With the blank weeks getting nearer and nearer I thought it was worth renewing our fantasy premier league tips article where, in general terms, we look at the use of the 2nd wildcard, the double gameweeks and the other chips.
FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE TIPS – SOME THOUGHTS ON THE 2ND WILDCARD, DOUBLEGAMEWEEKS AND THE OTHER CHIPS
At the moment our focus should be on putting out a full team for the blank weeks of GW26 and GW28 rather than thinking of the 2nd wildcard but I thought a short reminder would give the postponements some context
Lets just remind ourselves firstly of what the 2nd wildcard is and the chips from the rules on the official fantasy premier league site:
Chips can be used to potentially enhance your team’s performance during the season.
Only one chip can be played in a single Gameweek. The chips available are as follows:
Name Effect
All Out Attack Allows you to play a 2-5-3 formation in the next Gameweek.
Bench Boost The points scored by your bench players in the next Gameweek are included in your total.
Triple Captain Your captain points are tripled instead of doubled in the next Gameweek.
Wildcard All transfers (including those already made) in the Gameweek are free of charge.
The All Out Attack, Bench Boost and Triple Captain chips can each be used once a season and are played when saving your team on the my team page. They can be cancelled at anytime before the Gameweek deadline.
The Wildcard chip can be used twice a season, once in the first half of the season (before 30 Dec 19:00) and once in the second half of the season. The Wildcard chip is played when confirming transfers that cost points and can’t be cancelled once played.
Lets also remind you of the summary of the likely upcoming weeks from our FPL calendar
Just for clarity a BLANK GW means some teams will have their game postponed. DGW means some teams will have 2 games in that gameweek
BLANK GW26 – EFL Cup finalists will have their games postponed as dates clash
BLANK GW28 – FA Cup quarter finalists will have their games postponed
DGW34 and BLANK GW34 – Likely time for some postponed games in midweek. Also FA Cup semi final weekend although postponed PL games due to this I imagine would be moved to midweek
DGW37 – Likely other time for postponed matches in midweek.
THE 2ND WILDCARD
There is a temptation to use it straight away to refresh your squad and get out any dead wood.
Personally I’m going to hold it for the double gameweeks ie gameweeks where teams play twice due to postponements. Those being the postponements for the EFL Cup semis, the FA Cup quarters and FA Cup semis. As you can see from above these are likely to be DGW34 and DGW37.
Last season a commonly used tactic was to wildcard before the double gameweek and then use the bench boost in the double gameweek itself with the aim of getting up to 15 players playing 2 games in that gameweek. This tactic was generally adopted in some form by the top 10 FPL managers I followed last season and resulted in big gains. However it did come with risk and issues. The gameweek many used their wildcard to transfer out Spurs players who only had 1 game saw Kane and Alli get a large number of points at Stoke. Liverpool also rotated alot of players last year and many only played once. In addition GW35 had significant numbers of teams not playing which caused planning issues. This experience has lead to their being some thought as to not prejudice points in the double gameweek by doing it in the gameweek and not before. The bench boost in this scenario would be used somewhere else.
Overall though as I said the managers who followed this principle benefited greatly.
This is just an early warning though. Things will be come clearer as postponed games are clearer and when they happen. However the basic principle being the 2nd wildcard is their to maximise points from the double gameweek.
BENCH BOOST
This was used often as I said above with varying degrees of success. Getting any value out of it does require alot of planning and having money sitting on the bench in future gameweeks which isn’t being used on your playing squad. This has yet to be used by any of the top 10 FPL managers I follow
THE ALL OUT ATTACK CHIP
Some of the top 10 FPL managers I follow have already used this. It’s mainly there for when you either can’t put out a full defensive team or if you have an effective front 8 all with good prospects. That can be anytime during the season.
It should be obvious when you need to use it. Personally I think I’ve missed my chance in GW22 with Darren Fletcher scoring 10 points against Sunderland
TRIPLE CAPTAIN
Again last season this was generally saved by the top 10 FPL managers I follow for one of the other double gameweeks and not the main one of GW34 in order to have a captain who played twice rather than once. Again this has yet to be used by any of the top 10 FPL managers I follow
SUMMARY
My thoughts at the moment is to follow last seasons model of using the 2nd wildcard the week before the biggest DGW to get in a multitude of DGW players and then bench boosting in the DGW itself. The triple captain will be used in the other double gameweek.
The all out attack will be used when it looks obvious to do so
However now is the time to concentrate on the blank weeks coming. Thinking will evolve on the double gameweeks. At the moment there is some challenge to last years model but tactics will become clearer as fixtures do
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