Athletic)

His major rank spike came in Gameweek 6, when he climbed from 262,390 to 36,841. Given that he started with Haaland, Victor didn’t have to Wildcard him in that week and could use his Triple Captain for 48 points.

Our approach to using chips is simple: if we think it would be reasonable to use a chip in a particular week, then we ask Victor the yes-or-no question. From that point onwards, he has had a steady stream of green arrows, despite his other chips not being as fruitful.

His Gameweek 11 Bench Boost only yielded 11 points, and his Gameweek 18 Free Hit gave him an average, rather than spectacular, score. He used his Wildcard in Gameweek 16, the main upside being able to get most of Phil Foden’s points before he became another casualty of Pep roulette. It also meant he brought in Igor Thiago before his points rush and chose fellow Brentford player Caoimhin Kelleher, who has since saved two penalties. (Incidentally, a goalkeeper I have owned has never saved a penalty in my FPL career.)

Only once have we made any transfers without his direct permission. It was during the chaos of Gameweek 23, when it was leaked that Foden and Haaland were both benched against Wolves at home. We had carried out Victor’s preferred moves of Matheus Cunha and Sepp van den Berg to Enzo Fernandez and Trevoh Chalobah on Friday night, and he had two free transfers remaining.

My brother, Sam, was the only person with Victor on Saturday morning. As news came in of the benchings, Victor decided that it would be a perfect time to throw up his breakfast that he had eaten too quickly (not an uncommon occurrence).

So Sam, while cleaning up Victor’s vomit, was in a panic as he had to make quick decisions about both his and Victor’s teams. He managed to transfer Foden out for Fernandes, but also needed to swap Dominik Szoboszlai for Elliot Anderson to afford it.

The faulty FPL servers allowed him to bench Haaland and captain Saka, but meant Fernandes was unintentionally left on the bench, which thankfully didn’t end up costing any points. Teamsheet leaks are bad for the game, but especially annoying when you have to manage a prima donna cat.

As I begin to write this piece, Victor is ranked 181st after another green arrow. He has since dropped to 222nd following Sunderland’s 3-0 win over Burnley on Monday night, but his decision to play Kelleher over Martin Dubravka was another stroke of genius.

Caoimhin Kelleher repaid Victor’s faith with 10 points in Gameweek 24 (Conor Schmidt/The Athletic)

His loyalty to Bowen is also finally paying off, with the West Ham forward scoring 36 points across the last six gameweeks. The pressure on Sam and me to continue giving him adequate options is rising.

When my grandad chose to name him Victor, perhaps he knew something we didn’t about his future FPL stardom.