FPL gameweek 25 wildcard – FFGeek contributor Rob Reid activates his wildcard

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s our FPL gameweek 25 wildcard article where the FFGeek contributor Rob Reid activates his wildcard.  Rob has finished in the top 0.5% of managers in 3 of the last 5 seasons.

FPL gameweek 25 wildcard – FFGeek contributor Rob Reid activates his wildcard

You can also see Andrew Whitfields wildcard draft here

Why Wildcard?

Firstly here’s my current team prior to points GW24 West Ham v Liverpool.  33 points, 1337 total points and 241k overall rank.




FPL gameweek 25 wildcard

Well here I am again! A curious feeling of deja-vu hits home as I write this article as I have once again gone for the unorthodox approach of activating my Wildcard well before the incoming blank and double gameweeks. For the second season in a row I guess you are all asking have I gone mad? And once again I issue my disclaimer – ideally I wouldn’t be activating my Wildcard here! The ideal week in my opinion is probably GW32 and if my overall rank was comfortably in the top 100k and if I didn’t have several out-of-form and a couple of high value injured players in my team, I’d be holding on to my Wildcard Chip.

But alas I don’t. As I write this – in the dying embers of GW24 – I’m coming off a succession of poor gameweek ranks and nasty red arrows. A Mo Salah masterclass versus West Ham this week may yet secure me a green arrow for this week but there are some cold hard facts that remain. I’ve got several out of form players in my team who I really need to move on and I’ve got the problem of the injuries hanging over Jamie Vardy and Sadio Mane. What I also have this season is confidence that this strategy can work. Last season I activated my Wildcard in GW22 with an Overall Rank of 904k and I finished at 150k having even broached the top 100k in GW36. Costas did even better activating in the same gameweek. Yep it can certainly work and this season I’ve got a higher starting point!

The difficulty is how the blank and doubles are navigated. Ideally, you use your Free Hit chip in the biggest blank week and save your Wildcard for 1-2 weeks before the biggest double to load up on double players before activating the Bench Boost chip. But having looked at this in more detail I think this looks less problematic than previous campaigns. Therefore, with my team in free-fall and the only over option I can come up with being a bunch of points hits over the next couple of weeks, I’m comfortable that hitting Wildcard is the best option for my team.

Blank / Double Gameweek Schedule

See also the Geeks article on the same subject

Before I go through my initial thoughts on my squad and I’m going to explore the upcoming schedule in more detail to give some reasoning as to why it’s a bit easier to negotiate the blanks this week. I’ve listed the schedule below.

GW25 – Normal gameweek
Midweek – FA Cup Round 4 replays
GW26 – Winter Break Gameweek – gameweek is spread over 2 weekends with no midweek fixtures.
Midweek UCL/EL – Round of 16 L1/ Round of 32 L1
GW27 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – Round of 16 L1/Round of 32 L2
GW28 – Mini Blank (MB) – 2 fixtures cancelled for Carabao Cup Final
Midweek – FA Cup Round of 16.
GW29 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – Round of 16 L2/Round of 16 L1
GW30 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – Round of 16 L2/Round of 16 L2
GW31 – Big Blank – FA Cup 1/4 final weekend, all fixtures involving teams in FA 1/4s cancelled
International Break – Nations League Play-offs
GW32 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – 1/4 finals L1
GW33 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – 1/4 finals L2
GW34 – Blank /Double (BD) – FA Cup semi-final weekend, all fixtures involving teams in FA semis cancelled.
Midweek – Clear for rearranged fixtures
GW35 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – semi-finals L1
GW36 – Normal Gameweek
Midweek – UCL/EL – semi-finals L2
GW37 – Big Double (BD) – Normal weekend fixtures
Midweek – Clear for rearranged fixtures
GW38 – Normal gameweek
Midweek – clear
FA Cup Final

Notes

1) It’s less likely cancelled fixtures will be scheduled in UCL/EL windows – this is frowned upon by UEFA. Historically though it has been done so can’t be 100% ruled out, it would involve an early kick-off (eg 6pm) on a UCL/EL night so as not to clash with the TV rights of the European fixtures. Looks unlikely but…

2) There is a small chance of a treble gameweek for Man City. If they reach the Carabao Cup Final, the FA Cup semi-finals and the Champions League semi-finals this could happen. Reaching the Carabao Cup Final cancels GW28 and with City qualifying for the FA Cup 5th round this rules out the City v Arsenal clash being moved into the GW28 midweek. That’s 1 blank fixture. If they reach the FA Cup semis they also lose fixtures in GW31 and 34 – 2 more blank fixtures. You will notice that there’s only 2 spots for rearranged fixtures – GW34 and 37 midweeks; so what if City have 3?

A couple of possibilities. If they get knocked out the UCL before the semis then a situation in Note 1 could come into play where the fixture is rearranged in GW35 or 36 midweek with an early kick-off. This would of course rely on their potential opponents not reaching the UCL/EL semis as well (the GW34 cancellation would be Newcastle so this should be ok.) If however they do reach the UCL semis, then they could arrange 3 fixtures into GW37 playing Saturday, Monday and Thursday for example. The final spot could be midweek between GW38 and the FA Cup final, though I suspect the FA and EPL would be less keen on this.

3) The key difference between this and previous seasons is the lack of a Blank Gameweek around GW33. The main reason for this is the FA Cup 5th round is being played in midweek this season. This means that the blank now falls in GW34 where fixtures can be moved into midweek if needed. It’ll just be a case of how the schedulers decide to arrange things. They sprung some surprises on us last season with the order of the fixtures so this is a bit of an unknown still.

Early Draft Thoughts

So with all that out the way, here’s some initial thoughts on my draft. I’ve had some discussion with fellow contributors Alex, Andrew and Costas over the weekend and it does look like there’s some recurring themes to our teams. This isn’t too surprising as the whole idea is to pick the players in the best form and with the best fixtures available at the time. I suspect therefore that many wildcard drafts at the moment will look fairly similar. I won’t go into masses of the detail then at this stage, but here’s an idea of who is on my shopping list.

Goalkeepers

One problem with playing the Wildcard this early is I’m likely to need 2 playing keepers. I’m keen on having Henderson so he’ll have a week where he’s ineligible when he plays Man United, the club he’s loaned from – I’ll need a stand-in in this case. More importantly though, it could save a Bench Boost transfer and make sure I’ve at least got 2 playing keepers on this Chip, even if they only have 1 game. I’ll probably stick with the cheapest option for keeper number 2. This would be McCarthy who I got at 4.3. I’ve not rule out a premium for the 1st spot though or other mid range options such as Foster or Guaita.

Defenders 

I’m likely to switch to double Liverpool defence. Trent Alexander Arnold will be staying but I’m not sure who I’ll pair him with. I’m likely to keep Lundstram as well due to his low initial purchase price, though there are some gametime worries creeping in for his lordship. I’ll probably go with 2 other cheaps in the other 2 slots but not sure who yet. Newcastle have some tempting options, as do Southampton but I’ll probably decide on this at the last minute depending on what funds I need elsewhere.

Midfielders

Going for 2 Pool defenders obviously means I have to lose one of my premium Liverpool midfielders with the likely injured Mane the one to make way. So Salah stays as does De Bruyne. Traore was superb last week against Liverpool so he’s on my radar and I might finally be able to get Grealish into my team. There’s likely to be a cheap filler here as well with Fleck, Cantwell and Hayden all options I’m looking at.

Forwards

I’ll probably hold Ings as he’s got a good fixture set from GW26. Jimenez could be coming back in, he’s in good from and it was a big mistake selling him a couple of weeks back. Then there’s the premium options for Aguero and Aubameyang – which one, both? The only caveat with this is that they’re going to blank in GW28 which does complicate things slightly.

So here’s an example draft I’ve put together below. I suspect this will change somewhat before the deadline on Saturday but this gives you an idea at least.




FPL gameweek 25 wildcard

Effective transfers

McGovern out – Henderson in

Martin Kelly out  – Van Dijk in

Cresswell out – Jack Stephens in

Maddison out – Grealish in

Mane out –  Fleck in

Dendoncker out – Traore in

Vardy out – Aguero in

Maupay out – Jimenez in

Those who stayed:  McCarthy, Soyuncu, Alexander Arnold, Lundstram, Salah, De Bruyne and Ings.

Carabao Cup semi final complications

Finally as if there wasn’t enough going on, there’s one more complicating factor and that’s the Carabao semi-finals this week. I expect City to qualify comfortably so it looks like City and Arsenal will therefore blank in GW28. The problem is the other fixture. This tie is in the balance, either could go through. If slight favourites Leicester go through then we lose Leicester and Norwich from GW28 as well – this would be more bearable to live with as The Foxes fixtures in the run up to GW28 are tough, there’s the doubt on Vardy’s fitness and Norwich assets aren’t really in my thoughts.

The problem would be if Villa win through as this would take them and Sheffield United out of GW28. That would mean that on top of the likes of De Bruyne and Aubameyang, we’d also lose Grealish and all the Blades assets for GW28. That would be a bit of a disaster! So lets’ just say I’ll have my Foxes hat on for Tuesday night – sorry Villa fans!

I’ll be back on Friday with my final line-up – happy tinkering if you’ve gone Wild this week like me!

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.  Currently 1,380 points 58k overall rank

You also get:

Weekly podcasts with the Geek and the other contributors

Joe’s interactive transfer planner and points projection tool plus PlannerTeam. Currently 1,351 points 160k overall rank

FFGeek private leagues

Access to the FFGeek Slack channel for discussion with the contributors and members

NEW Weekly FFGeek contributor imaginary wildcard articles

$2 and $3 tiers per calendar month. No commitment beyond 1 month

Other posts

Following the teams of 10 top FPL managers

FFGeek league codes:

fantasy premier league:  fnqq66

Sky Sports fantasy football:  fantasyfootball.skysports.com/leagues/join with PIN 8426114

Telegraph fantasy football European Super League:   League PIN: 8186902  League Passcode: 2113

Sun Dream Team:

Classic League PIN:  SGDKX9Y3

Social Media

Follow  FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

You may also like to read one of these too: