So I’ve been running my fantasy football team for three seasons now, and let me tell you – last week was the final straw. Woke up Saturday morning, made coffee, sat down to set my lineup… and COMPLETELY forgot Van Dijk was injured. Started him anyway. Zero points. DAMN calculator.
The Breaking Point
Right then I remembered my mate Dave ranting about assistant managers after his own lineup disaster. Did some digging and found these tools basically babysit your team for you.
- Tried FPL Helper first: Punching in my team ID felt sketchy but whatever. Instantly red-flagged Saka’s knock and flagged Chilwell
- Then Team Assistant: Nearly choked seeing how many points I’d lost last month from dumb bench choices – like that time I left Toney’s hat trick warming the pine
- Finally Manager Bot: Showed me three different formation options when Salah got ruled out 2 hours before deadline
Spent Saturday night comparing them like it was Tinder for nerds. All wanted cash for the good features but Manager Bot gave free injury alerts – SOLD.
Setting Up the Robot Overlord
Sunday morning setup took like 90 seconds:
- Pasted my FPL ID into the website (felt weird giving a stranger my team keys)
- Ticked boxes for: injury alerts, lineup predictions, suspension warnings
- Ignored the premium upgrade pop-ups – broke enough already
Monday 5:07am – ping! Notification on my phone screaming Alvarez was DANGEROUSLY close to rotation risk. Swapped him for Watkins right there in my pajamas.
Feels like cheating? Maybe. But after Watkins bagged 9 points that week? Not sorry.
Two Weeks Later…
Still checking the bot every morning with my coffee:
- Saved me from playing Cash when Villa’s defence collapsed
- Called Havertz as last-minute starter before anyone else
- Even noticed I’d accidentally triple-captained in GW1 – TOO late for that one sadly
Biggest surprise? My Excel spreadsheet looks pathetic now. All those color-coded cells… meaningless. Still manually tinker sometimes cause old habits die hard.
Would I pay for the fancy version? Nah – free alerts do enough heavy lifting. Might buy the bot a virtual pint though. If you’ve ever left points rotting on your bench? Stop torturing yourself.