Max Littleproud, a 28-year-old maths teacher from Manchester, finished fifth in the world last season, storming to the title in the BBC Sport FPL league and winning the famous Fantasy 606 trophy.
He reached first in the world in the second week of January, spent 22 weeks in the top 15, 18 weeks in top 10, and three as first in world.
“Towards Christmas I realised it was going to be a special season but I was waiting for it to all come tumbling down,” says Max.
“I took a two-week holiday to Japan, with 3am deadlines, and I was getting a bit too stressed out so I told myself, ‘I’m not interested in this while I’m on holiday, this is where my run ends’.
“But I ended up watching footy on the plane over! In the end it got so nerve-wracking I had to delete X from my phone towards the end of the season.”
Unlike many FPL managers, Max avoided a lot of FPL content and focused on “making my own choices”.
“Everything I did last season was purely gut instinct,” he adds. “I tried to be mindful of doing my own thing and not being swayed by various sources – I avoided YouTube and wasn’t on X for most of the season.
“Even though I’m a maths teacher I stayed away from statistics, you can get bogged down in stats and over analyse.
“Luckily things fell my way, although you’ve got to put yourself in a position to be lucky. I got away with a few rogue decisions. I picked Everton’s Ashley Young for six weeks when nobody else had him and he got me more than 60 points in those weeks!”
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