fantasy premier league DGWs and Blanks – a few more thoughts

Fantasy Premier League

So with the FA Cup 5th round in 2 weeks and the big potential blank gameweek of GW31 closing in I thought it was worth adding a few thoughts of where my head was at the moment on the fantasy premier league DGWs and blanks.

fantasy premier league DGWs and Blanks – a few more thoughts

The basics in short

Firstly it’s worth saying that there are a few 4th round replays this week so I will update the  blanks and double gameweek article after them on Thursday.  This is just a few additional thoughts.

If you want the basics and the background go to the article I’ve linked above but in short if things follow previous years and the UEFA rules then there will potentially be a:

Blank GW31 for the FA Cup quarters

A DGW34 where most of the postponed games will go to resulting from the quarters clashing with the GW31

Blank GW35 for the FA Cup semi finalists.

A DGW37 for the postponed GW35 clashes with the semis

So in this I’m going to take my team which still has the free hit, a 2nd wildcard, a bench boost and a triple captain chip and make some assumptions on how the fixtures could go




Results assumptions

I thought it would be easier to illustrate the points if I made a few assumptions on results in the FA Cup.

Firstly here’s the 5th round FA Cup fixtures from the BBC website.  These are played on the 16-19 February after GW27 starts and subject to replays after GW28 starts

fantasy premier league DGWs

I’m going to make the very bold assumptions that Leicester, Chelsea, Swansea (sorry Alex who supports Wednesday), WBA, Man Utd, Spurs and Man City win these fixtures.

Then I’m going to make the even bolder assumption that the semi finalists will be Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Spurs.

Now I know I’m making some big leaps here and the chances of all those things happening are fairly minuscule but I came to the conclusion that it’s easier to have a discussion and make some points with assumptions to illustrate points than without.  You may disagree?

That would mean the following set of fixtures for the potential doubles and blanks.  The games in italics are the postponed games making the gameweeks into doubles for those teams.  The games in green in the blanks are those guaranteed to go ahead as I write this.

We will know the quarter finalists after GW27 opens although those with a replay will be after GW28 opens.

I’m not aware of the draw date for the semi’s but the quarters aren’t subject to a replay so after GW31 opens seems logical.

So what does this tell us?

So looking at this firstly it seems pretty hard to get away from the fact that wildcarding before GW34 and then bench boosting in that gameweek seems the logical choice, even allowing for the fixture assumptions, to make the most of what could be a mammoth gameweek.  That would mean a triple captain in DGW37.

Now given that the only choice you realistically have is to free hit in GW31 or in GW35.

Free hitting in GW31 has the advantage of replacing the most fixtures and although we have more time to prepare we have more time to have players in the team merely for the 1 fixture.

Free hitting in GW35 means we can concentrate on using the wildcard to get players from teams who play in both doubles.  Now it is possible with the wildcard to have players in GW35 who also have doubles in GW34. A bench of these plus 1 transfer would give you 5 for GW35.  It’s whether you want that pain in GW35 or the GW31 pain.

 Now you may also think that you are pretty well set up for DGW34 and even blank GW35 depending on the make up of your team.  If you are then you could even wildcard in GW37.  Remember though you can’t use more than 1 chip (a WC is a chip btw) in a gameweek so you’d have to think about where you would use the bench boost and triple captain in that scenario.

The one thing definitely worth trying to do is to carry over a free in GW27.  That is, don’t make a transfer this week, carry over your free transfer.  I’m making alot of assumptions here but there will be more information available after the FA Cup 5th round and quarter final draw after GW27 opens.

So really what you do may depend on your team make up now and the FA Cup quarter draw.

So what are my plans?

Firstly here’s my team with the free hit chip intact:

fantasy premier league DGWS

So already with GW31 fixtures under my assumptions are

Salah, Richarlison, McArthur.  Add in if selected (Gomez, Niasse and Kenny).  That’s potentially 6 but more likely 4.

I now have 5 transfers which would give me a potential compliment of 11 players but likely 9.

So is there 5 players worth having?

Walcott, Firmino, Van Dijk and maybe Pickford/Hennessey.  Everton and Liverpool have reasonably good fixtures.  That gives me 4 transfers and the team could look something like this.  So potentially 9 players for GW31 but more likely 7.




fantasy premier league DGWs

So it looks like I can have a respectable GW31 and still have players that I wouldn’t have a problem having in my team.  Richarlison, Niasse, Hennessey and Kenny aren’t ideal but 3 of those are already there and Hennessey could be the last transfer.  Niasse and Kenny could easily be accommodated on the bench in the lead in to GW31 while other things are sorted out or even transferred out without any impact if not playing.

So for the moment I’ll carry over a free to have 2 transfers in GW28 to maximise flexibility once the quarter final draw is known. Assuming nothing fundamentally changes, I’ll be looking to add players for the blank in GW31 as above and then wildcard in GW23 or 33 and then bench boost in DGW34.  I’ll use the free hit in blank GW35 so I can maximise those teams with doubles in GW34 and GW37.  The triple captain will be for DGW37.

So what about the FFGeek team without the free hit?

I haven’t given enough thought to that team at the moment but I may do an article on it this week if I think I can add anything.

Looking at it from a fixture point of view the wildcard still looks to sit before the double in GW34.  Then there will be a compromise between players who have doubles for DGW34 and a fixture in GW35 and those who will have doubles in GW34 and DGW37 but no fixture in GW35.  That seems to be the nub of it.

I hope you found it helpful.  I don’t pretend to be the font of all knowledge of this so if you have anything to add or correct please do so in the comments column.

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