FOOTBALL CLUB WORLD

With the season drawing to a close I thought it would be an appropriate time to ask a question that I've been thinking about in recent weeks - how would you improve Yahoo's current Fantasy Football experience?

Before you start reading my points below, I'd like to state that I'm not trying to sound ungrateful (although I probably will). I know Yahoo are giving us something for free and I honestly believe it is the best fantasy football game around. However, just like a football club, if you're not moving forwards you could find yourself in the Europa League, so there are always areas for improvement.

My feelings...

- Main issue by far; ensuring new players are added to the game as soon as they officially sign for Premier League clubs. There are still players (e.g. Sessegnon at Sunderland) who were brought in January, have been playing well/keeping clean sheets/scoring goals & still aren't on available five months later.

- I understand the points come from an external supplier, but there are often errors around SOTs, assists etc, key stats we rely on. Praise should be given that they are corrected retrospectively a lot of the time, but sometimes they aren't and those 3-5 points really do make a difference. It may not be Yahoo's fault directly, but it forms part of the game.

- The little bugs the appear once in a while, like randomly losing your saved discounts when clicking "undo all changes", should be ironed out once and for all. I believe there are caching issues on Yahoo's side that have something to do with this issue

- A huge call, but in my opinion Yahoo should get rid of the "barndoor"; the term coined by Jeremy & Neal regarding the opportunity to buy players before values go up after a strong performance.

It's something many people love and probably suits the niche game we're playing, but when you think about it it's a major disadvantage for the majority of fantasy football fans who cannot be glued to their computers on a Saturday evening, don't have smart-phones or those who live in different time-zones when the points come in.

I feel it would be far fairer if you could only buy a player once his points had come in and his value updated. Of course you should still be able to hold players at discounts built up over weeks but perhaps the game could be locked down between deadline and each points update to prevent people loading up on players before prices shoot up?

Contentious and undoubtedly risky as I know it's popular to the 10,000 of us who live and breathe it every week - but do we want more people to find this game, or do we like the fact it's quite exclusive? I actually find barndooring quite annoying at times when I have other things on, but know I need to do it to stay competitive. Would we/Yahoo like to attract more players and make the whole thing more accessible? Opinions welcomed on this one specifically.

- A lead on point; a less aggressive algorithm could be used when it comes to calculating player values to supplement the removal of the barndoor. Currently, player price rises can seem random/excessive (including the 7/8/9 game rule) and the majority of decent players can become unaffordable quickly (unless you barndoored them, hence my point above about fairness). Balance is the key in my opinion, give some structure. It makes some sense to the experienced player who's been at this for three or four seasons, but to a newbie the price jumps must seem mental.

- A better searching facility is a necessity. Currently we are limited by what we can search/sort by. You can't sort players by vital stats such as assists/successful crosses etc. This used to be available until a few seasons ago when Yahoo redesigned the front end, which brought positives and negatives.

- Stronger lines of communication between the game administrators and the people playing the game via a more comprehensive news section. We get little information from Yahoo when things go wrong/points delays happen/players aren't added and the official blog often admit they don't know what's happening either. Prime examples were the "no more double weeks" and "postponed games points" issues this season, both incorrectly reported. I think Yahoo lose a lot of potential players because of this, especially when teething problems occur early in a season - there are alternatives, so people just go elsewhere.

***and breathe***

Look, I know implementing all of the above is completely unrealistic, some of them are my own selfish ideas and wouldn't suit the majority, so really it's just a stream of thoughts. Improvements cost £££ and in the current climate I doubt Yahoo have bags of money to throw at a free fantasy football game. However, I honestly think they could improve the user experience and gain far more interest from the customers of the Official Fantasy Premier League game - currently 2 million FPL users vs 200k Yahoo (approx) - if they invested in just a couple of the issues I've listed above. e.g. adding players on time and improving communication.

They have the edge in terms of a wider variety of points scoring opportunities and the chance to make unlimited transfers each week is a fantastic feature. FPL is a more casual experience while I feel Yahoo draws in the true football fanatic in a way Pro Evolution drew us in over FIFA; we know FPL is a more polished package but Yahoo is more immersive. I guess if you could combine the best elements of both you'd have it cracked, but I'm sure that's easier said than done.

Your thoughts?

Cheers,
AM