One thing that I’ve learnt from doing this weekly blog is that there really isn’t a week that goes by without something significant happening on FI. This week, it’s the January money back offer – all total losses refunded at the end of the month on purchases from 10th January onwards.

This has definitely given the market a bit of additional stimulus on top of the huge numbers of new users joining the platform off the back of the marketing push (the estimate is 1,000 per day – incredible!) and the ‘footie’ has been rising day on day.

I won’t be trying to ‘game’ the offer in anyway, largely because I can’t see an easy way to do that, and I can’t imagine myself making a loss this month anyway. But it is a nice safety net to offer to new users who might be nervous about dipping their toes into the Index water and I’ve already felt the impact of this across my funds, with all three making a profit over the week.

The biggest winner was the Potential fund – £130 up over the week thanks to some huge rises on Barrow, Alena, Caqueret and Blas. Alena and Barrow should both benefit from moving to new clubs and getting some time on the pitch. Caqueret is already being trusted with plenty of playing time at injury-ravaged Lyon and his performances have been impressive, driving his eye-watering 30% increase during the week. I feel that Blas still needs to show a bit more of his potential to become a long term hold but is a reasonable punt for just over £1.

No big drops this week in the Potential fund but Djenepo dropped a little again and is sitting at a fairly heavy loss in the fund. I bought him at peak and I’m kicking myself for it. With no transfer rumours likely to heat up in this window, I either need to cut my losses or keep him as a longer-term prospect. Having seen him play, I think I’ll go for the latter.

The Performance fund had a pretty decent week too – up £90 overall. This was a bit of a mixed bag, with some drops on the likes of Parejo, Sabitzer, Oyarzabal and Rebic, more than cancelled out by rises on Arnold, De Roon, Xhaka, Aouar, Arthur and many more. There was also a nice PB win for Pellegrini, which felt long overdue.

Everyone that I added to the fund last week rose significantly, whereas some of the old faithfuls that I’ve held for several months continued to slowly drop. This really makes me think that I should be switching this fund up more regularly, to benefit from IPDs and kind fixtures and generally to stop things going stale. Something to think about.

On that subject, I finally ditched Calleri for a loss. He hasn’t kicked on at Espanyol and now that Raul de Tomas has arrived, I imagine he’ll be the one grabbing any goals. In his place comes Munas Dabbur, new arrival at Hoffenheim and currently sitting well below the price of their other main goalscorers.

The Premium fund rose by a relatively meagre £39 over the week. Mbappe drove this rise, with his price increasing by 5% over the week thanks to almost scoring a wonderful goal (!). Harry Kane’s injury worries caused a slight dip in him price but nowhere near what we might have expected and this was cancelled out by MB anyway. Kane is a funny hold really, probably worth more for his MB when he’s not playing than his PB when he is.

De Bruyne continues to drift downwards and could really doing with putting in a solid performance on the pitch at this stage.

So basically, things continue much as before. Premium holds are not exactly a busted flush but certainly aren’t making the money that I thought they would when I started this challenge. There’s plenty of money to be made in youth and non-PB holds (if you pick them right) but the biggest returns continue to be the players with proven PB potential – although these can quickly go out of fashion if they don’t perform for a couple of weeks.

Don’t forget that you can visit the individual fund pages if you want to see exactly who I hold and how they are doing. Feedback and tips are always appreciated!