If you haven’t used your  first wildcard already you’re probably dying to use your January wildcard.  Should you use it as soon as possible on January 1 while nursing your news years day hangover or should you leave it as late as possible  so you can get the most out of the January transfer window.  Here’s some of the principal factors in making a decision regarding the January wildcard

 Just to set the background here’s the info from the Barclays fantasy premier league website:

A Wildcard allows you to make unlimited free transfers throughout a Gameweek.   The January Wildcard can only be used after Gameweek 21 starts (1 Jan 11:30) until Gameweek 24 ends (2 Feb 11:30); as the January wildcard isn’t available until after the Gameweek 21 deadline, the earliest these transfers will be active is Gameweek 22.

When playing a Wildcard, any saved free transfers will be lost. You will be back to the usual 1 free transfer the following Gameweek.

So here’s some of the points to take in to account when making your January Wildcard decision

1.  The state of your squad

At the moment I’ve got Demel, Robson Kanu,  Gorkss and Caulker all of which aren’t guaranteed a starting spot.  I’ve also lost Fellaini and Bale and want to put Nolan in my team as well as improve the balance of my defence so I’m itching to totally change my team.  In addition I haven’t used my first wildcard.  However, I’ve still got enough to put out a team each week so I don’t think the situation is desperate enough for it to be a must change.  However, if its got to the stage when you really cant put out a full team then  its obviously going to be a big factor in your decision regarding the January Wildcard.  However, if its just a desire to change your team as soon as possible then  would take a step back.

2.  Round 23 (Jan 19)- Arsenal and West Ham play twice

Intuitively this is when I’m looking to play my January wildcard.  With Arsenal and West Ham its feasible that you could have a defender and a midfielder from each team so thats 4 players

Interestingly here’s the games on and after gw23

Arsenal:

23  Che  A  Whm  H
24  Liv  H
25  Stok  H
26  Sun  A
27  Avl  H
28  Tott  A

A pretty good fixture list and certainly one that you wouldn’t be worried about having 2 players in.

West Ham

23  QPR  H  Ars  A
24  Ful  A
25  Swa  H
26  Avl  A
27  Tott  H
28  Stok  A

A harder schedule but with a cheap defender and a midfielder its not out of the question.

On the reverse side of this  West Ham play Reading A  Norwich H and Sund A so you could easily fit in a midfielder and defender in to your team before that.  My plan at the moment is to introduce Nolan in for the Reading game

Arsenal is not quite as good with Newcastle H Southampton A and Man City H although its only the City game that you would want to avoid.

So in my mind GW23 isn’t enough in itself to be the decision maker.

3.  The January transfer window

Remember last year Sigurdsson, Jelavic, Pienaar and P Cisse all took the January window by storm.  Leaving the January wildcard as late as possible gives you the full opportunity to look over all the January transfer window and optimise your squad.  The idea that new players to the premier league take time to adjust just isn’t true any more and Hazard and Michu  have proved that this year.  This is definitely a factor for me.

Summary

In summary, I’m going to hold off using my January wildcard and see how things evolve.  I don’t see any desperate need to use it as soon as possible.  Hopefully the above has given you something to think about in making your decision on the January wildcard