This is what the next 10 months of your life are going to look like.
August
You're excited. This'll surely be the season that you win the whole thing. Your 238th Gameweek 1 draft is definitely your best yet, and you won’t need to Wildcard until Christmas. Your mini-league rival suggests “making it more interesting” and doubling your wager. You agree. Why wouldn’t you? It’s free money. He always was a silly bastard.
September
A rocky start. Nobody could legislate for Brentford’s shocking form. And since when were Wolves so fucking free-scoring? “Everyone’s doing badly though”, you tell yourself, knowing deep down that it’s logically impossible for everyone to be doing badly in unison. Wildcard time. Still plenty of reasons to be hopeful.
October
Here we go. Your Wildcard team obviously didn’t do as well as your old team would’ve done - this is FPL, after all - but you’ve pieced together enough points to muster some green arrows. You start brainstorming the title of your book about winning FPL and settle on "Living my Fantasy". Will Netflix be interested? Probably. They'll have to get in line behind FMLFPL and that FPL Youtuber who calls his viewers virgins.
November
If Guns 'n' Roses are to be trusted, it’s cold and rainy outside, but you haven’t actually been outside since August. Still, you’ll take their word for if. All the more reason to stay indoors and study NPxGC/90 amongst defenders. You take a -8 to bring in Chris Mepham. He had two shots on target in his last game, after all.
December
Christmas time. Mistletoe and whine. You nurse your cheese-induced indigestion by pondering Haaland’s fixture congestion. Family members start to remark on your excessive phone usage. “It’s that fantasy thing” you hear your forlorn mother mutter under her breath. She doesn’t get it. Nobody does. You watch 72 goals go in on Boxing Day. None of them are scored by any of your players.
January
It’s the first blank of the season. Six matches cancelled - a proper zinger. You’ve planned for this. Free Hit lubed and ready. The smugness warms your cockles from the cold outside. You pile in on Sheffield United’s home fixture against West Ham, but it’s snowing up north and the game gets called off. George Baldock posts a video of himself doing a snow angel on the Bramall Lane turf and it makes you throw up. Meanwhile, your rival has inexplicably gambled on Palace away at Arsenal, who record their first win at the Emirates since the beginning of time. You immediately play your second Wildcard, three months earlier than planned.
February
More blanks. A few doubles too. It feels like you’re white-water rafting through the choppy waters of the fixture schedule, but your boat is made out of shit FPL players bound together by water-soluble red flags. You play your Triple Captain on Raul Jimenez because you had a dream he scored a hat-trick against Burnley. He fails to start.
March
The “big blank” - because apparently the others were just small ones. Chipless, hapless and helpless, you take a -12 to throw together a Motley Crew of seven players who all play one another, scoring 17 points in the process. Rank: 2.7m. For the first time in the season, you start to acknowledge that you might not win the whole thing.
April
Easter. Suddenly everyone is talking about Jesus being nailed, but you had no idea your Grandma was so concerned with Arsenal's No.9 dilemma. Some fortunate green arrows lull you into a false sense of expertise. You message your rival, who sits at 97k and nearly 200 points ahead of you, and ask him if he wants to double the wager. He accepts immediately.
May
Your Bench Boost in Double Gameweek 37 gives you your biggest green arrow of the season - from 2.1m to 1.6m. You throw the proverbial kitchen sink at Gameweek 38 in pursuit of a top 1m finish, captaining Angelo Ogbonna for West Ham’s must-win game against Man City. It’s a punt that surely cannot fail, you tell yourself.
Ogbonna gets sent off to a chorus of boos 9 minutes in. Man City go on to win 6-0, each pair of goals contributing to Ogbonna’s final -5 score.
You end on your lowest rank of the season: 2.8m.
Monday, 20th May. The gaping chasm of another football-less summer lies ahead of you. You stare into it - its vast, empty expanse stretching as far as you can see. For the briefest of moments you ask yourself a question that you should've asked eight seasons ago: is this really worth it? 'Course it is, you silly sod. After all, next season'll surely be the season that you win the whole thing.
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