“To wild card or not to wild card” – that is the barclays fantasy premier league wild card question

Fantasy Premier League, Strategy

Well, values are all over the  place up and down in an unprecedented manner. So  is now the time to use your fantasy premier league wild card?

Firstly at Wednesday its close to being academic anyway but lets run through the argument.  Lets start at the basics

Why use the Fantasy Premier League wild card?

Historically a fantasy premier league wild card have beeN used for 2 reasons:

1. Defensively

When a team has injuries or underperformers.  Not my choice here.  Hopefully you have your team covered with playing reserves.  If you’ve structured your team right even the underperformers should have good fixtures coming up. At worst, fix it with a 1 or maybe even a couple of 4 point hits  If things look like you wont be fielding a full team

2.  Offensively

Excuse the American terminology (unless you are one of my regular visitors from the US).  Ideally you want to have it for when a number of teams are in a double game week and those teams have good  fixtures therafter.  This can really give you a significant points boost over your fantasy premier league  rivals.  This is how I prefer to use mine waiting until say March to see the time is right.

If you read my 23 rules of play article  (see link below) you will see when analysing last winners a high proportion left them to close to the end of the fantasy premier league season.

FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE STRATEGY – 23 RULES OF PLAY

So why is this year different.  Why am I even writing this article you may ask? Here’s the reason

Player value rises and falls are mad this year

Lets not kid ourselves, the reason anyone will be using the fantasy premier league wild card is due to the unprecedented change in player values this season.  I have never seen values fluctuate so wildly.  I will acknowledge already that not dealing with the Mata and Hazard price differential through a points hit was already a huge mistake.  They were once the same value not mata is £9.0m hazard £10.1m.  In 3 weeks! Where will they be after the international break. I dont want to wish anyone harm but it would be handy fantasy premier league wise if hazard got injured.

So is it the right thing to use the fantasy premier league wildcard  purely for value or should  you correct things with points hit or ride it out.

Firstly lets remind ourselves of the rises and falls

Rises

Michu (31.8% owned 495k transfers in) Tevez(47.% owned 527k transfers in)  – £0.8m

Hazard (37.3% owned 192k transfers in)  – £0.6m

Fellaini (21.2% 307k transfers in) Dyer(26.1%216k transfers in) (29.4%)  RVP(29.4% owned 183k transfers in) – £0.4m

Ivanovic and Petric ave also gone up £0.3m

Historically late 40% ownership is normally the highest ownership gets so Hazard and Michu could still have some rising to go as could all of the people on this list apart from Tevez who should stabilise.  I dont know what % Hazard and Michu started out as but presumably very low as they were new players. But this along with the ridiculously low price of Tevez may explain the rises.  Is it just managers early season getting very enthusiastic and using their fantasy premier league wildcards and the rises feeding themselves or is it moe structural in the game design. The rises of Fellaini Dyer and RVP are the most disturbing.  To me ,especially the RVP price, which is a ridiculous starting price  anyway, shows me that something has changed in the design of the game. Given the ownership levels currently of the above players and assume a 45% rough ceiling combined with  the number of fantasy premier league wild cards that are being used the prices will keep going UP.  This is disturbing.  Will our rivals have a £4m value advantage over us by the end of the international break.

The key question is will the price rises fall again.  It will be interesting to monitor Petric and Kagawa over the break as these players had knocks to their reputation  with substituations over the game week.  Kagawa with the home game agaisnt Wigan may escape.

Falls:

Mata (4.9% owned 60k transfers out)  Oscar (0.7% owned 12k transfers out)    Sturridge (1.1% owned 16k out) –  -£0.5m

Ramires (7.0% owned (99k transfers out)  6.0% owned 495k transfers out –    -£0.4m

Amazingly there are 16 players who have lost £0.3m in value in 3 weeks.

This seems unprecedented to me and a sign that something fundamentally has changed in the pricing of the game.  Does this mean that should Hazard have some bad  fixtures that the values will fluctuate down as wildly.  Is this a new dimension on fantasy premier league that we will have to adjust to.  As someone who likes to leave the wildcard to late in the season and someone who likes to use their transfer on the Friday at the earliest this is bad news.  However Im not going to use my fantasy premier league wild card  for the following reasons

1.  If I was to use it I should have used it earlier and Ive missed the boat anyway so it seems to be compounding a mistake to use it now.

2.  My hunch is that Mata, my main probalem child has got to the bottom now although I still have Bale NZog Britton and Gorkks having lost value.

3.  I think that this is going to be a new dimension which means prices will continue to fluctuate so its just part and parcel of the new fantasy premier league strategy.

4.  Fundamentally I dont believe that value necessarily equals points.  Think last season of Siggy Jelavic Cisse Graham Dempsey even Bale  compared to Lampard Torres Gerrard Droga.  If you get the right players for the right fixtures (which I havent done in Mata and NZog) then values will take care of themselves.  Last year I finished 4880  overall with an end value of around £106m.  Far ahead of players with £110m.  Its only the difference between 1 expensive and 1 cheap player

5.  Remember you lose half your gain when you sell.  Will Hazard be a keeper the whole season and not get injured?  Maybe?  Will Michu?  Maybe not.

What about 4 point hits?

Instead of using the fantasy premier league Wildcard what about taking hits.  I fundamentally admit I was wrong not to take a hit to get Hazard in to the team at Mata’s expense.  I have suffered a 1.1m differential not doing this.  As you know Im against point hits unless they can be justified with players not playing if the hit wasnt taken.  I just dont believe they generally pay for themselves.  If this is going to be a part of the new fantasy premier league then taking a hit everytime someone has a bad game is just not going to work in my mind.  Plus at the moment Im hoping my problem child Mata has bottomed out.  It will be interesting to see what ahppens to Hazards price. Chelsea have QPR A (which is a tough local derby),  Stoke H, Arsenal A Norwich  H Spurs A.  Theres some challenging fixtures there.

At the moment Ive no plans for a point hit or even a early transfer with the International break but Ill be checking values furiously and updating the site regularly.

I hope everyone found that useful and please put any comments for or against in the comments section under the post as Ill be interested to see what everyone has to say

 

 

 

 

 

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