Great news. The Premier League has opened the doors to its 20100-11 Fantasy Premier League, and on behalf of EPL Talk, I’d like to invite you to join our private league.

To play for free against thousands of football fans from around the world, here’s all you have to do:

1. Visit the Fantasy Premier League site and log in
2. If you’ve never registered before, go to http://fantasy.premierleague.com/M/register.mc
3. After logging in, select your team (you can always change the team selection later, so don’t worry about finalizing your team right then and there),
4. Click the ‘League’ link in the left navigation
5. In the “Join A League” field, enter the code 13413-5300 and then click the ‘Join League’ button

All players from last season will be automatically entered into the new league when they join the game.

The winner of the EPL Talk Fantasy Premier League will receive a package of Premier League-related prizes from EPL Talk, so may the best manager win!

When I sat down in August 2009 to predict what the final table for the 2009-10 Premier League would look like, little did I know what a disastrous season lay ahead for Liverpool. At the time, many pundits were predicting that Chelsea would finish in top place. And I was one of them especially after how rejuvenated they looked on their Summer 2009 tour.

For the most part, I did pretty well with my predictions (see right). If you take Liverpool out of the equation, the top seven spots were close to how they ended. I was surprised that Everton didn’t do as well as in previous seasons but they were hampered by injuries.

While I was hopeful that Manchester City would give the Premier League Big Four a run for their money, I had a strong suspicion that they wouldn’t be able to do as well as many City supporters had hoped.

Near the bottom of the table, I got 2 of the 3 predictions correct of who would get relegated. Even until a couple of months ago I was convinced Wolves would go down, but full credit to Mick McCarthy for keeping the Wanderers up for another season.

Other clubs that surprised me during the 2009-10 season were how well Birmingham City and Stoke City did as well as how poor Wigan and West Ham performed. As a Swansea City supporter, I probably gave Roberto Martinez more credit than he deserved for his first season in the Premier League.

In addition to my predictions, I also asked you — the readers of EPL Talk — to submit your educated guesses of who would end up in positions one through 20. As is often the case, some readers posted their entries as late as April, which is quite unfair. So looking at those who posted theirs in the comments section in August, the most apparent thing to me is how many people predicted Liverpool would win the title or finish in second place. Their seventh place finish must have come at quite a shock for many people, myself included.

In addition to the predictions of who would finish where in the table, EPL Talk held the Fantasy Premier League for the 2009-10 season. Here are the results:

First, the good news is that the EPLTalk.com Fantasy Premier League team finished in 10th place worldwide out of 193,262 private leagues.

Second, with almost 2,000 players, the league was quite competitive as you would imagine. But, drumroll please, here are the top 10 fantasy players in the EPLTalk.com private league:

Congratulations to Pat Pence who finished in first place as well as all of the other fantasy players who participated. Pat squeezed through on the last day of the season to beat Swagat Satpathy by two points.

With the 2009-10 Premier League season entering its final furlong, there are still thousands of managers searching for an all important edge to make their team stand out from the crowd.

Ok, so there may be a select group of fifty that get the most publicity and are supposedly under the most pressure but anyone that’s played fantasy football knows that it wont just be Arsene Wenger and co that are faced with crucial selection dilemmas this weekend.

Just like the professional game, the road to glory can be littered with obstacles and pitfalls, so in order to ease the burden just a little bit I will be compiling a weekly selection of tips to help guide you towards the promised land. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.*

Build from the back

Many a top flight manager has built his success upon a solid defence. George Graham at Arsenal, Gerard Houllier in his treble winning year at Liverpool and Don Revie at Leeds United all placed a huge emphasis on their respective back-lines and while their style of play was not always pleasing on the eye, it certainly reaped rewards.

With plenty of points on offer for clean sheets, fantasy football managers will also know the benefits of a good defence and this week in particular should prove to be a productive one for the boys at the back.

As the season nears its climax and points suddenly become more valuable the goals often tend to dry up, with teams placing a greater emphasis on defence. This is especially the case for those fighting the drop and as such the matches taking place at the Reebok (Bolton v Wigan) and Turf Moor (Burnley v Wolves) are unlikely to be awash with attacking flair.

The scorers may also remain untroubled at St Andrews as the Premier League’s second lowest home scorers (Birmingham City) take on an Everton side one position and two points below them.

Express recommendations –

Leighton Baines (Everton)

Phil Jagielka (Everton)

Graham Alexander (Burnley)

Make hay while the sun shines

If there is one side likely to score goals this weekend it’s Arsenal and if there is one side likely to concede them it’s Hull City.

The Gunners knocked five past FC Porto in midweek, while poor Hull were still trying to get over their 5-1 thumping at the hands of Everton.

Nicklas Bendtner doesn’t have a particularly good reputation when it comes to making the most of goalscoring opportunities but the young Dane netted a hat-trick on Tuesday and is also likely to be available on the cheap.

Express recommendations –

Nicklas Bendtner (Arsenal)

Don’t ignore the obvious

Hidden gems can often make the difference in fantasy football but that doesn’t mean you can afford to leave out the big hitters.

Wayne Rooney has been so hot in recent weeks that few would be surprised if the England talisman was to literally burst into flames. Indeed, if any fantasy manager still needs convincing of Wayne’s worth after a routine destruction of AC Milan on Wednesday night, then quite frankly they need sectioning.

This weekend’s opponents Fulham are strong at home but do tend to buckle at Old Trafford. Add to this a taxing midweek trip to Juventus and Roy’s boys should be a prime target for the goal hungry striker.

Express recommendations –

Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

*In case of any unexpected turbulence please ensure that seatbelts are kept securely fastened at all times. I can not be held responsible for any Keegan-esque meltdowns triggered as a result of this advice.

If you’re addicted to your iPhone as much as I am, you’ve probably been disappointed that some crucial iPhone soccer apps don’t exist in the App store. Here are the top 4 that are missing:

1. Official Fantasy Premier League iPhone App. Out of all of the apps that are missing, this is the one I would use the most if it was available. Plus, this is the one that is most logical to be accessed by a mobile device. The app would be perfect to allow you to log in to your account and change your fantasy team around as well as to see how many points you scored each week.
2. Fantasy Football Scout iPhone App. Fantasy Football Scout is one of our favorite sites to help with your fantasy picks each week. But if an app could be created for that site that lists the latest injury news as well as predicted line-ups, that would definitely be incredibly useful for football fans who are away from their desktops or laptops.
3. Soccer TV Guide iPhone App. There needs to be one comprehensive guide that only features the soccer games in your country — or even better in your local coverage area. This one would surely be used by soccer fans all the time especially to find out the last-minute changes to the TV schedule.
4. Fox Soccer Channel iPhone App. A FSC branded iPhone app would be a great way for Fox Soccer Channel to promote their network, their TV schedule and their latest news stories from FoxSoccer.com.

Are there are any iPhone apps you’d love to see that aren’t listed above that should be added to the App Store? Click the comments link below and share your opinion. You can also review the article on the Top 5 Essential iPhone Apps For Soccer Fans if you have an iPhone but don’t know which iPhone apps to get.

Also, be sure to check out the EPL Talk iPhone App which is available via the App Store and is automatically updated with all of the latest EPL Talk Podcast episodes as they are released.

Out of the thousands of private leagues participating in the official Fantasy Premier League, we’re proud to announce that EPL Talk sits in first place worldwide after the opening weekend of the new season.

With 830 managers and growing, the average number of points for EPL Talk managers is an impressive 61.4

If you’re looking for resources to improve your fantasy point tally, as well as how to determine which players are most likely sitting out of matches due to injury, be sure to bookmark and visit the following must-see sites: Fantasy Football Scout and Fantascene.

It’s not too late to join the EPL Talk private league for Fantasy Premier League. Join for free today.

Also be sure to participate in the Premier League predictions league, better known as I Know The Score. More details here.

Congratulations to everyone on a fantastic performance this weekend.

It’s Friday, so if you’re in the mood for I’d-rather-be-reading-than-working, here are several very revealing Premier League-related articles from around the world. Enjoy.

• “Credit Crunch Makes Premier League Clubs Feel The Squeeze” (The Telegraph). Read how the Credit Crunch, which started in the U.S., is having a major impact on Premier League clubs this summer.
• The Premier League Is Considering Playing A Couple Of Carling Cup Games In Asia (BBC Sport). This idea is ridiculous. Premier League clubs already don’t care about the early rounds of the Carling Cup. How much less will they care about it when those matches are played overseas?
• “Peter Kenyon Pushing The Wrong Game In Basketball-Obsessed China” (The Telegraph). The amount of money that Manchester United makes in China is about the same as the club makes from match-day pie concessions.
• UK Internet Traffic To Football Websites And Fantasy Football Sites (Hitwise). No surprise. Fantasy Premier League is number one.
• Sirius Satellite Radio Will Be Broadcasting Premier League Matches In The States Again (Fang’s Bites). The blog also features Sirius’s schedule for the first few weeks.
• “Why Is The Premiership So Popular In India?” (Goal). Read why the match-day commentary is a key to the success of the league in India.
• “Brad Friedel’s Premier Soccer Academies Hosts Its First Big International Tournament” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer). If you build it, they will come.
• “GolTV Scores Time Warner Cable Launches” (Multichannel News). Take that DISH Network!
• Tottenham Launches New Look To Their Matchday Programme (Tottenham Hotspur). Who says football programmes are dead?
• Football Film Festival Coming To London (Fulham FC). I wish I was there.
• “ITV Expands Football Website For New Season” (The Guardian). The Gloryhunter sounds like a winning formula. Shame the bloody video doesn’t work for me. I get an ugly error message.
• “Cheapest Way To Watch Football This Season” (The Mirror). The Brits do make it complicated, don’t they, ‘eh?
• ITV Regional Football Highlights From 1968-1983. Exhaustive research into the history of football on ITV. For me, I grew up on HTV.