Winning picks to make sure you beat your mates!

It's great to see a bookmaker offering a fantasy football game this season, especially one that's completely free for their customers. If you haven't yet got a Ladbrokes account, click here to sign up so that you can compete for the chance to win £1000 in free bets and a trip to a top European football match.

So how do you play the game? You're given a budget of £115,000,000 to select eleven players and a manager. Although this might seem a lot compared to other fantasy football games, you'll soon find yourself stretched when you consider that the likes of Carlos Tevez and Didier Drogba come in at £22million each! It's worth starting off with low budget players that you like and then slowly replacing them with as much quality as you can afford.

The first important decision is to choose your formation, with Ladbrokes offering you four different ways to set the team up. With midfielders getting 3 points for an assist and 4 points for a goal, it's clear that they are likely to accrue more points than strikers (just 3 points for a goal, nothing for an assist) and defenders (only 1 point for a clean sheet!). Therefore, a 3-5-2 formation would be my advice, spending around £50,000,000 in the midfield department.

In addition to midfielders, it's worth splashing the cash on a decent manager, who will bag you five points every time that their teams wins. Which should be quite a lot in the case of Man United and Chelsea. Having a quality keeper is also a shrewd move, especially with 2 points deducted every time they concede (compared to one point for defenders). Their clean sheets are also worth double compared to the outfield players.
 
Out of your twelve selections, you can only have a maximum of three from any one club, although this shouldn't be a problem due to budgetary constraints. You also have to pick a captain out of your eleven players, and it obviously makes sense to appoint one of your premium quality midfielders as the recipient of the double points. If pushed, this would come from either Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard, at least until Cristiano Ronaldo's future is confirmed (and his injury has healed).

The earlier, you start picking your team, the more time you'll have to tweak it ahead of the new season. Click here to visit Ladbrokes right away and make sure you get the right players from the start, so that your four monthly transfers don't have to be used all at once!