Choose your captain for the week wisely

In Part Three of our primer on thriving in the TODAY Fantasy League, David Ngiau (david [at] mediacorp.com.sg) shows how important it is to rotate the captain’s armband among your players regularly.

SINGAPORE — There will be TODAY Fantasy League (TFL) managers who, despite letting their teams run on auto-pilot and occasionally checking back on their line-ups, will always find themselves near the top of the table.

They might hand Demba Ba the captain’s armband before rolling over and going back to sleep, leaving the boys be, and then waking up a few weeks later to find that they’ve topped the league that month.

That’s luck for you. But trust me, you will never emerge champion at the end of season that way.

I am not advocating wholesale chopping and changing of your team each week. After all, the TFL only allows you five transfers a calendar month, and those should be used when a player is sidelined for more than two games. However, a smart move to consider would be switching the armband around before the start of each gameweek.

Players who are made captains earn you double points for that gameweek. You don’t want to be the manager who left the armband on a player who was sidelined for a month.

We’ve already gone over the importance of scouting the fixtures list, and paying attention to who are the designated penalty-takers of the various teams. Now, apply that due dilligence to your pick as captain.

When Clint Dempsey was still at Fulham two seasons ago, he was on a tear after Christmas and among the top scoring midfielders.

Many fantasy managers were tempted to keep him as their captain for long stretches, but that proved to be a big mistake. While the American international’s record at Fulham’s Craven Cottage was stunning, he was hardly scoring in away games. Take note.

And then there are players like Gareth Bale, whose form both home and away last season was so stunning that it won him three Player of the Awards and has now inspired Real Madrid to bid over £80 million (S$156.4 million) for him.

However, if the transfer collapses, and Bale remains at White Hart Lane, do consider making him your captain, and leaving the armband on him even when Spurs seem to be the underdogs in a match — for example, when they travel to the Emirates to face Arsenal (Sept 1).

That is, unless you have another player like Manchester United striker Robin van Persie who will be facing Liverpool that same week.

Here’s another tip — use the bookmakers’ odds as a guide on who to pick as your captain.

If the odds indicate that a team are likely to score many goals against another, whether at home or away, and if you have a striker from that team in your first XI, make him your captain for that gameweek.

David Ngiau is Deputy Digital Editor at TODAY and an avid fantasy league player.

Join the TODAY Fantasy League at www.todayonline.com/fantasyleague for the chance to win US$500 Manager of the Month prizes and the US$5,000 Manager of the Season award.