Nathan Bannister was talking to BBC Sport’s Ciaran Varley
When I meet new people now, I’m often introduced as the FPL guy. I’ve played the game for five years and this is the best season I’ve had by a mile. I finished around 13,000th the season before last, which is still really good, but nothing to shout about.
It becomes a real part of your life when you’re doing so well and makes me commit more to the research.
In previous seasons, I’d scroll though X a bit on a Friday and then make my transfers. I wouldn’t be thinking about the game all week. This season, FPL is something I consider a lot and it affects my mood heavily.
It’s weird knowing that if I suddenly drop off, I’ll lose a bit of what makes me unique.
Over the weekend, I watch as many games as I can. If one of my players is involved, I want to see how they perform, rather than just checking how many points they’ve picked up afterwards.
For the first couple of days of the week, I’ll review my decision-making process from the previous weekend.
Then I’ll look at what FPL content creators are putting out on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday, I’ll look at every single club’s press conference, checking who’s injured. Even if the player is not in my team, I want to know.
On a Saturday, I do my transfers at 10:30 – right before the deadline – so I have all my information up to date.
Throughout this whole process, I’m endlessly talking to friends and family because it’s very easy to get tunnel vision. My brother’s a massive FPL fan too, so we have phone calls for hours, just chatting about teams.
I also look five gameweeks into the future, thinking about who to buy and who to get rid of. It’s important to be aware of when fixtures land, because you have gameweeks where teams play twice and gameweeks in which teams don’t play at all.
I’ve planned to play my wildcard chip – which allows players infinite transfers – in two weeks’ time. Around wildcard weeks, I will build loads of drafts of different teams and compare them side by side. I’ve already got about 10 draft teams that I might use.
I trust my gut a lot too, because I try to bear in mind that it’s a game and it’s supposed to be fun.
My favourite part of FPL is the community. Everyone’s passionate about the game so we’re always sharing opinions and advice, trying to make the ‘optimal’ team. There’s no hierarchy to any of it, just people coming together.
