Every season millions of us sign up to try our hand at managing a fantasy football team. The official English Premier League game (FPL - http://fantasy.premierleague.com/) alone had over 2.6 million players last year. Often, it begins as a fun challenge for bragging rights amongst friends or co-workers, but for some of us, it becomes an all-out addiction!

For any of you who don't already know, the game basically involves picking and managing a team online of individual players from actual clubs (who have assigned values, like a real life salary cap) who are given a weekly amount of points based on how they perform (i.e. if they play certain minutes, score or set up a goal, don’t concede goals etc.). It’s essentially a prediction game and your score depends on how well you can predict some of the outcomes of actual matches.

Last season, my team 'Ranieri's Ghost' spent half of the season in the top three globally of the FPL, and eight weeks in the number one spot. Unfortunately for me, I ended up not being able to hold on to win the whole thing, finishing in sixth, but along the way I learnt a whole lot about how to strategise and approach the game. 

As well as some good old fashioned luck, it takes a lot of effort to stay on top of the countless variables which you need to consider in order to compete with the FPL addicts out there. Who are the new signings? What are the new coaches doing when it comes to playing style, formation and team selection? Who is in form, and who is struggling for match fitness? Which players are picking up the bonus points awarded each game? ... and that's just a start, there is almost infinite complexity the more you think about it.

This blog will give readers regular updates throughout the season, to help you to keep up to date with what is happening in the FPL world. The aim is to assist you with your weekly team decisions, without having to dedicate ALL of your free time to the game...and of course, without having to watch all of those matches at 2am on a Sunday or Monday morning!

There are some amazing game stats and tools out there to help fantasy managers, and one which I use all of the time is FourFourTwo's own StatsZone (http://www.fourfourtwo.com/statszone). Utilising Opta stats, it is an absolute goldmine of information which can paint an incredible picture of how teams and players are performing. For example, scoring in the FPL game has traditionally been dominated by attacking players. By showing  you which players are creating the most chances for their teammates and taking good shots at goal, StatsZone can give you a very good idea who the players are that you should be considering for your team. 

Coupled with the numbers side of things, I'll also give some insights into what the FPL community are talking about, all important captain choices, upcoming team fixtures and form, and issues like how to use wildcards effectively, finding hidden gems and out of position players, and much more. I hope you'll enjoy reading, and dominate your mini-leagues!