Fantasy Premier League tips from the world's best FPL players

How many FPL managers were celebrating when Haaland scored three successive home hat-tricks?!

Have you played your bench boost? When should you triple captain Haaland? Has Trippier got three bonus points again?

If you understand any of that then you're probably one of the 11 million people worldwide who play Fantasy Premier League, or FPL for those in the know.

It's the biggest fantasy footy game in the world, is free to play and is taken pretty seriously by quite a lot of people.

Newsbeat reporter Jack Gray is flying high at the top of our mini league but even he's no match for top dog Ali Jahangirov.

With not long to go until the end of the season, the 33-year-old from Azerbaijan is currently fifth in the overall standings worldwide.

'Big in Azerbaijan'

Ali, whose team is called FPL Gunz, was world number one as recently as Wednesday but is pretty modest and says it's partly down to "a little bit of luck".

But he admits it's also helped by "a little bit of planning ahead and maybe being engaged with all the team news and watching the Premier League games".

Ali lives in the capital Baku and says the Premier League is big in Azerbaijan.

"We have a big fan base of Arsenal, Manchester United, even Liverpool and Chelsea as well," he says.

"A lot of fans are following and watching every single game."

Ali Jahangirov has only been playing FPL for four years

Closer to home, Jon Ballentyne is a marketing manager from Cheltenham by day but by night he's another FPL expert who is currently sitting in the top 100 in the world.

"I've been playing fantasy football on and off for about 18 years across various formats," he tells Newsbeat.

"I started in my early teenage years, there was a school Fantasy Premier League and I remember it was a pen and paper exercise where you had the budget to work with, I was picking players like Thierry Henry and [Didier] Drogba."

For Jon, fantasy football is "one of the most entertaining ways to watch football".

"You're naturally invested in the game by having players in your fantasy team," he says.

"I'm competing against my mates in mini leagues and against a lot of other managers that take the game maybe a bit more serious than we should."

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So what are Ali and Jon's top tips if you need to catch up with your mates or work colleagues in your FPL leagues?

• Pay attention - Ali says you need to "follow the team news [and] the injury news of the players that you have in your team" in order to not get caught out by any surprises, while Jon says you "can't be missing deadlines" and it's worth taking time to understand the rules

• Be brave - If you've fallen behind, Ali thinks you have to go for a differential next week - so someone who isn't in many other teams. Ali recommends Arsenal forward Gabriel Jesus who's "not owned by a lot of managers" and scored twice last week

• Check fixtures - Jon says there are lots of fixtures to be rescheduled so "focusing on teams with fixtures in hand, such as Brighton, is a really good strategy"

• Play your own game - Not everyone can be top of the league so Ali says "as long as you have fun with it, I think your overall rank and finish doesn't really matter", which is easy for him to say when he's so good...

Jon Ballentyne is in the top 100 FPL managers worldwide

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no cash prize for the overall FPL winner at the end of the season.

Instead, the winner gets a seven-night break in the UK including VIP hospitality at two Premier League matches next season as well as a host of other gifts.

So what games would Ali go to if he manages to win the whole thing?

"I'm a lifelong Arsenal fan, so that's not a question for me. It would definitely be an Arsenal game," he says.

And back in the real footballing world, does he think his side can finally win their first Premier League title since 2004?

"Yeah I'm confident - [Manchester] City are right behind our back but I'm confident we can get it over the line."

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