Why You Should Bench Boost in Gameweek 2 and not Gameweek 1 in FPL 26/27

Whether you should bench boost in Gameweek 1 or Gameweek 2 this FPL season’s been a real debate. Unlike last season, I (James) feel like almost everyone is bought in to an early bench boost in either gameweek 1 or 2. But most seem to favour gameweek 1. I am going to use maths (well, its stats actually) to show you why you should bench boost in 2 IF you are trying to spike a great start to the season

Two Sets of Chips

If you are new to FPL or just missed last season, you get two sets of chips and you need to play the first set before the gameweek 19 deadline.

It is very unlikely that we will get a double gameweek in the first half of the season so you will be playing your first bench boost, triple captain and free hit in a single gameweek.

Why Bench Boost Early

The main reason is that you can spend a little more than you usually would on your bench and wildcard out of it around gameweeks 4-7. That way, you don’t have to waste transfers getting players you don’t play off your bench before your next wildcard which is probably over 20 gameweeks away.

I wrote quite extensively on this last year if you want to read.

Expected Returns from Your First Bench Boost

Your expected returns from your first bench boost should be minimal. 

The floor is 8 points (that’s 4×2 appearance points). 

The ceiling is something like 8+12(3 clean sheets)+4(2 defcon returns)+3(an assist for your mid or striker). 

So, that’s 27 points and the difference between floor and ceiling is 19 points.

Gameweek 1 Bench Boost

Attacking returns are way harder to account for than clean sheets AND all the cheap attacking players you might consider for your bench boost are shit. So, I am going to focus on clean sheets for defenders.

Most of the gameweek 1 Bench Boosts I have seen have something like Kinsky (4.5), Kadioglu (4.5), O’Shea (4.0) and Gross (5.5).

We can work out the chances of all three defensive picks getting clean sheets by multiplying their clean sheet odds together using the Multiplication Rule for Independent Events for stats nerds and Elevenify’s clean sheet odds:

22% x 29% x 29% = 1.9%

That’s a 1.9% chance that you get 12 clean sheet points.

I’ll spare you the maths but the probability that at least one gets a clean sheet (4 points) is 60.7% and the probability that at least two get a clean sheet (8 points) is 17.4%

Gameweek 2 Bench Boost

If you have a triple Coventry defence (goalkeeper and two 4.0 defenders) against Hull, the chance of them all getting a clean sheet and you getting 12 points is 34%.

It’s that simple. No maths.

But the Chance of You Getting Nothing Increases Too

As you can probably tell, the chance of you getting no clean sheet points is 66%. That’s almost the same as the chance you get 1 clean sheet from your gameweek 1 bench boost with three different defences.

Why I Think You Should Risk It

Gameweek 2 bench boost with triple Coventry defence pretty much doubles the odds of two clean sheets (8 points) and gives you almost 18 times the likelihood of three clean sheets on a gameweek 2 bench boost. And you save 0.5 at the same time.

Ultimately, the difference between an elite bench boost in the first half of the season and a bad one is about 19 points. That’s 0.82% of my total score for last year. It can be made up with a couple of good captaincy shouts or even a good transfer in. So, it’s not very much to gain or risk.

But, if you are trying to get off to a flying start, the maths tells you to bench boost triple Coventry defence.