MEMBERS QUICK START GUIDE
WELCOME!
The best way to think of your membership is like having an assistant manager.
Members run their own portfolio, but I will do a lot of the heavy lifting, taking much of the burden out of trawling through spreadsheets and analysing the market. (Or, take away the guilt of not doing that because you are too busy!).
Through weekly Scouting, I’ll let you know who the best value players are, who they aren’t, and when something important changes.
I’ll provide advice on strategy for the months ahead, covering each phase of the season and every major event.
And I’ll cut through the often contradictory social media chatter, picking out the trends ahead that really matter.
I’ll also provide regular features on the best players in the CL, ineligible leagues, IPOs, FI suitable wonderkids and much more.
Below, I’ve given a quick summary of each section so you know how to make best use of the site, and when you can expect content updates!
KEY WEEKLY SCHEDULE
These are the key weekly updates to note. There is often much more, depending on what is happening in the week and what I think will be most useful to members.
- It’s easy to see what’s new – the Dashboard quickbar always links to the latest content:
- Monday – Full Scouting Update covering all 5 leagues, usually by 7pm.
- Tuesday – State of the Market article
- Wednesday/Thursday and sometimes Friday – A feature, Champions League/Europa/Euro 2020/FI suitable wonderkids etc
- Sunday – Scouting highlights from Friday/Saturday, usually by 6pm.
- There will usually be no content on Saturday as my day off.
REGULAR CONTENT
- Key Strategy – In depth strategy guides for each phase of the season. Typically covers Summer, Early-Season, Winter, and Late Season.
- Guide Pricing – Monthly analysis of price movements and what that tells us about trends and player value.
- Transfers – Like any good Chairman, I like to wrap up transfer business early. Full updates of the transfers section will usually come in months approaching the window, giving members ample time to prepare their portfolios in advance.
- Tournaments – Full coverage of the big tournaments like Euro 2020, with breakdowns of the best players. Detailed coverage during the tournament, identifying the best performers at both the elite and cheaper punt ends of the market.
- Analysis of Major Events – Whenever a big announcement happens, like bonuses or performance scoring changes, check in for Live Blogs and detailed breakdowns, including which players will win or lose.
PLAYER RATINGS
In Scouting, I often link to my 
player rating system. This is my judgement of a players strength in the FI performance scoring system. This is based on thousands of hours of assessment of real match data.
would be considered a good performance player, whilst they won’t win every week, you can expect competitive performance scores perhaps 4-7 times per season.
is very strong, and I do not give these out easily. A player will be showing consistently exceptional stats and might be expected to challenge 7-10 times a season for match day dividends.
is elite, reserved for a handful of the absolute best performance players.
Anything less than , and big performance scores will likely be rare events.
I give seperate ratings for current and potential performance strength. Usually, a player with high potential but a low current rating will need a move to a bigger club, or at least a significant tactical switch to achieve that potential.
Player ratings are updated as I go through Scouting, with occasional big refreshes to cover the more obscure players.
GUIDE PRICES
How do you know how much a player might be worth if they start performing well?
How do you know when a player is overvalued and you should sell?
Complicated questions. And it depends on exactly how strong they are, and how far they meet the trends ahead as to what price they deserve.
To help, I produce Guide Prices on the Dashboard.
I give two Guide prices – True Value and Market Value.
True Value is the rational price of a player in this dividend structure – what they are really worth.
Market Value is a different measure – what people are actually willing to pay!
Those two figures can be very different and it is well worth understanding both and how they can be used for successful trading.
I update these regularly – for more information on Guide Pricing you can search for the latest Guide Pricing articles or see the very first one by clicking here.
TOP TIPS FOR SUCCESS
Members will have an advantage in knowing the real quality of performance players, and good insights into the trends ahead.
But the way that you manage your portfolio is also key to success. Two traders could pick exactly the same players, but end up with very different results if they carve up their portfolio differently!
I get sent a lot of portfolios on Twitter and where the holder is underwhelmed with the results, there are almost always two common themes.
Portfolio Balance
Making sure the portfolio has the right number of players for you to manage, and crucially, with the right amount of money allocated to each.
A common approach is buying the same number of shares in each player. It can make you a fairly passive trader almost by accident. This can be fine if this is what you intended. But this way, your portfolio can be too top heavy, and your cheaper and potentially higher returning trades don’t have enough cash in them to get you paid when they do well.
When seeking more ambitious results, I therefore recommend having a target % of portfolio value allocated to each player instead. I have a guide on this here.
Two steps forward, one step back
Lots of people tend to make money on some trades but then take beatings on other players, ending up with limited progress.
This usually reflects a gambling mentality. Chasing hype, following the latest social media “must have”. Look at the pre-season results to see what happens to “must haves” after they have had their breakout moment.
Our primary objective is to maximise gains. We talk a lot about making profit. We don’t talk enough about minimising losses. It’s crucial. Not only did your loss making player lose you money, or spend 6 months stagnating, that was a lost opportunity to use that money productively.
If you ever wonder why some people have been making 200%+, and others struggle to beat the market at all, this is why.
This is why I share my Key Strategy and weekly State of the Market Updates with members. My objective here is to help us trade ahead of the market and be leading it, not following it.
One of the most important skills to have is to be able to see a player you don’t own flying, see everyone chattering about it on social media, and be able to leave it well alone and not let it bother you.
If someone won a gamble and is crowing about it, it probably means they lost a few others and didn’t tell anybody!
Our overall results will be the sum total of all our decisions, not just one trade.
See my public blog on the 18/19 season where I made a 220% profit in this portfolio. Picking the right players was very important. But equally, the reason for this great return is that it almost never took any losses. And when it did, they were very mild.
In trading, not losing money is as important as making it.