Four-time top 50 finisher’s team reveal and guide to picking a Sky Fantasy XI

Fantasy Football Scout are delighted to be partnering with Sky Sports Fantasy Football this season – bringing you even more content on the popular, free-to-enter game.

Our resident experts Luke Williams and Niall Murphy have already uploaded a two-part 2021/22 Sky season preview and will be recording every week throughout the season so you get the very best insight and advice.

This week, Niall – who has finished 3rd, 15th, 17th and 42nd in a stellar career – reveals his first draft and strategy to picking a Sky team for the crucial first three Gameweeks of the season, before the Overhaul kicks in.

• New to Sky Sports Fantasy Football? Read Fantasy Football Scout’s official Sky beginner’s guide here  to get you started.

Pre-Overhaul Strategy

Before we get into the detail of my team, I believe there are a few pretty fundamental principles to picking a successful pre-overhaul team in Sky Fantasy Football:

1.       Forget the rest of the season

With the presence of the Overhaul – which is effectively a forced wildcard after three Gameweeks – remember, you’re only picking a team for the first few games. Even if you like the look of Teemu Pukki at 7.7m or Billy Gilmour at 6.9m, with Norwich rock bottom of the fixture ticker, you’re effectively gambling on them to score goals and dominate the ball against Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester City. I’ll leave you to price that up with your local bookie, but it’s a punt that I’ll not be touching with a bargepole. My advice would be to avoid teams like Norwich, Leeds, Wolves and Burnley until after the Overhaul, with some exceptions, such as a cheap goalkeeper or even Raphinha (8.3m).

On the flip side, Aston Villa, Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Leicester lead the way at the other end of the fixture ticker and all boast proven and good-value Sky assets.  What’s not to like?
 

2.       Captains are king… And one of them is probably Egyptian

Of arguably more importance in Sky than the difficulty of fixtures, is the way they fall within the Gameweek. Looking at the matches, Liverpool, Manchester United, West Ham/Leicester and Arsenal/Brentford stand out as being either optimal or required assets for early-season captaincies. This is illustrated by the very first game of the season where Thomas Frank’s newly-promoted Brentford take on Arsenal in the only game on Friday night.

Now, neither Arsenal nor Brentford have a stunning set of opening fixtures, coming in at 18th and 9th respectively in the fixture ticker, but you almost certainly want to start the season with one of their players. That’s because you are able to bank double points for simply having an asset on matchday 1 – meaning Arsenal and Brentford have an effective 4-for-3 advantage over other teams. Bruno Fernandes (11.8) and Mohamed Salah (11.9) or another Liverpool asset look favourites for the armband on at least a couple of the early-season matchdays.

3.       Regular starters or bust

Put simply, you only have three Gameweeks to amass points. If there are doubts over a player’s fitness or security of starts after pre-season, at this stage of the campaign, I would encourage you to body swerve. The last thing you want to be doing is picking a player who either misses the first two or three games, leaving you pointless, or who forces your hand to make transfers in Gameweek 1, with only a limited number of weeks to compensate for the use of a transfer.

Of course, injuries happen, and my advice would be to consider each swap early doors on merit. I’ll give you an example. Two seasons ago, Alisson was crocked in the very first game of the season against Norwich. Transferring him out at that stage gave 3 Gameweeks for another goalkeeper to gain enough points to justify a transfer. I assessed that to be worth the move and his replacement, Jordan Pickford, kept two clean sheets out of three. Great. Now, if the injury happened in Gameweek 2, I’d be less inclined to throw a transfer at it, and would barely consider it if in Gameweek 3.

Team Reveal