fantasy premier league DGW34 – a few short words on the gameweek so far

Fantasy Premier League

Fantasy premier league DGW34 is showing itself as another monumental week and I thought it deserved a few words after the weekend.  Rotation and injuries dominated.  Our fantasy football discussion forum was very interesting this gameweek of the experiences managers faced.

fantasy premier league DGW34 – a few short words on the gameweek so far

The FFGeek team

Firstly I’ll apologise in that this will be from my teams point of view in the main but thats the easiest perspective to talk from. You may remember I used my bench boost chip.  Well after being 50k up in the rankings as I get up this morning with the double games yet to play you think I would be one of the satisfied FPL managers after the huge double gameweek 34.  However it’s far from that. Mignolet, Coutinho, Lingard, Lukaku and Mitrovic all didn’t start.  Spurs are playing tonight with a very high ownership defence (Alderweireld especially) and high ownership Harry Kane, less so Alli.  This game will definitely see a drop in the rankings against a Stoke team that are anything but the fearsome side they once were.  Also when the game week is over those not using the bench boost will get their points added.  Those using bench boost are having them added as they go.  That again will see a drop in the rankings.  So the increase in rank is a little early to be real at the moment.

Also, the 50/50 decision of Iwobe for Lennon and a hit for Gabriel to Rojo vs Townsend in for Lennon was again an example of what seems in the short term the wrong one taken.  This was another layer dampening the enthusiasm for the ranking rise of this morning.

Rotation and injury

It  seems a statement of the obvious that those teams in the Cups are the teams with extra games and as they are in the cup they are going to rotate in the league to priortise the Cup.  Hope that makes sense.  Everton and Watford have nothing to play for in the league so that was always a rsk.  Everton though have been mitigated by the fan unrest meaning Martinez has been under pressure to win.  However a collection of supposed injuries to key players in Lukaku, Barkley and less so Lennon gave him the excuse to rest these players.  Liverpool having played on Thursday rotated everyone including the GK except Firmino and Sturridge.  Liverpool were the most important team in this DGW spell as they have 2 DGWS and a game in the blank GW35.  They have been rotated heavily.  Man Utd despite chasing for 4th rotated Martial for the forgotten Depay and left out Lingard  for Rooney.  Fosu-Mensah was rested despite being arguably the best player against Spurs last week.

Wildcard in GW33 and Bench Boost DGW34

This is the first season of the new chips so any strategy I guess was going to be a learning experience.  Even in retrospect the strategy of Wildcarding a week early before bench boosting in the massive DGW34 gameweek was the way to maximise points if you couldn’t use the chips in the same gameweek.

Would I do it next season in the same circumstances?  I’m not sure and it will probably depend on the circumstances next season.   The problem has been injuries and changes of circumstances over the gameweek.  If I had ignored the bench boost and wildcarded in DGW34 I would have not selected Lukaku and Lennon or Lingard or Gabriel.  At the moment my bench is contributing 9 points.  If Lukaku, Coutinho and Mignolet don’t play in the 2nd games that will be reduced to 3 points.  With a 4 point hit then it’s hardly worth it.  Still that has yet to happen so no point in thinking the worst.

So the question to ask is was wildcard early worth the additional points you can get from DGW players bench boosting.

Hits taken from non wildcarders

The one thing interestingly is those managers who had already used their wildcard seemed to have gone hit’s crazy.  In one mini league the leader who was 40 points ahead of me took a 20 point hit???  2 of the other 3 people ahead of me used an 8 and 12 point hit all having used their wildcard.  Was this a common experience of other managers?

The top 10 FPL managers I follow

I’ll put out the article tonight hopefully but if you’re feeling bad about the weekend then the 10 top FPL managers are, in the main, in the same boat.

Hope you found that interesting and good luck for the rest of the week

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