A full week since the last blog update as I was concentrating on getting my new Winter Key Strategy out of the door for the members area.
These are long and detailed analysis pieces on the next few months ahead and how best to maximise your profits (this time covering November to the end of January).
By all accounts the previous three since the site started in February have smashed it so it’s important to keep that record going!
"I felt it was necessary to offer my congratulations on your site and the overwhelming success of the latest strategy. This strategy alone has made me well over £10k, so I'm very happy as you can imagine! In fact, I've broadly followed the past 3 strategies and each has proved more lucrative than the previous."
When you get a period of success it’s important to take a moment to celebrate it. But when that’s done the past is the past and you’ve got to keep making progress.
The trick is to lead rather than follow the market. To know where the market is going to be weeks or months from now, plant a flag on it, and wait for others to come to you. You will never find the best profits on your social media timeline or in a big chat group.
By the time a trend is freely discussed and common knowledge, you are playing catch up and feeding off the scraps. Even if you think you are “on it” relatively early in the discussion, someone else was there first.
This time, it was big, early, aggressive buys of the performance heavy hitters particularly with Euro 2020 involvement. This is obvious now, very much not obvious to many in July and August. Timing makes all the difference.
Even less obvious was exactly who those players were and through hundreds of hours of detailed scouting over pre-season and early season in the members Scouting area I was able to identify them before their good scores appeared on performance scoring.
It’s too late waiting to see the score because when they strike it big everyone knows already and the best profit is often gone.
That powerful combination of looking ahead and getting your analysis right is, for my money at least, the key to the best profits on FI.
Risers
The "Flying Fullbacks"
This is one of those curious mini-trends that sweep the market usually for a short time every so often.
It’s often sparked by one player doing well and then people saying “if X is worth that then Y must be worth at least this”. It’s a terrible way to value a player but that’s for another time.
In this case it’s Trent Alexander-Arnold (more on him below) which has led people to cry “flying fullbacks are the new Performance Kings!”.
What is particularly crazy about this is you are essentially saying “Defenders who cross and assist are good!”. This is not news.
Anyone paying attention knew this 3 months ago and it was one of my first comments within minutes of the new scoring matrix was announced in my Live Blog.
Newer traders have an excuse but the veterans don’t, we should know these things!
It’s also common in these situations for people to look further and further down the pecking order until what is being bought has nowhere near the quality of the original player they are being compared to.
With TAA in particular, his “quarterback” stats like crosses/long passing in particular have soared in the last 6 matches or so. These numbers have appeared as one offs before but then disappeared and they are now consistent. He was good before but he’s even better across the last 6 games.
In fact, these numbers are near unique for a full back across the big 5 leagues, with only a handful getting close and a chasing pack who are offering maybe 50-60% of what TAA does at the moment.
On his old numbers I questioned whether £4 was great value and at the time that was valid. But now? This improvement would easily warrant £4 as if this continues he’ll be a very regular challenger.
At £6 and post-improvement we are probably in around about the same situation, he’s good and there are far worse holds but £6 is a lot to pay and the opportunity cost is very high.
And there isn’t really scope for further improvement unless he was to develop super powers. There is also a risk that they fall back to “normal” levels i.e what he has shown in his previous career outside the last 6 games.
The main point here is not to get carried away with the comparative values and frenzy of buying.
You can find some kindly priced full backs out there for sure that are good value. But before long with these things people are holding up lumps of coal and claiming it is gold.
Unless you really know the difference from analysis of the real match stats you should be cautious.
Fallers
Angel Di Maria
A bit of a savaging for Di Maria as he slumps from £2 to £1.76 after rising from an astonishing 96p just a month ago.
There is no clear reason but there are a number of factors that are interesting to chew over.
Firstly, after a big rise you can often expect a pullback with any player. Traders take profits and it’s normal.
Also, particularly recently, (and this is a general thought more than about Di Maria in particular) we have seen lots of “hype chaser” personality types feeling forced out of the youth area and pushed towards the performance area of the market.
As a major generalisation, I don’t generally consider many of these “chasing” or “hype trading” personality types to be particularly loyal! Their support is welcome when they pass through your area of the market but it can also be quite fickle because you can rely on them to always chase the next big thing.
Back to Di Maria, he probably also had plenty of backers for the two match game day on the Friday with people expecting a near guaranteed win and when that didn’t happen you see them pulling out.
And then many people can get nervous when they see an older player dropping. The market has become more accepting of age and there was huge profits available from July to now for those who invested in the elite veterans (I did!).
But people should be a bit wary of age and older players will always be more vulnerable to a bit of short term disappointment.
But make no mistake, Di Maria is a superb FI player and if he maintains this seasons form he will be a regular challenger, his excellent performance scores so far are no fluke.
He’s up there with the elite midfielders who can easily steal a Gold Day Star Player so I think overall, £1.76 looks excellent value.