Yes you read the headline right. The last 3 seasons I’ve wildcarded on a Friday and this season I go one better wildcarding on a Saturday morning before the gameweek deadline breaking all sensible rules of FPL protocol. Here’s our fantasy premier league teams GW9 article with the FFGeek wildcard
fantasy premier league teams GW9 – The FFGeek wildcard
By the way I would say that Wildcarding on a Saturday morning before the gameweek deadline is not a good idea. You should do it as early as possible and pick up price rises etc etc.
I’ve already done an early FFGeek team article as well as a team selection article last night when I was going to carry over the free transfer would you believe.
I’m not going to go over my last week again but basically a pretty disastrous 32 points and a 200k OR drop to 804k.
Why I wildcarded
I’d like to give you a long winded explanation but in the end I decided it was better than not wildcarding if that helps you at all. I put the wildcard team in stared at it for about an hour and then decided I should do it. I could have easily justified not.
Despite what people might try and tell you FPL is a game of 50/50’s, there are no certainties only degrees of probability and anyone who tells you that they know what is definitely going to happen in any given gameweek better be doing it from their South of France beach house having retired on their betting winnings. Otherwise call me sceptical.
Now while wildcarding or not seems a stretch as a 50/50 call that’s what it felt like. The reason being that I felt like I was only doing it to get Wilson and Mount in and that was causing all the agony.
In some ways I’m glad to get rid of the wildcard. It feels like some over eager substitute always tapping you on the shoulder saying “I’m ready boss whenever you are”. “I can solve all your problems just put me on”.
I still don’t know whether I’ve done the right thing. It feels a bit short sighted and short term. However it’s done. Over.
The transfers
Here’s the transfers and then the team lineup:
Robertson out Lundstram in
Salah out Mount in
Greenwood out Aubameyang in
Pukki out Wilson in
Dendoncker out Cleverly in
Is 5 transfers really worth using the wildcard for? That was the other thing causing me agony.
The team line up
Here’s how the team looks for GW9:
A bit of chit chat about the transfers
Salah out Mount in
Salah seems expensive when he’s less of a threat due to transfers out. I suspect he will drop out of what I call the template and therefore using him to fund Mount and Wilson effectively seemed worth it.
Pukki out Wilson in
Am I convinced about Wilson? It’s hard to be convinced by someone who’s only taken 1 shot in 6 of his 8 games but the next 2 fixtures are attractive and the game against Norwich is an issue given their performance last week against Villa who are hardly an attacking monster
Robertson out Lundstram in
I could have kept Robertson but I was starting to feel like I was alone on the desert island of the Liverpool defence and double clean sheets are stress itself. Robertson’s attacking stats haven’t been extraordinary but it feels like a good redistribution of risk. The timing with Alisson back was one of the things holding me back from wildcarding
Greenwood out Aubemayang in
Once you’ve sold Salah you’re like, as my son calls himself after being paid, a “weekend millionaire” with a pay packet in your pocket just dying to be spent. So I bought the shiny most expensive thing I could. Seriously though he does have a few good fixtures and he is proven quality which you have to believe in to get him. The reason for that statement is that one of my issues is that he hasn’t performed the underlying stats this season that you’d hope for and I’m a little wary of Emery’s front 3 plans if he becomes an LW.
Dendoncker out Cleverly in
I had £5.0m left. As I have 4 players for a 2 positions rotation each week in Soyuncu, Tomori, Cantwell and now Cleverley. When I got to his position I had £5.0m left and he showed up best on my underlying stats form charts for the price.
That’s it. Again good luck this week
Other posts
You can also see Rob Reid’s wildcard article as well as Keith and Costas’s , also Kris O’s wildcard drafts and Ben and Kev’s wildcard drafts
Also Rick Porters cutting through the FPL noise
Early thoughts on the FFGeek team
Scott and Costas’s wildcard teams
The FFGeek captain and transfer polls
FFGeek contributors show their teams part 1
More content
Geek note: If you join our Patreon site you will get access to an FPL contributor tracker team which combines the contributors individual teams each week to show their favourite players, transfers and captains. It will always be completed on a Friday/Saturday in a normal gameweek. There will also be an accompanying spreadsheet so you can drill down further.
You also get:
Weekly podcasts with the Geek and the other contributors
Joe’s interactive transfer planner and points projection tool
FFGeek private leagues
Access to the FFGeek Slack channel for discussion with the contributors and members
$2 and $3 tiers per calendar month. No commitment beyond 1 month
FFGeek league codes:
fantasy premier league: fnqq66
Sky Sports fantasy football: fantasyfootball.skysports.com/leagues/join with PIN 8426114
Telegraph fantasy football: passcode 8693. PIN code 8000919. The telegraph have also offered a prize of £100 to the winner.
Telegraph fantasy football European Super League: League PIN: 8186902 League Passcode: 2113
Sun Dream Team:
Classic League PIN: SGDKX9Y3
H2H PIN: SGFU3CR9
Social Media
For more fantasy premier league teams GW9 follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news
