Now that we’ve gotten a chance to see a starting XI from each NWSL team, you may be wondering whether you need to make multiple changes to your FNWSL team before Round 2. Remember, in FNWSL, you get one free transfer each round. You can make additional transfers for a cost of five points each, so you definitely want to weigh the pros and cons of each extra one. As requested by Adam on Bluesky, here are my thoughts on using extra transfers!
- I typically will only make an extra transfer if I plan on starting both players that week – no need to pay an extra five points for a player that will be on your bench.
- The one possible exception would be if I don’t have any outfield bench players likely to play in real life that week. It’s important to have at least one player on your bench than can fill in to make a valid formation if one of your starters unexpectedly isn’t active for a match.
- If I need to free up extra money to bring in a more expensive player, I usually make those changes across two weeks.
- At some point during the season, it may be necessary to bring in a certain “must-have” player. However, after only one week, and considering the level of parity in the NWSL, I don’t think you need to completely remake your team immediately (i.e. don’t panic if you didn’t start the season with Barbra Banda), but maybe make a long-term plan to bring her in if she continues racking up goals each week like she did last year.
- However, extra transfers only cost 5 points. Provided they don’t get carded, almost every player that starts a match and plays at least 60 minutes will return 5 points. So if you need to replace a player that won’t be starting for their NWSL team (e.g. for injury or some other reason), bringing in a starter is usually worth the extra transfer. For example, I have two players on my roster that did not start for their NWSL teams in Round 1: Payton Linnehan and Melissa Lowder (thank you to Jeremy for catching this one)! I’m probably not going to replace both of these players this week, because I still have 13 real-life starters on my team. Fortunately, Portland plays the first game of Round 2, so I’ll wait to see what the Thorns lineup looks like, and potentially bring in Spaanstra or another $75k forward for my one transfer of the week. Next week, I may do a GK transfer depending on how the situation develops at Bay.
What are your thoughts on extra transfers? Comment or Bluesky @mansersanswers!