Hi everyone! Well, we’re back! With a little under a month until first kick-off – Friday August 13th - I've taken the liberty of restarting the AnswerBank League at Sky Sports –
https://fantasyfootball.skysports.com/
(This is where I pretty much C & P last season’s blurb...)
Hopefully all the regulars will enter a couple of teams & a few more might fancy having a go this season. Don't worry if you know *nothing* about football but still want to join in - you can use the option to have a team selected at random. The facility to enter a 3rd team in January will also be available.
As last year, we're given £100m to spend & have unlimited transfers until the Match Day deadline on Friday 13th August, from then on you get 5 per week / 40 for the season. They've kept the "Overhaul" feature, which means that for one week in September & one week in February, *unlimited* transfers will be available, *not* coming out of the 40 per season allowance - this is always quite handy!
Info on all that ^ & more is here -
https://fantasyfootball.skysports.com/help
The section "Captain Changes" in that link ^ is a "must-read".
When you've picked a team (or two) yourself, or used automatic selection, name your team(s), then join the League - ours is called "AnswerBank" & the PIN you need to enter is -
8478433
From the site - "Team name needs to be 4 to 22 digits long and only consist of or using both letters and numerals" - eg, as I discovered, I can't have a hyphen.
You can then change the visibility of your team(s) between "Public" & "Private", depending on whether you want other Managers to be able to see your players. When your team is created, click the “Gear Wheel” on the pitch, then click “Change team to private”. You can also edit your team name there.
A note here - just because I'm called the League "Chairman" doesn't mean I'm given special powers. I can't see "Private" teams & I get no other privileges.
The following links can be useful (though as they point out, not necessarily definitive) to check for injuries and suspensions prior to game days -
http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/fantasy-football-injuries/
http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/epl_injury_table.php
I've left that 2nd link in for now, even though it's not showing anything useful at the moment - it might be "active" again nearer the start of the season.
The next link can be useful near to, or on, Game Days (though final updates can be infuriatingly late) -
http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/team-news/
Ok, I think that's covered everything needed to get the League going – I’ll post reminders every now & again, more often as the opening day nears.
I wish everyone lots of fun & good luck for the forthcoming season! :-))