Leg 2 is soon upon us, and it's a fresh start for many players this season.
With unlimited transfers in Matchweek 6, it's one of the most important matchweeks of the season when it comes to getting your team ready.
There are a few factors that come into play here. We need to do some future planning, as we won't get unlimited transfers again until Matchweek 12. We need to consider whether BWSL2 players are worthwhile to include, due to a few blanks coming up. We need to predict which players will be available and who has picked up an injury. And crucially, we need to pick the players that are going to get us the most points - a forever impossible task that makes fantasy so compelling.
What is a Leg?
The WSL Football season is 26 Matchweeks, which is split into six Legs. Each Leg is 3-6 Matchweeks long. Matchweek 6 is the start of Leg 2.
If you've had a good season so far, that's great! You'll be sitting pretty in the season-long leaderboards, both in the overall rankings and in your mini-leagues. But if you've not had a good start to the season (or haven't even made your team yet), then the start of a new Leg is exactly what you need.
Each Leg has its own leaderboard, with prizes to be won for the top fantasy managers in each Leg. Because all teams get unlimited transfers at the start of each Leg, it's a level playing field; all managers have an equal chance of winning the Leg, and anyone can complete. There's also good news if you're in a public or private mini-league, because these also have their own leaderboard for each Leg.
Forward Planning
Matchweek 6 is the start of the longest Leg of the season, with unlimited transfers not returning until Matchweek 12. That means it's going to be extra important to pick players who are likely to return points consistently.
Firstly, opposition is a key factor. But don't just look at who your players are facing this weekend; I'd recommend looking at least 2-3 matchweeks ahead too.
Secondly, to have players who are likely to return consistently, they need to be playing consistently. That means not just picking players who score a high number of points per match, but players who are also unlikely to be rotated.
There are still 2 free transfers available after each matchweek. You can make more transfers if you wish, but with a cost of 4 points per additional transfer, it's best to avoid these if you can. For context, 19 of the top 20 managers in the overall leaderboard didn't make any additional transfers in Leg 1.
Underpriced Premiums
Generally speaking, the best-performing fantasy teams will have a mix of two types of players: Premium picks that give the maximum number of points, and Value picks that give a good amount of points compared to their cost. There are, however, a group of players who overlap into both categories.
I define a 'good value' player as someone who will average more than 1 point per match per £1m of cost. To get nerdy, I call it the Value Score (Pts per match / cost). The higher the score, the better. As a rule of thumb player with a score of 1.00 or more is 'good value'.
The best value player in the game is currently Kaitlyn Torpey, who is averaging 8.6pts per match for just £4.0m. That means her value score is 2.15, far above the benchmark of 1.00.
But there are some Premium players that are also good value. Lauren Hemp is perhaps the best example. At £8.0m she is the 5th most expensive player in the game. But 52 points in four appearances means she's averaging 13.0pts per match. Her value score is 1.63, so she's a really good pick. Some other high-cost players that have a relatively good value score are: Alexia Putellas (0.94), Ellie Carpenter (1.37) and Lauren James (1.20).
Fitness Concerns
After an international break, predicting whether a player is likely to play is a minefield.
For some players, it's pretty simple. They were playing for their club, got called up for international duty, played for their country, and now are back at their club. It's a safe bet that they'll be playing.
However, there are a number of players that are not so simple. Lucy Bronze is one of those players that is difficult to decide on. She's the third-highest scoring defender in the game (41pts) and has played a full 90 in all five matches so far. She was initially called up to the Lionesses squad, but returned to Chelsea with a "minor injury" that she sustained against West Ham, a match where she was not substituted off.
How minor is this injury? Was it more a case of load management than injury? Will Bronze miss any Chelsea games? These are all questions that could be answered in Bompastor's press conference later this week, or it could be a roll of the dice for fantasy managers. At the time of writing, Bronze is in 31% of teams, and has been transfered in more than she has been transferred out.
Backing the BWSL2?
In a word, don’t. Well, not for a few weeks; then definitely do.
18 players have scored at least 35 points this season, and 8 of them are plying their trade in BWSL. So why leave them out?
Well, it's only because of the fixture calendar. MW6 and MW8 are blank weeks for BWSL2, meaning there are no matches across the league. That means that if you have any BWSL2 players in your squad, they're guaranteed to score 0 points in two of the next three matchweeks.
My recommendation is to avoid BWSL2 until MW9, and then start feeding players back into your squad. It's a great opportunity to stack your free transfers. You get given two free transfers per matchweek, and if you don't use them, they'll roll over to the next matchweek, up to a maximum of 5. So, if you pick well in MW6 and don't need to make many transfers in MW7 and MW8, you could roll over your free transfers to use in MW9 to bring in more than two players.
Having a mix of BWSL and BWSL2 players in your team is generally the best tactic; if you pick well, then you'll get a few more points than sticking with one league. However, as only BWSL is playing in MW6 and MW8, I'd avoid BWSL2 players until MW9. At that point, it'll almost certainly be a good idea to get some back in.
