I Should Be So Lucky

One of the topics often discussed in Fantasy Football is luck and how much of a part it plays in the game. I wanted to discuss whether luck really does play a part and from personal experience what I would and wouldn’t call luck. Usually the question of how much luck plays a part is coupled with a percentage score. This is just an arbitrary number and doesn’t really hold any value for this particular question. As we know, whether luck is part of the game is just a subjective view that will differ from one Fantasy manager to another.

As with any game I feel there is an element of luck and there always will be but as Fantasy managers we can minimise the luck needed with our research, knowledge and way we decide to play the game. Isn’t that half the reason we come to use Fantasy Football Scout? To research our team, bounce ideas off of each other and ultimately use it to our advantage?

My own luck

When I think of times that lady luck has been on my side this season, two incidents spring to mind. The first was choosing Sergio Aguero as my vice-captain when he scored 19 points against Spurs, only for Diego Costa to not feature (who was my captain). And the second was playing Harry Kane vs Chelsea for his 18-point haul, a moment none of us will forget in a hurry.

In the first example I can see the argument for saying it was lucky. I didn’t choose Aguero but still got him as captain for his biggest total for the season. On the other hand I made the decision to place Aguero as vice-captain because I believed he would be the man for the job should anything happen to Costa. Is that good management of my captains or complete luck?

The second example is one of the more (in)famous occasions of the season so far, playing Kane against Chelsea for 18 wonderful points. Many consider those of us that played Kane that day as lucky, after all why would we choose to play a striker who was up against one of the best defences in the league? I agree that for a lot of people benching him was the right call but in my case it was never going to happen. At the time I had purposely set up my team (and still run it like this) so that I never have to bench my strikers. I have Boyd as my fifth midfielder and he will forever remain just that, a fifth midfielder used to warm my bench. Is it still lucky that I played Kane in this case? No, not in this case. Did I think he would get 18 points? Of course not. Up until that point however he had a fairly good run of points (2, 8, 8, 12, 2) and always looked like nicking a goal so while I wasn’t confident of a haul, I was certainly hopeful he could get something.

Benches – Luck or Good Planning

Another classic argument for luck being a big part of the game is people getting players off the bench. It’s incredibly frustrating when your rival gets Moses off the bench who has just taken a penalty you weren’t even aware he was allowed to do, I get that. This happened in Gameweek 26 for many by the way.

But at the same time your bench is chosen with the knowledge that at some point those players are going to play and hopefully will score you some points while they’re at it. Building a decent bench with players that are guaranteed to come in and play is part of the game, and as much as we sometimes don’t like to admit, it can make or break a Gameweek. You can use it in different ways.

One way is to have a strong bench of players ready to come on in your hour of need. Another is to have a cheap bench in order to enable a stronger starting 11. I don’t think either is luck based, it’s simply a tactical decision we make as managers.

Conclusions

I think I’ll finish by stating that there probably is an element of luck to this game, none of us can deny that and we probably need a little bit of it every now and then. I do think we can minimise the amount of luck required to do well and ultimately we are the main driving force behind how our team performs over the course of a season. Luck can only get you so far and to reach the heights we are all aiming for you can’t rely on it.

I’d be interested to know what you think. Does luck really play a major role in the game? Is there a rule change that needs to be put in to change this? Should we get rid of bench points and vice captains? Do people use luck as an excuse for their own shortcomings?