Why you cannot pick the same team twice

Bankers are a limited resource

If you could pick the same favourite every week, the game would be a short quiz about who the best team is. The first month would sort almost nobody. The last month would be a coin flip among people who all rode the same club.

Banning repeats forces a portfolio. You spend your strongest side when the round is ugly, not because it is Saturday and they usually win.

It is your list, not the table's list

Unique picks are per player. Someone else using a side does not stop you using it. What you cannot do is use a club you have already spent.

That is why later rounds mean something. The remaining players have different leftover lists because they made different early choices, not because the board ran out of teams.

How to think about the season

Do not empty the top of the league in the first six rounds. Do not hoard them until there is nothing left to hoard them for. Treat each pick as spending a chip you will not get back.

The last player standing is rarely the person who got every early round right. It is the person who still had a team left when the fixtures turned.