Any tips? Always been curious how the same people always do well..
Some of the rules have changed over the years, like transfers, increasing/decreasing values over the season etc so some of the things I'd do probably aren't as helpful anymore.
You probably already do some of these and seem self-evident,but as a general rule:
Pick players who've had a few years in the game and picked up decent points (but obviously this will increase their value). Picking a player with one year in the PL with a high score can bite you on the arse if they're a one-season wonder.New players can be useful to get in under budget restrictions, but it can be a bit of a lottery.
Go for teams playing in Europe if possible as they play more games. Europa League can be very useful as it's a relatively poor standard, but sometimes our teams can use reserves.
Towards the end of a season look at how many games each team has left due to fixtures being rearranged for cups/Europe etc. Some teams can have four of five more games to play than others.
Picking players (esp defenders) that take pens/free-kicks or go up for corners.
Defenders I tended to go for the lesser well known ones of the teams that concede the least but still play regularly as most defender points are the same from clean sheets etc. (I had a Chelsea defender a few years ago who always seemed to come on for 5 mins as a sub but got me loads of points because the team conceded so few)
Avoid the temptation to bring in players on good form as chances are their purple patch is about to end and it's a waste of time. Keep the decent players in even if they're off form as it will even out over as season. Only transfer them out if they're injured for a few games.
I'm sure the difference between doing well and winning stuff is to do things like taking a chance on an in form player etc and the winners end up being a bit lucky with it.
In America they can go nuts with it - people have algorithms set up based on the stats and all sorts - very Moneyball