FanDuel Fantasy Football: Premier League Week 1 Picks

The Community Shield is in the books and all those lucrative foreign friendlies have concluded. This means two things: Gary Lineker is doing his final few press-ups before he has to go on national television in his underwear, and the 2016-17 Premier League season is a matter of days away.

This Saturday, some 104 days after Leicester City pulled off one of the most unlikely wins in title history, you have the opportunity to join in on the next generation of fantasy football.

Unlike regular fantasy competitors that lock you in for an entire season, FanDuel takes place over a single day of Premier League action. Armed with a £100 million budget, you pick a starting XI from any given matchday, with the aim of testing your managerial credentials—and winning cold, hard cash.

You can play for money—there's over £20K to be paid out to the best fantasy managers this Saturday alone—or you can play for free.

Do you have a friend who quotes Inverting the Pyramid a little too much and needs to be put in his place? Well, you can challenge him in a head-to-head duel—winner takes all.

FanDuel uses OPTA stats to measure every player’s true on-field contribution, so every kick of the game counts. This means you have to think beyond the regular fantasy tenets of goals, assists and clean sheets. With this in mind, here are a few players who could be big FanDuel performers on the opening Saturday of the Premier League…

FanDuel player pick: Andre Gray
Club: Burnley
Position: Striker
Opposition: vs. Swansea
FanDuel value: £7.4m
2015-16 Goals: 25
2015-16 Assists: 9

Alright, so Andre Gray has never played a Premier League game. He’s also spent much of his career in non-league football, but he made the step up to Burnley last season and repaid their faith with 25 league goals and a Championship Player of the Year Award.

The temptation is to compare Gray to Jamie Vardy—and all signs suggest he is the Clarets’ greatest hope of retaining Premier League status. He’s also a fantastic value option for your team in Week 1.

The 25-year-old has been in fine form during pre-season, and he will only take up £7.4 million of your FanDuel budget. That makes him significantly cheaper than many other forward options on Saturday—it’s nearly half of what Sergio Aguero would cost you (£14 million).

Gray is playing against a Swansea defence that conceded in each of their final five Premier League games in 2015-16. Consider the fact that every goal is worth 15 FanDuel points and assists are worth seven, and it would seem that Gray will offer a pleasing points-to-value ratio.

FanDuel player pick: Kyle Walker
Club: Tottenham
Position: Defender
Opposition: at Everton
FanDuel value: £8.8m
2015-16 Tackles: 87 in 33 games
2015-16 Interceptions: 92 in 33 games

If you gave Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham a cursory glance last season, you’ll know that the Argentinian manager likes to squeeze the most out of his full-backs.

During Spurs’ drive toward Champions League football last season, Kyle Walker averaged 2.6 tackles per game and 2.8 interceptions per game. Under the FanDuel scoring system, tackles earn you two points and interceptions earn 1.5. And in these two categories, Walker outperforms his similarly priced teammate, Danny Rose.

These are the kind of peripheral statistics that can be the difference between victory and defeat on FanDuel. To quote a popular supermarket chain: Every little helps.

Walker’s real value, however, lies in his tendency to push up the field. There, he can create chances (worth three points each), draw fouls (0.5 points each) and put crosses on the head of Harry Kane for those assists that will bag you seven points apiece.

So those are our player picks. The message here? Goals and assists are very important, but remember to consider the players who bulk out their OPTA stats through other means.

To learn more and sign up, visit FanDuel.co.uk. If you enter the promo code “BLEACHER” when you sign up, FanDuel will refund the entry of your first contest up to £10. There’s nothing to lose!

So what are you waiting for? Head to FanDuel.co.uk or download the app to get started.