PlayTheGame

In other fantasy leagues, any team could have any player depending on a transfer budget - so everybody owned Thierry Henry, which was not very realistic. In your PlayTheGame league, as in the real world, there will be only one Wayne Rooney, or Frank Lampard, and only one team can own him. Like the Premier League, your fantasy league will have a maximum of 20 teams, and the top-flight players will be distributed among them. What is more, the higher you rate a player, the more likely he is to end up in your team.

Each team will be allocated 20 players, of which 14 will be active at any one time. The players must fit into a 4-4-2 system of goalkeeper, right back, two centre backs, left back, right midfield, two centre midfielders, left midfield, and two forwards. The three extra active players - the substitutes - are a defender, a midfield player, and a forward.

Players can only be used in a position for which they are eligible. For example, at the moment you can only use Joleon Lescott of Everton as a centre back. But if he plays a Premier League match at left-back, he can play there for you too for the rest of the season.

It is not difficult to PlayTheGame but it is unlike any other fantasy football game. First, you will need to either create or join a league and then the fun starts.

Player Allocation Rankings
On this page you will see a list of all the available Premier League players. When your league was created, a date was set for players to be allocated to teams by the game computer. There is a random element in the computer's choice of the order of teams, but after that, each fantasy manager has a considerable influence over which players come his or her way. This is your chance to alter the pre-set rankings, which are based on last season's performances in the case of established players, or on predicted fantasy performance in the case of players new to the Premier League.

Because the other managers in your league will also be ranking their players, these moves do not guarantee that you will be allocated the players you want, but they improve your chances considerably. It is worth bearing in mind that the computer will make sure it fills your 14 team slots before it allocates your reserves. So depending on how your competitors' lists are ranked you may not have a particularly well-balanced bench.

Team management
Once the players have been allocated, you can pick your team for the opening weekend of the season. You can make team changes between Saturday's matches and Sunday's games, and again before the midweek matches. BUT BEWARE - each slot in your team can only be used 38 times. So if you have Lucas Neill in your team's right back position for West Ham's home game with Manchester City on Saturday August 11, then replace him with Gary Neville to take advantage of Manchester United's home game with Reading the following day, you have only 36 more starts for that position - yet every Premiership club has 37 matches still to play. Careful scrutiny of the fixture lists will be required to see where your resources can best be deployed.

The size of your squad may allow you to negotiate injuries, suspensions and loss of form - but you have two other recourses. First, there is the unallocated player pool. You can drop an under-performing player and sign a replacement. Or you can negotiate a player exchange deal with another manager in your league.

Scoring categories
PlayTheGame strives to capture the true value of players by tracking a number of statistical categories as well as qualifying those performances with the ultimate judge of any performance: the result. In order to capture the truest measure of all the players on the pitch, we have split the starting XI into two groups - one consisting of a goalkeeper and four defenders whose primary task is to stop the opposition from scoring and one covering the midfield players and forwards whose primary task tends to be the scoring of goals - and tailored their statistics accordingly.

Goalkeepers and defenders score points in five categories: clean sheets; goals/assists (goalkeepers can score goals – remember Paul Robinson’s against Watford last season); defence; average goals against; and team points. The first two are self-explanatory. Defence combines interceptions, catches, blocks, saves and successful passes.

Average Goals Against reflects the number of goals per 90 minute game the player’s team concedes while he is on the pitch. So that if David James plays the full 90 minutes of a 2-0 defeat, his average goals per game score is 2. If he keeps a clean sheet in his next game, his average drops to 1. If he concedes a goal in the first half of his next game, and is substituted at half time, the arithmetic gets more complicated – luckily the website does the calculations for you. (1.2, in case you haven’t worked it out).

Points represents the number of points gained by the team in any match in which the player appears. So if he is brought on as a 94th-minute substitute to waste time with the team leading 1-0 and does not even touch the ball, he still collects three points.

Midfielders and forwards also score in five categories: goals, assists, successful passes, average goals for and points. The Average Goals For stat reflects goals scored while the player is on the field, again pro-rated over 90 minutes. The Points stat works in the same way as for defenders and goalkeepers.

Scoring system
PlayTheGame uses a Rotisserie Scoring system, a name that has less to do with the roasting of chickens than the name of the restaurant where a group of supporters invented it.

Under this approach, teams are ranked from first to last in each statistical category with the highest point total available in a single category equal to the number of teams participating in the league. The lowest point total available for that category is equal to one. Thus, in a ten-team league, if a manager is leading in Clean Sheets, she is granted 10 points. If she is ranked second in Clean Sheets, she is granted 9 points, etc. down to 1 point for the manager who has the fewest Clean Sheets. This is done for all ten categories. The manager's overall score is determined by summing up the manager's points in each category. The manager with the highest overall score is in first place.

Therefore, the maximum number of points that a team in a ten-team league can earn is 100 (equal to the number of scoring categories (10), multiplied by the number of teams in the league (10)).

In the case of a tie, each team receives an average of the total points due i.e. in the above example, if two teams were tied for first in Clean Sheets, each would receive 9.5 points [(10 + 9) / 2 = 9.5].

Thus, to find a team's total score on a particular date, one must review their ranking in each of the league's chosen categories. The accumulation of points and the constantly changing table in leagues using rotisserie scoring is something that takes a little getting used to but will also keep many a manager mesmerised by the many possible routes to future success.

As you can see, PlayTheGame is the most sophisticated online football game yet devised, and requires Jose Mourinho's gift for squad management, Arsene Wenger's eye for a player, and Harry Redknapp's ability to wheel, deal and pick up a bargain. We are confident that this will be your most complete fantasy football experience ever. All you have to do now is think of a team name - and PlayTheGame.