This week, I was in a restaurant in Switzerland eavesdropping on two FPL managers as they discussed their gameweeks and their chip strategies. I know. I told you not to worry about it in my last piece but, in my polling of people in Swiss restaurants, I found that you are worrying about it, so here is some first thoughts.
As before, I still think it is true that you shouldn’t get overly focused on the long-term right now. Principally because we just don’t know what will happen yet. But, we can start to think about it.
Before I get into it properly, you should all follow Ben Crellin on Twitter and check out his free spreadsheet.
What do we know? What do we think we know?
This is as good a place as any to start.
We know there are doubles in 23, 25 and we know there will have to be more to make up for fixtures that have not yet been played. We also know that there are blanks in 25.
We think we know there are blanks in 28 and 32 but it is not certain. We think there will be a big double in 29 and 34 and probably a smaller one in 37. We have probabilities on which teams this will affect but don’t know for sure – and this, right here, is why I don’t think you should over plan right now. Without knowing who to go for, plans will be pointless – yes, you can take an educated guess but do you need to?
What will be the likely strategies?
In general, for doubles we want lots of players that double and in blanks we want to make sure we get a decent number of playing players. Remember, a decent number doesn’t have to be 11. But other than that, what are the likely strategies going forward for each one?
Double 23 – Load up on Arsenal and have at least Haaland from City.
Blank and Double 25 – Load up on Arsenal. Bench or sell United, Brighton, Brentford and Newcastle assets because they don’t play.
Blank 28 – We already know that Arsenal, Everton, Palace, Villa, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Forest and Newcastle definitely play these games and all except Newcastle also play in 25.
Double 29 – No idea, not sure who plays.
Blank 32 – Villa, Everton, Palace, Forest, Brentford and Liverpool guaranteed games. Unclear for the rest. Potentially medium sized blank.
Double 34 – no idea, not sure who plays.
Double 37 – no idea, not sure who plays.
So what?
What does this tell us? Loading up on Arsenal players is great right now. They are cheap, excellent, have lots of doubles and few blanks.
If you are like me and are doubled up on Newcastle defence and have Shaw as well, you may be looking to grab a defender playing in 25 and 28. Villa and Everton look like the ones to go for. I’m not saying you should expect loads but a Sean Dyche’s Everton seems good. Tarkowski is only 4.2…
Mitoma is a tough one, he blanks in 25 but is in great form. I don’t think there is a right answer to this but if you bring him in, its not stupid.
The final thing to think about before we focus on chips is free transfers and hits. Basically I think its sensible to minimise both. I am personally very tempted to hit in Oedegaard for Martinelli because of the minutes risk but I’m torn. Because you generally don’t hit out a double gameweek asset for a somewhat sideways move for a double game week asset in the same team.
When to wildcard and when to free hit
25 has so few fixtures blanking it would be a waste of a free hit, the free hit is best used in a big blank week. 28 and 32 are likely to be bigger and 28 the biggest.
So, the two clear strategies from that are to free hit in 28 and 32. Then what does that mean for a wildcard and other chips? It seems to be two clear options to me:
- Free hit 28, Wildcard 29 or
- Free hit 28, dead-end into 32 and Wildcard into 33
I like these because I think 28 will be the biggest blank. I think the latter is more optimum as you will know the fixtures for the later doubles by then and be able to maximise your wildcard looking at bench boosting and/or triple captaining depending upon what you have left. Otherwise you will have to manage the blank in 32 against these competing demands.
There are plenty of other options but these seem the best to me in terms of point maximisation.
That’s it, we will do another one of these later in the calendar when we know a bit more.