fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9 – Rob Reid with his draft wildcard options

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s the first of our fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9 articles where FFGeek contributors show their draft wildcard teams.  First up is Rob Reid who’s contemplating a number of options.  Help him choose the best option with the poll within the article.  Rob has finished 3 of the last 5 seasons in the top 0.5% of FPL managers

fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9 – Rob Reid with his draft wildcard options

You can follow Rob on twitter here

After a fairly catastrophic few weeks that have seen a succession of red arrows and a plummet down the overall rankings, I have decided to activate my first Wildcard. Pre-season when I’d looked at weeks for playing this chip, I’d ear-marked a key weeks that looked good options for Wildcard deployment. I quite liked the look of GW5 or GW6 initially and looking back, perhaps I should have gone for it in one of these weeks especially in view of how my team has suffered since. I also really liked GW9 though. There are seem key fixture shifts around now and I also have the advantage of 2 weeks to plan with it being an International Window. I kind of 98% made the decision at the end of GW7 that I was going to do it and an absolutely rank Saturday in GW8 with 15 points from 7 players 100% confirmed this call.

Here’s my team now and here were my stats for GW8

GW8 points: 34 (average 36) Total points 456 Gameweek rank 4,008k, Overall Rank: 320k, red arrow 91k, Team Value: £101.9m




You can see Rob’s team write up from GW8 here

fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9

Form

First up it’s impossible to ignore the form of certain players. Aubameyang, Aguero and Wilson have all looked good so far despite blanking in GW8. I jettisoned Wilson in GW3 for what looked like a tough fixture run and (as usual for me with Wilson) he’s punished this move since. For Aubameyang and Aguero, it’s simply been a case of my funds being in the wrong place to accommodate them. There’s also the Chelsea duo of Mount and Abraham – this coupled with their great fixtures make them very dangerous. And of course there’s De Bruyne, though his groin injury is a little bit of a worry moving forward. Will his gametime be managed moving forward…can Pep afford to do this with them already 8 behind front-runners Liverpool?

Then there’s the players in my team who simply aren’t cutting it. Tying up 12.5m in Digne and Van Dijk hasn’t been productive over the last 5 weeks and the Norwich duo of Pukki and Cantwell have seen a downturn in returns since that dramatic win over City which mirrors the current poor form of their side. Finally there’s Salah. A goal and 2 assists in the last 5 isn’t bad, but at 12.5m and for someone I’d like to captain I’d really be hoping for a bit more. You’re always playing a dangerous game selling the Egyptian, but I think a small downgrade in price to Mane could be a good move at least over the next 5 weeks when Mo isn’t such a viable captain option and can’t hurt you as much. I hope I don’t live to regret this statement as I did last season mind!

Fixtures

Next up, there’s some teams who’s fixtures have now turned for the better. I’d really like to cover Arsenal and Leicester – both have superb fixture runs now and I’m keen also to keep Chelsea covered though I might switch some of this into defence. 4 of Bournemouth’s next 5 also look really nice and if Wolves can learn to juggle the Premier and Europa Leagues, they also have a nice run up to GW17. I also plan on trying to keep 3 City assets at least for their next 4 despite their GW8 defeat to Wolves, but as mentioned above Liverpool’s next 5 look tougher and although they are fairly fixture proof, it does make me wary of tying funds up with them.

Premium Dilemmas

I’ve already gone through the Mane v Salah debate and that extra 0.9m would be very helpful. Especially considering I’d like to accommodate Aubameyang and 2 out of Aguero, Sterling and De Bruyne. The latter of these 3 Citizens is staying – I’ve had him since GW1 so he’s effectively a 9.5m rather than a 10m player for me so he’s staying at the moment. That leaves me with a Sterling vs Aguero debate. Tough one this and although I like Sterling, I’ve been disappointed with him the last few weeks questioning his reliability as a captain option. Aguero has been more consistent and can be very explosive on his day but is more likely to fall victim to rotation? Who knows!

Budget Price-Busters

There are viable budget players potentially emerging across all the categories. Lundstram will be staying in my squad (again effectively a 4m player for me) but you can now add Rico, Kelly and possibly even Taylor at Burnley as workable options here. Just above this there’s also Soyuncu and Tomori playing for good teams with good fixtures at a sub-5m price. There’s also 2 sub 4.5m keepers available in Roberto and Gazzaniga – both viable medium term options with Fabianski and Lloris both out (get well soon guys) even if they’re not playing in for the most attractive teams defensively. Then there’s the attacking options – there’s a possible 4.5m striker in Connolly of Brighton, Arsenal have a young 4.5m priced midfielder in Saka who’s playing OOP as a forward and I still like Dendoncker as a squad filler and he’s now only 4.4m with great fixtures. Plenty of food for thought here.

Drafts

So I’ve drawn up 4 drafts!

Draft 1 – Aguero/Abraham Draft.

Scope to jiggle around midfield and 3rd striker with Maddison, Hudson-Odoi, Wilson etc all possibles here. Defence relies on playing a cheap each week.




fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9

Draft 2 – Sterling & Wilson Draft.

This has Wilson and Maupay but again scope to change to strikers 2 and 3. No Leicester attack coverage. Again relies on playing a cheap defender each week.

fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9

Draft 3 – Sterling & Vardy Draft.

Again a cheap needs to be played each week, but can be rotated around the positions.

fantasy premier league wildcard tips GW9

Draft 4 – Aguero/Hudson-Odoi Draft.

This one looks more flexible. Husdson-Odoi could easily become Yarmolenko or H. Wilson to cover nice fixtures. 3 solid defensive options so don’t have to play a cheap each week.

Vote for the best option in the Poll below

Lots of tinkering to be done over the next 2 weeks. Why not have a vote for your favourite in the Poll below or leave me a comment? One thing I do know is that there’s going to be a lot of 50/50 calls to make and all these drafts step away from the template somewhat – not having a Liverpool defender for example is a bit scary! It’s going to be an interesting International Break, and maybe not the most comfortable next few weeks in FPL.

 

You can follow Rob on twitter here

 

 

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 a spreadsheet of each managers teams, transfers and captains so you can drill down further.

You also get:

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 wildcard tips GW9 follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

You may also like to read one of these too: