Why every Fantasy Premier League manager faces a season-defining moment

During the course of a FPL season, you are likely to make a number of errors of judgement – as the hit song goes ‘I’m only human after all’. We were given a timely reminder of this last weekend!

We should arguably have been celebrating. A hat-trick from the newly acquired Josh King and a brace from Oumar Niasse, who had started the game on the bench for the Tigers, saw us progress to an overall position that was just outside the top 1% of all managers. However, Harry Kane’s injury in Gameweek 28 reminded us of where our Fantasy Premier League season took a significant turn for the worse. Kane’s injury was a bitter pill to swallow and brought back memories of the major mistake we had made during the earlier part of this FPL season.

Despite bringing in Alexis Sánchez for Gameweek 4, we transferred him out ahead of Gameweek 11, following news of an injury that he had endured while on international duty with the Chilean national side. We were feeling smug for a week or two…until Sánchez produced returns of 14 points and 23 points to make a mockery of us!

His injury had be blown out of proportion and we had taken the bait.

Kane, however, is likely to miss around 5-6 weeks, while Oumar Niasse is ineligible for GW29 when Hull City face his parent club Everton and Robert Snodgrass, another of our current squad members, is also a major injury doubt.

The doubts about the availability of Snodgrass and the wellbeing of Philippe Coutinho certainly heightened the temptation to bring in either Henrikh Mikhtaryan or Son Heung-min but going with just one recognised striker simply wasn’t an option and taking hits at this stage of the season seems a bit unwarranted, with our wildcard still burning a hole inside our pocket!

Sunderland looked destined for the drop and there is only one player that can possibly save them – Jermain Defoe. We’re going to take a chance on the veteran striker, in what can only described as a season-defining run of games for the Black Cats.

Motivation should never be under-estimated at this stage of the season. A home game with Burnley is followed by trips to Watford and Leicester City. Defoe will need to deliver in those game, otherwise Sunderland looked destined for the drop!

Romelu Lukaku retains the captain’s armband.

The FPL season can be long and unforgiving but documenting mistakes is certainly the way to progress at this game… Rag’n’Bone man’s inspirational song certainly hit a nerve with us!