Pre-Season Speculation and Ruminations

The football silly season is in full swing, with transfers, rumours and speculation filling the footy pages daily. Of course, this is also a fun time to be a YFF manager, as new signings represent a chance to imagine your early week line-ups with some new faces in them. Not only is the untapped potential of new arrivals enticing, especially if they are stars from another league, but new entrants in the Yahoo database almost always come with a cheap price tag. This will allow me to insert expensive player like Ronaldo or Cech from the start (holdovers' values normally return just below their previous season's price).

However, it is important to avoid the allure of inserting too many new-to-the-EPL players into your line-up, particularly unproven ones. As far as newbies go, I prefer players with a good pedigree - top performers in their former league, internationals, etc. I'm a little leery of players from lower leagues or promoted teams, or young/unproven players that earned transfers on their upside.