FPL 23/24 First Wildcard Guide – Players, Formation, Timing, & More

FPL 23/24 wildcard guide

 

Yep, we’re getting towards that time again. 

Obviously, some of you will have dropped your wildcards already. In that case, you don’t need to read one more word of this article – good for you! 

If you can’t get that wildcard off your mind though, it’s time for a good chat. Here’s everything you need to know about hitting the button ahead of Gameweek 10. 

 

Is Now the Time to Wildcard?

Gameweek 10 definitely sounds like a really cool gameweek. So sure, why not drop it now!

In addition though, there is actual, boring logic to wildcarding now. 

 

We’ve seen a number of ‘must-own’ players emerge in recent gameweeks. A lot of us are also stuck with absolute dross we mistakenly started the season with (*coughPickfordcough*), and now can’t get rid of. A wildcard definitely solves the second problem, and gets you as many ‘essentials’ as you can afford.

Elsewhere, the fixtures are turning for teams with highly-owned players. 

Spurs are starting to play better defences now, for example, so a Son becomes less appealing. Brentford’s fixtures get horrible, so Mbeumo and Wissa should be binned. Other sides – like Arsenal and Villa – are embarking on nice fixture runs that we can take advantage of. 

 

If you don’t drop your first wildcard now, you’re probably holding off until as close to the deadline as you can get. For the record, your deadline for the first wildcard this season is Gameweek 20 (Saturday 30th December, technically).

 

Personally, I’m holding off. I generally prefer to play my first wildcard as late as possible anyway. And this year, my team is fine right now. Not perfect, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a couple of moves. 

Also, we’ve still got international games coming up in mid-November. Not many, but some. After this, we’re clear for months. 

Also also, European football’s on now. By waiting until around Christmas, we get at least a few weeks where this isn’t a problem (although admittedly there will be domestic cups to deal with).

 

If you’ve got a couple of the many, many injured top players though, or you’re struggling to get to the genuine must-owns (like Salah and Trippier), I’m fine with wildcarding. Or, of course, if your team is just struggling in general, you might want to drop it before you fall too far behind. 

Just make sure you’re being extra-careful to plan ahead, with both fixtures and avoiding rotation risks. 

 

Wildcard Staples – The ‘Must Owns’

If everyone is ‘must own’, is anyone must own? 

I’m not really joking here. We’ve got so many players that seem borderline essential, and are clearly so much better than the other players. None of us can have all of them, so the very concept of a ‘must own’ is almost useless. 

That being said, I’d split our candidates into these categories. 

 

100% Must Own

He’s the only player I’d class as absolutely, stone-dead essential. 

He is the one true premium forward in the game. He got 45 goal involvements last year. He’s been in so-so form recently, and is still the 4th-highest scoring player in FPL. 

I don’t care about the price, or what not having him enables. He’s the best player in the game, so… have him! 

 

You Really, Really Should Have Them

He’s obviously amazing, he’s been the FPL King for years now, and he’s the most consistent player in fantasy this year. 

I don’t have him quite in the same tier as Haaland, for two reasons. Firstly, he doesn’t have the goalscoring upside. Secondly, he’s a midfielder, and therefore doesn’t have the same positional scarcity as Haaland. 

That said, he’s been in my team since Gameweek 1, and I doubt I’ll take him out all season. In this annoying, frustrating, unpredictable game, you can’t overlook someone this ridiculously consistent. 

He was the dominant defender in FPL last year. After a slow start, it’s looking like he will be again this year. 

He doesn’t have anywhere near the points upside as Haaland or Salah, which is why he’s 3rd here. But he’s the only premium defender left, and I don’t even know who’s second. We need to stick three defenders out there each week, and this guy’s clearly the best by an absolute mile.  

 

Next Best

He’s the second-highest scoring player, after Salah. He’s got 13 returns already. He’s definitely checked my ‘consistency’ box, starting every game and blanking just once. He’s only 8.3, and he’s a forward. For me there’s a gap between him and Alvarez, but – even if you don’t agree – there’s definitely a massive dropoff after those three. 

He doesn’t quite have the proven upside of the top group, or the clear ‘best player at the position’ crown that Trippier does. But he’s pretty damn close to being essential. 

Again, I just value consistency so highly. It’s all well and good looking at points totals at the end of the season. But streaky players, like Vardy and Prime Zaha back in the day, are a massive pain. You’ve got no idea when those points are actually coming. 

Saka is the opposite. He’s like a Mini Mo. Obviously, he doesn’t have the upside of Salah. But he does play every minute of every game (barring a rare stumble this year), is constantly involved, and delivers with incredible consistency. He’s started 7 games this season, and blanked once. He both scores and assists nowadays, and his numbers are trending in the right direction (20 goal involvements in 21/22, 26 in 22/23, 8 already so far this year). 

Unlike the previous three players, he’s also affordable compared to other players at his position, at only 8.5.

 

Really, Really Good… Not ‘Essential’

As noted, there are a few other players this year who are clearly a step above the competition. All of them have question marks though, and so I’d class them more as really, really good picks than actual ‘essentials’. 

In rough order, they are:

 

Bowen, Maddison, and Son are all obviously great. They’re also midfielders though, and you’re basically fine with any combination of them, plus Salah and preferably Saka. In short, we can’t really call any of them ‘essential’ when there are five excellent midfield options. 

My ordering here is pretty simple. Bowen’s a bigger goal threat than Maddison, and Son’s expensive. 

Alvarez is a tricky one. I just really struggle to trust any non-Haaland City player. He seems nailed right now, but we’ve seen this story play out too many times before. That said, he’s obviously been great so far, and – again – is one of only three good forwards in the whole game (and you probably need to be starting two). 

 

The Enablers

After our lengthy last section, let’s whip through a quick one.

Here are your best enablers right now, to get your budget up for the rest of your squad. 

 

Filling in the Blanks

Well, you’ve got your great players and your rubbish ones. Now’s the hard part, where you’ve got to fill in the rest!

For starters, you’re only playing three at the back. Defenders are rubbish this year. 

Personally, I favour a 3-5-2 this year, with midfield just being so deep. A 3-4-3 is definitely viable, if you want to get Haaland, Watkins, and Alvarez. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

There’s no other starting forward good enough to justify it, though. In fact, we don’t need to waste any more time on the forward position. Either get those three, or get two of them plus Archer/Foster. 

So, that leaves us with Goalkeepers, Defenders, and Midfielders. 

 

Goalkeepers

Sigh. 

In all honesty, even after Pickford blew up in my face… I’d still probably favour the cheap route. 

Goalkeeper returns are so unpredictable that I wouldn’t want to spend any more money here than I had to. Were I wildcarding now, I’d just have the Areola/Turner double. West Ham are decent, their fixtures are fine, he’s fine… Whatever, it’s boring but it’s probably smart. 

The only premium keeper I’d even consider is Pope. Newcastle are one of the very few reliable defences we have. Arsenal are probably the second-best… but who knows if Raya keeps his spot for the next couple of months. Pope’s as good as you’re going to get at the position, but at 5.5 is just so expensive. I’d rather invest that money in decent attacking defenders, never mind actually good mids and forwards. 

In summary: play it cheap.

 

Defenders

I know there are good teams out there without Trippier. I just can’t see myself overlooking him on a wildcard. Yes, he’s priced like a midfielder, at 7.0. But he’s delivering like one too – he’s scored more points than Bowen, Maddison, and Mbeumo this year. Also, the gap between him and the next best defender is just comically big. 

Trippier is a borderline lock. As we’ll see later though, if you want to play a 3-4-3 with the Big Three Forwards up top, you’ll find it very hard to have him. This is just one of the main arguments for going 3-5-2. 

After that, things get trickier. You might want to fill in your 4-5 starting midfielders first here, then see how much you’ve got for defenders. 

If we take budget out of the equation, I’d have these as the best non-Trippier defenders:

All three play for good defences. All three are full-backs. White has the lowest attacking potential of the three, and is comfortably the most expensive. I much prefer the other two. 

I wrote a big old piece about defenders in FPL a few weeks ago. The main takeaway was that premium defenders aren’t necessarily worth it, but taking full-backs over centre-backs definitely is. 

I wouldn’t pick any centre-backs in my wildcard with the intention of actually starting them. We’re only playing three defenders, and – even if you don’t have Trippier – you can easily have three starting full-backs there. The cheaper good options right now are:

None of them are lighting it up going forward right now. But they all play for solid defences, and at least have a shot at returns. I like them in that order, since Digne has the Moreno threat looming long-term. 

I wouldn’t really want to spend more than 4.5 on a centre-back. That still gets you Torres/Konsa at Villa, or Guehi/Mitchell at Palace, for example.

In summary: start three full-backs, have one cheaper player (probably a CB) on your bench, then fill the last spot with an enabler. 

 

Midfielders

This is easily the trickiest position, with so many good options. 

You’re not going to go ‘wrong’ whichever combination you pick. It’s just trying to actually pick the ones who are going to get you the most points (top analysis there). 

I have Salah in a class of his own. I’d make him a lock in your wildcard, regardless of his price. 

After that, there are three other excellent midfielders, all of whom are great:

 

Again, that’s my order of preference, but in truth they’re all brilliant. 

Personally, I wouldn’t have Son. He’s amazing, but I just don’t think he’s worth a whole million more than Saka, or a whopping 2 million more than Bowen. 

If you play a Haaland/Watkins/Alvarez 3-4-3, you’ll be able to get at most three of those midfielders. That would mean having a Nakamba-style enabler, plus a very cheap fourth starting midfielder. 

If you play a 3-5-2, you can obviously invest that money you’re saving up top into the midfield. You’ll still struggle to get more than three of those top mids, though (note: this is the argument for not having Trippier – you probably get four top mids). 

‘So why would I dream of playing a 3-5-2 then?’ I hear you ask. Well, I’ll tell you! We have lots of very good mid-priced midfielders this year too.

Here are just a few of the midfielders you can get for 7.0 and below right now (sorted by current points total):

 

To be fair, I wouldn’t actually pick Sterling, JWP, Kulu, or Almiron right now. That still leaves us with 5 very good midfielders though, all of whom are excellent value. 

If you’re running a 3-5-2, you can easily have 3 of those premium midfielders, then 2 of these more affordable mids. I prefer this approach, mostly because I don’t 100% trust Alvarez. 

 

Putting It All Together

So, we’ve basically got two formations/ideas you can go with for your first FPL wildcard in 2023/24.

For the record, I’m assuming a team value of around 101.0. I’ve also got Lamptey in here, as an enabler, assuming he comes back soon. If you prefer longer-term security, you can replace him with another 4.0, like one of the Luton CB’s or Branthwaite at Everton. 

Here’s an example of your 3-4-3, with Trippier:

23/24 wildcard - option A

Bit ropey, isn’t it?

I’ve got Anderson as the 4th midfielder here. It can basically be any mid at around 5.0 or below… but they’re all rubbish. Unless your TV is significantly higher, and you can get up to a better fourth midfielder, you’re actually probably better off running a 4-4-2 with a CB, and just praying for cleans. Even then, your bench is pretty rubbish. 

When we take Trippier out, things obviously look much better:

23/24 wildcard - option B

This is very much just a template. I’ve put Coufal in here, but he could be Digne. We’ve also got around 1.0 to play with. This could be spent on upgrading the bench, or moving Gordon up to a midfielder of around 6.5. Not having Maddison isn’t ideal, but the midfield is still very strong overall. 

I definitely like this more than having a 3-4-3 with Trippier. 

As stated before though, my own preference is to have Trippier, and play a 3-5-2. Something like this:

23/24 wildcard - option C

For the record, this scrapes in right at the budget. You could have Guehi as a 4.4 though, or make Diaby into Mitoma, to save 0.1 here or there. 

I like this team a lot, and don’t really see any weaknesses. We’ve got three starting full-backs with attacking potential, five reliable starting midfielders, and the two best forwards up to. 

My only real concern would be flexibility – if you wanted to get up to Saka, for example. Obviously that’d require a double-move, since we’re not selling Mo. Maddison would probably have to go, meaning we’d need to find around 0.5 somewhere. That’s not impossible – we could downgrade Bowen to another good mid-range midfielder, for example, or move Porro down to a good CB – but it’s not ideal. 

(For the record, if we take Coufal/Digne over Porro, we can have Saka over Maddo from the start). 

Just for fun, let’s see what a 3-5-2 without Trippier looks like:

23/24 wildcard - option D

That’s with White instead of Trippier (a significant downgrade, for me). It leaves us around 0.5 in the bank.

I’d probably prefer to drop down to a 4.6-4.7 full-back instead, like Coufal or Digne. That gives us about 1.6 more to spend on the midfield shown above. Depending on your TV, of course, it could even get you Saka and Maddison:

23/24 wildcard - option E

That’s an incredible midfield, plus the two best forwards still. I definitely prefer that over the Ben White defence, above. It’s at least my 2nd-favourite wildcard. 

Do I prefer it over having Trippier? Honestly, I’m not sure. There’s obviously a gulf between Mitoma and Saka, but there is between Coufal and Trippier as well. Trippier got almost 200pts last season, for God’s sake, which is Prime Trent territory. 

I will say that the last example team has more flexibility. It gives us two midfielders we can easily downgrade – Saka and Maddison – to a good mid-priced alternative, while freeing up around 2.0 to spend elsewhere. 

 

In Conclusion

Right! 

After all that, my preferences – in order – are:

 

So basically… Trips or No Trips is your big choice! I’m pro-Trips, but there’s definitely a strong case for not having him. 

As another recap, the only actual must-own players are Haaland and Salah. Watkins is right behind, though. I also think the Areola/Turner combo is basically a lock, as is starting three full-backs in defence. 

Aside from that, you’ve actually got a pleasing amount of flexibility in your first FPL wildcard for 23/24. In particular, there are a ton of good midfielders, so you can’t really go wrong there. We’ve also got some decent cheap enablers, which I prefer to have, but if you want to upgrade your bench a little – to reliable starters – finding the money isn’t hard. Again, mostly thanks to value midfielders like Gordon. 

With that, we’re finally done! If you want any specific advice on your own wildcard, please hit us up on Reddit or Twitter.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *