Rotation risk – the words that set alarm bells ringing for Fantasy Premier League managers

With the holiday season fast approaching, the increased risk of rotation can have a huge impact on those fantasy football line-ups. Games will come thick and fast, meaning that club managers might be more tempted to give certain players a breather at specific times over the festive period.

When assessing potential picks, fantasy managers need to determine if:

• the player is a certain starter
• the player may feature from the bench restricting his number of minutes on the pitch
• the player is unlikely to get any game time at all if he’s not in the starting XI.

This is not as easy as it seems – take a look at Manchester United. How many players would you say are nailed-on starters since José Mourinho took charge? Perhaps four – David de Gea, Paul Pogba, Antonio Valencia and Zlatan Ibrahimović. All of his other midfielders/forwards can easily be classed as ‘rotation risks’ so why would you take the chance on any of them?

Well, the answer is simple – if you do and it pays off, you could easily gain some big points on your rivals by having what could be termed as differential plays.

This all brings us nicely to our selection dilemmas ahead of GW14. An injury to Coutinho was not helped by blanks from Daley Blind, Wilfried Bony (both unused subs), İlkay Gündoğan (excluded from match-day squad) and Andros Townsend (booked after appearing as a second half substitute) in GW13.

We cannot afford to make the same mistakes again but also appreciate that risks will have to be taken if we are to close the gap on the FPL leaders.

Strikers are often referred to as ‘fixture-proof’ or ‘flat-track bullies’ and Sergio Agüero probably falls into the former category. However, we feel that now is the right time to bring in Harry Kane and Kevin De Bruyne so we are prepared to sacrifice the Argentinian to make it happen.

Speculation linking Wilfried Bony with a move to China means that he will also face the chop – he was axed last week by Mark Hughes and is no guaranteed starter in GW14 – so Álvaro Negredo comes in as our final GW14 transfer. We are confident that Pep Guardiola will start with Gündoğan this week so Blind and Townsend get another stay of execution.

Club managers will often spring a  surprise but we’re confident that our selected starting XI will all feature from the off in GW14.

Kane gets the FPL arm-band and we’re expecting him to justify his inclusion by outscoring the aforementioned Agüero.

Will we regret our Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 14 choices?