They say ‘never gamble more than you can afford to lose’ but FI doesn’t really feel like gambling does it? It feels more like a high interest ISA that you can get your money out of when you need it and, most of the time, that’s pretty much how it plays out too.

But this isn’t always the case. This week I had some unexpected vet bills and needed to get my hands on some cash fast. I withdrew my balance from FI straight away, and that hit my bank account really quickly. However, I realised that if I needed more, the only real options open to me would be to either instant sell one of my depreciating assets or try to market sell one on the rise. In the end, I turned to my credit card to provide the liquidity I needed. Lesson learnt.

People say that selling is the hardest part of FI to master. I find it really difficult to let go of a rising player, always thinking ‘he might go up another 20p yet’ and letting go of one that’s dropping is so much easier. Of course, that’s completely back to front as a good trader will sell on the rise and buy in on the dip. I still have plenty to work on there.

This is also one of the reasons that I don’t expect order books to make a big difference to the way that the Index looks and feels. I expect there will still be a tight spread on the players that are banging in the goals and a large spread on those that are falling in value, because there simply won’t be the liquidity there. What it will mean though is much more opportunity for switched-on traders to pick up bargains by planning ahead and seeing beyond the player’s current form or most recent PB scores. Opportunities for experienced traders, very little noticeable change for newer traders – sounds good to me.

Back to the funds. This week has been all about the youth market so I’m not surprised to see the other funds gradually leaking money while the Potential fund has shot up by £110 in the last 7 days. The big risers in that fund have been Tonali, who continues to be talked up as Italy’s greatest young hope, and Cherki, who has had an absolutely astronomical rise during the week. For all of us that missed out on the big Haaland rise, holding someone like Cherki gives us the hope that we might be holding the next Neymar on the Index. The anticipation that he might start for Lyon later today is almost too much to bear!

The fund also saw some decent rises for Edouard, Barrow and Gravenberch off the back of them demonstrating their eye for a goal. With Edouard in particular, I can see some transfer speculation over the summer and, hopefully, a move to a PB league to follow.

A few significant drops in the fund on Alena, Gallagher and Blas. Alena had been over-hyped before the Betis game so I can understand traders pulling out when he didn’t deliver. Gallagher has just moved to Swansea, which has perhaps unsettled some traders who were confident in him continuing his successful loan spell at Charlton. The Blas drop is a bit of a mystery to me, so could just be the case of one large trader pulling out to put their money elsewhere (or to pay vets bills!).

The Premiums were pretty static this week, dropping off by about £13. It would’ve been more but the mini-revival on Kane’s price helped to keep things level. Injury trading is still a viable strategy it seems.

De Bruyne is killing me at the moment. If you remember, I sold Hudson-Odoi to bring him in and, since then, Hudson-Odoi has done nothing but rise like the troll he is. I’m confident that the slide on De Bruyne is temporary. He narrowly missed out on PB the other day and has the Champions League game to come and the Euros beyond that. As always with Premium holds, it’s about being patient at this point (as I really should have been with Hudson-Odoi!).

The Performance holds continued to be a mixed bag but finished the week down by about £32. The biggest percentage rise of the week was on Cologne striker Mark Uth, who I added to the fund last week. In his last two matches he’s managed a goal and an assist, despite coming up against tough opposition. He’s definitely worth holding as a 30-day IPD hold but probably not more than that given the way the Cologne are playing at the moment.

There were promising signs for the likes of Immobile, Arthur and Kostic. Immobile and Kostic have proven PB potential but Arthur is a little bit more of an unknown, currently benefiting from the change of manager and style at Barcelona.

On the other side of the coin, Arnold took a big hit, suffering because of Wolfsburg’s poor recent form, and the likes of Parejo, Pjanic, Xhaka and Sabitzer all continued their recent slide. I’m hoping that we are nearly at the bottom for most of those and that a bit of European action will see them have a reasonable price spike. The lesson for me here is to recognise the PB trends and to get out of over-hyped players a lot more quickly in the future.

So that’s where we are. I’m 33 weeks into this challenge now so only another 19 to go! For next time, I might have a look at comparing the progress of each fund against the overall growth on the Index to see how I’m really doing…

You can visit the individual fund pages if you want to see exactly who I hold. Feedback and tips are always appreciated!