Here’s our fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW17 article where I pretend I’m using my wildcard. It gives player suggestions with more longevity than just for the up coming gameweek. There’s the team, a table of stats and their upcoming fixtures.
fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW17 – the FFGeek imaginary wildcard
Unfortunately I’m short on time this week as I’ve been travelling so there are no links to other articles but alot of information on each player
The FFGeek imaginary wildcard team
My value at the moment is a fairly low £102.6m and the team fits within £103.5m which is hopefully many of can claim.
Structure
The team is set up to play 4-4-2. The purchase of 3 premium players in Salah, Kane and Aubameyang does cause some restrictions elsewhere and that’s reflected in the subs bench which means there isn’t a huge amount of bench depth.
If you come onto the site regularly you’ll know I classify players into 3 categories:
Template players (70% of the top 10k or 7 of the 10 top FPL managers I follow)
Bench players – 2 pointers only
Differentials and template replacement players – the rest
This team would have the following template players:
Salah, Kane, Richarlison, Fabianski (West Ham defence) Lovren (Liverpool defence), Doherty (Wolves defence), Luiz (Chelsea defence/Alonso cover) Wan Bissaka
The bench players are Hojbjerg, Kamara and Button.
That leaves 5 differentials who are the major rank affecting players in Felipe Anderson, Sane, Aubameyang and Kolasinac. There are no template replacement players with the template fully reflected.
The Stats
Definitions:
Pts per 90: the FPL points earned per 90 minutes played in 18/19
Consistency: the % of starts where the player has scored a goal or assist. Sub appearances are ignored.
Av Mins: average minutes of the last 4 matches. Generally I count sub appearances or rotation but not injury absences although there is some discretion there.
Fixture ease: the fixture ease ranking for the next 6 games/3 games. The lower the better.
xG90/xA 90 – their expected goals and expected assists per 90 minutes played. An xG90 of 0.3 would imply a 30% chance of scoring every 90 minutes based on an average premier league player. I’ve taken them from the excellent free site understat.com
Sh90 and KP90 and – shots per 90 and key passes per 90 minutes played. I’ve taken this from the excellent free site whoscored.com
ATGS/cS* – 1 bookies anytime goalscoring odds and clean sheet odds. ATGS assumes they start and doesn’t include assist potential.
Player values are as of Thursday 13 December and remember in the FPL graphic the players in my existing team will reflect my selling price.
Goalkeepers
Fabianski
I’ve stuck with Fabianski for save potential and fixtures despite the fact that we’ve only seen 2 clean sheets this season.
Of the £4.5m ish GKs only Hart and Hennessey have more points by 2 and 1 point respectively and only Hart has made more saves.
Fulham (A)
Watford (H)
Southampton (A)
Burnley (A)
Brighton (H)
Arsenal (H)
Button is the £4.0m non playing reserve
Defenders
Luiz
I’ve chosen Luiz over Laporte of Man City and Alonso for budgetary reasons and because I think Laporte will see more rotation over Xmas than Luiz will. While I see the Man City defence as better than Chelsea I think the fact that Laporte has less attacking potential than Mendy means that Luiz can be chosen with limited risk in comparison. Just a note to say that if there was budget I would have Alonso over Luiz for his attacking potential.
Brighton (A)
Leicester (H)
Watford (A)
Crystal Palace (A)
Southampton (H)
Newcastle (H)
Kolasinac
Has rotation risk as does everyone in Emery’s Arsenal. If Emery continues with his, so far, 4 game back 3 then Kolasinac, if selected, has very good attacking points potential. Hopefully the better fixtures will give Arsenal great clean sheet potential as well.
Southampton (A)
Burnley (H)
Brighton (A)
Liverpool (A)
Fulham (H)
West Ham (A)
Lovren
With Gomez and Matip out now for around 5-6 weeks then Lovren should get decent gametime in as Van Dijk’s CB partner. Liverpool have the most clean sheets so far this season as well as having conceded the least goals.
Man Utd (H)
Wolves (A)
Newcastle (H)
Arsenal (H)
Man City (A)
Brighton (A)
Doherty
3 goals, 3 assists and 4 clean sheets for Doherty. Only Alexander Arnold in the cheapish defender department comes anywhere near him for total points. The difficult position for Wolves is no clean sheet since GW9 although overall their underlying defensive stats are still excellent.
Bournemouth (H)
Liverpool (H)
Fulham (A)
Spurs (A)
Crystal Palace (H)
Man City (A)
Wan Bissaka
There for budgetary reasons as one of the cheaper playing defenders. However no £4.5m ish defence has more clean sheets than Palace’s 5. Has little attacking potential but only 3 defenders have more than his 9 bonus points.
Leicester (H)
Man City (A)
Cardiff (H)
Chelsea (H)
Wolves (A)
Watford (H)
Midfielders
Salah
Little needs to be said after his hat trick v Bournemouth. Fixtures are a bit mixed.
Man Utd (H)
Wolves (A)
Newcastle (H)
Arsenal (H)
Man City (A)
Brighton (A)
Hojbjerg
There just to bring 2 points off the bench (assuming no yellow card). Has played 13 of the last 14 with 90 minutes in most. Has little attacking potential though and is on 4 yellow cards so likely to be suspended for 1 game before December 31st
Arsenal (H)
Huddersfield (A)
West Ham (H)
Man City (H)
Chelsea (A)
Leicester (A)
Felipe Anderson
5 goals and an assist in his last 6 as West Ham score 9 goals in their last 3 games. Underlying stats are a bit ordinary but he has shown an ability to over perform them historically. Great fixtures
Fulham (A)
Watford (H)
Southampton (A)
Burnley (A)
Brighton (H)
Arsenal (H)
Sane
3 goals and 2 assists in the last 4. Great underlying stats and should be as regular as you can be under Pep with Mendy injured and Sane to provide the width on the left. Played 90 minutes in the Champions League midweek which is never a helpful factor for rotation. Did score 2 goals though to underline current form
Everton (H)
Crystal Palace (H)
Leicester (A)
Southampton (A)
Liverpool (H)
Wolves (H)
Richarlison
2 tricky fixtures next but overall you’d have him due to his returns. Has also been playing striker although Tosun did start v Newcastle in GW15.
Man City (A)
Spurs (H)
Burnley (A)
Brighton (A)
Leicester (H)
Bournemouth (H)
Kane
It would be a brave man who wouldn’t have Kane v Burnley this weekend. Played 90 minutes midweek and the game v Leicester in GW16 showed that he is not untouchable in terms of rotation. 4 goals and 2 assists in his last 5 starts underlines current form.
Burnley (H)
Everton (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Wolves (H)
Cardiff (A)
Man Utd (H)
Kamara
Only started 1 of the last 4 although has come off the subs bench in the other 3. In the team due to an exceptionally good price.
West Ham (H)
Newcastle (A)
Wolves (H)
Huddersfield (H)
Arsenal (A)
Burnley (A)
Aubameyang
A disappointing captain favourite last week although had the chances to do much better. 3 goals and 2 assists in his last 4 are reasonable form and also has good underlying stats and penalty duties.
Like anyone in Emery’s Arsenal he is a rotation risk.
Southampton (A)
Burnley (H)
Brighton (A)
Liverpool (A)
Fulham (H)
West Ham (A)
Read this article for player suggestions fixture ease article
See also the FFGeek early team thoughts article and our bandwagons and sinking ships article plus our analysing 10 top FPL managers article
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Geek I have a question about the Template/70% thing. Why do you put so much faith in these guys and not think you are better or as good as them? Like, you probably look at this in more depth than them because you actually do a site for it! Seems to me like you could be basing your Template thing off worse players than you!
Hi mate
Firstly these guys have finished top 10k OR the last 3 years so I don’t consider myself better.
They are also a proxy for most serious FPL managers and I believe their teams will have a similar makeup to those that finish at the upper ranks of FPL at the end of the season. So looking at the template from 7/10 makes you look at the players that if you don’t have them will seriously hurt your rank. I think FPL is a balance between avoiding drops and moving forward. The top 10k ORs are also considered at the same % for a check and balance.
The times I’ve lost rank this season is where I’ve tried to move away and taken risks funnily enough.
I hope that helps. Good luck this week FFG
Rob, these players have been consistently doing very well in FPL for the last few years… I dont know who else you could look to. The template approach is the best approach imo, although I believe in taking a few risks.
But what do those guys themselves look to?
If u constantly follow them then youll always be a step behind no?
I don’t think it’s true that if you follow them you’ll always end up behind. The template thing will only mean you have 6 or 7 players the same which is the same as most serious managers. You’ll have the rest of the team, your captain picks and your weekly transfer to determine your rank from a positive point of view
cheers
But isn’t this just logical anyway? I mean the reason these players are considered template is because they are the best players in the league in their respective positions and price range. Therefore, they are showing the best returns so to not own them means you are losing out.
Interesting cheers both.