Fantasy Football Selection -Madness behind the method?? by @ryano83

We had a great email come through from @pojokmonas which spoke of the personal dilemma suffered by his mini-league opponent who, as a hardened Arsenal supporter simply cannot bring himself to pick Robin Van Persie in his Fantasy Football 11.

“A friend of mine, who loves Arsenal, was very disappointed that Robin van Persie moved to United. Last season, he put Robin van Persie as a captain, whenever he was available to play. This season however, he swore that he will never EVER play RVP, or like he calls the striker… (Editor: careful this is a family site! ha)

So far this season, he is still maintaining decent form in our fantasy mini-league. Regardless, when RvP plays well, you can be sure he always get mocked for his stand.

It doesn’t end here, there are plenty other people who have installed self-imposed rules on themselves.

There’s one team that always selects De Gea as a goalkeeper even through periods of rotation by Sir Alex. One manager never selects players when they are against Liverpool. Another always has to have three Tottenham players no matter what.

This subjectivity can cost a manager as I mentioned earlier. When a player is in form, valuable points can be lost by these rules. On the other hand, does it push managers to be more creative to find alternatives?

Are there any restrictions that you put personally on your team?”

We talk about the method behind the madness in many scenarios – but in this case it is clearly the other way around if we took a logical approach??

So what other self-imposed rules do people live by when it comes to fantasy football selection?? Certainly we’ve all heard of a similar dilemma to the Arsenal Fan-RVP selection issue. It’s not always a bad thing though… I know a good few Liverpool fans who swore blind they wouldn’t select Torres following his move to Chelsea – and in fairness that worked out for them ok last season!

My personal favourite are the die hard fans… We have in our mini-league a Derby County fan so devoted to his club he has Tom Huddlestone in his #FPL team week in –week out in some strange form of ritualistic homage to the man. While this is clearly questionable (Especially when he was on the long term injury table) I respect his dedication!

And it’s not just club rivalry or devotion!

From a personal point of view I have a self-imposed rule that I don’t believe in having more than one player, per club, per position. There have already been a few weeks this season where I could have done with both Hazard and Mata in my team! I know I am not alone in this rule, but it did get me thinking… what other rules do #FPL managers inflict on themselves??

A quick twitter poll threw up the following results – but there are more! Drop us a comment underneath and we will post them all on twitter.