In this new weekly feature I have started fresh with a £1k balance on day one of the new season.

The aim is to see how I get on when facing the same challenges that a new trader would.

I won’t have any help from the Summer bonus or the benefit of being able to work months ahead of the market.

We’ll get there eventually, but we all have to start somewhere.

I’ll be trying to show not just the trades but my thought process and reasons behind decisions I make. The specific players I pick are less important.

As I obviously have an existing portfolio, I will not make these exact trades but they will be tracked realistically. I will also own every player on this list for real so the selections will get my full attention.

I always say though, don’t blindly follow any picks you see from others including mine. Do your own research and if you see what I see, great, but you have to know why you have bought the player and be happy with it.

The 1K Challenge Portfolio

Portfolio Value: £1062.68
In the bank: £28.5
Value Increase from £1k: 9.08%

Portfolio Performance

We’ve had a good week with Aguero leading the way. 9% gains this early is decent and honestly better than I expected starting fresh.

We also picked up good gains as others caught up with me. This comes from being quick to crunch the numbers after a game and pick out the standout players first.

It has not been plain sailing though and I have some things to ponder.

Decisions

Sells and Holds

Ramsey is an example of an unexpected event that just comes from left field and gives you a problem to solve. I was aware of a background contract spat but I didn’t expect Ramsey to start getting dropped for it.

After a lacklustre opening game and being dropped for the second some traders started to waver. But I held tight. Why?

Two reasons. Whilst his performances aren’t great, his playing position is looking good. I was hoping he would be given a more advanced role this year and he has. The stats have not been stellar but we have to view that in the context of two very tough opening games and limited pitch time.

The schedule really opens up from here and they have favourable games with West Ham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Everton and Watford to come next. A goal or two in this kind run and we will be making gains.

Secondly, this contract spat is costing us pitch time but it is gaining us media coverage. In the event that this persisted it could develop into a January transfer issue involving a move to Premier League rival. Those are gold dust. So the issue is creating opportunities as well as threats.

We lost a little ground too on our early gains from Milinkovic-Savic, and Rony Lopes. SMS in particular had a lacklustre opener, and Lopes looked pretty good but was punished anyway. This is just noise and doesn’t matter to me. I’ve bought players with good pedigree and one poor game does not matter at all. We are betting on a players strong performance over a season or at least a number of games and that must be kept in mind.

Straight forward decisions to hold everyone in the end, but it needed careful monitoring of the players on pitch performance to make sure I was happy with that.

Buys

We only have a token amount left  in the pot so buying is not an option. We should still be window shopping though in case we do free up some bankroll. This is where the below watchlist comes in handy.

Next Week

Same as last week. We need to carefully monitor our 10 players in their next games. As always, we are not going to panic if things do not go our way immediately. Rather, we are looking for any red flags i.e a change in instructions or playing position that undermine the reason we bought the player.

We also want to be identifying new targets.

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