Fantasy Football season is well underway and you probably already hate it a little bit.
We've picked our teams, entered our leagues, and now it's the other managers we have to compete with as we aim to finally do a full season and try every week.
If you're new to the game or have been playing for years, you've definitely met a few of these guys:
Captain Hindsight
"Ah I was going to captain Jon Walters but at the last minute I went with Hazard." He says when Walters scores two penalties and gets an assist that one game every season, but in reality, he's just talking out of his arse. The "would have" manager, who would have won the league if he did everything that turned out to be successful, except he didn't. This year he's telling you about how he took Steve Mounié out of his team for Kelechi Iheanacho at the last minute.
The Wolf Of Wall Street
The type of guy who plays the markets and price increases like it's his job. He watches Match Of The Day every week looking for trends and trying to stay ahead of the curve "If I pick Simon Mingloet now he has an easy run of fixtures in two weeks, so I can sell him for a 0.2 profit in four weeks, and then I can buy Kane who's price will drop if he doesn't score against West Brom." It's just a game, man.
The Penny Pincher
While his squad might not look like a penny pincher's squad with Aguero, Lukaku, and Kane up front, it's because he's got relegation fodder in goal and a bench that has played a combined total of 14 minutes this season. A sucker for the big names, he goes cheap in defence and on the bench, and he never ever wins.
The Neglectful Owner
The lad who spends weeks picking a team during the summer, then never logs on to the website again. Typically found at the bottom of your league in March with a player starting as captain despite picking up a season ending injury in October.
The Livescore Addict
"Hang on I'm just checking the scores... 1-0 to Spurs! DID ERIKSEN GET THE ASSIST!?"
On his phone every two minutes to make sure none of his defenders got booked, it wouldn't be a big problem if he didn't commentate his checking of Livescore and make it sound like you're watching the classified results. Nobody else cares about your team.
The Casual Snake
You know the type, he doesn't really like football that much, but you needed numbers for your league and convinced him to sign up. And now it's February and he's top of the league by 60 points because of regular moments of jamminess such as accidentally picking John Ruddy as captain when he saved two penalties and kept a clean sheet.
The Mind Games Specialist
Also known as the filthy liar. This is the guy who will help you pick your squad, offering you lots of insightful advice and saying things like "You've got to have Henderson man, he's my captain this week" only to turn around and do the opposite of what he said he was going to do and ruin your team in the process. Not to be trusted.
The Guy Who Thinks He's Building An Actual Team
There's always one manager down the bottom of the league who picked a team like he was actually going to see them play a match. Schneiderlin, Wanyama and Matic in midfield because "They were a bargain at 5.5m!" Yellow cards after yellow card and he's given up after three weeks because fantasy football is "shit anyway".
Your Arch Enemy Who You've Never Net
The absolute worst fanatsy manager to come across is the one you don't know and have never met, but ALWAYS manages to get enough points to stay ahead of you on the leaderboard. "Who invited him to the league?" "Is he definitely a real person and not a robot?" And, "Is he taking the piss?" are all valid questions as his team slowly begins to look identical to yours just so he can stay ahead.
Typically if you ever meet him he's a lovely chap and you have a good laugh about it, but until then he's number one on the list of people you'd want to see murdered.
