Menu
Greetings all, and welcome to your Gameweek 35 Wildcard Special.
Unless you had so many fires to put out that you used it earlier (a common occurrence, in FPL), you probably waited to use your wildcard until either Gameweek 32 or… right now!
Obviously, this is an article for people who fall into the latter category.
We’ve got a lot to get through in this Gameweek 35 wildcard advice piece, so I’ll stop waffling and just get on with it, shall I?
Yes… I shall.
Finally, the remaining fixtures for this season have been confirmed.
As expected, Gameweek 36 will be a double.
We’ll get:
So, here are City’s remaining fixtures:
And here are Palace’s:
We’ll obviously touch on this again with my actual wildcard picks. But, my takeaways are pretty simple:
The former is obvious. The latter is a classic case of not overreacting to a team just because they have a double gameweek.
Palace have been pretty meh all season, and continue to be so. They’re 8th in the form table over the last 10 games, 11th over the last five, and 13th on the season. Basically, they’re bang-average.
As James noted in his excellent fixtures piece this week, they’re also fully focused on Europe right now, making them even less appealing.
Oh yes… and these aren’t even good fixtures. Three tough away games, the best defence in the league to finish the season, leaving Everton (hardly a bad team) at home as probably the best fixture of the bunch.
I’d be somewhat tempted by Munoz and Sarr, in that order.
I would not, however, rush out to fill your team with Palace players just because they’re doubling. Again, they’re not a great team, and these are still not good fixtures.
Right, that’s enough Palace-bashing for now. Let’s get on with the actual point of this piece, which was to help you put together a lovely little wildcard team!
Here are your no-doubt, can’t-fail, 100% guaranteed to work out picks, broken down position by position.
We don’t really need to overthink this one. Just get Raya.
He’s the highest scoring keeper, plays for the best defence, and has excellent fixtures through to the end of the season.
It doesn’t matter that he’s expensive – we’ve got plenty of money sloshing around.
You’ll be starting him every week, so just get a budget backup. Said budget backup should be Darlow, who only costs 3.9, and (just in case you need him, for whatever reason) Leeds also have a nice fixture run to finish with.
You’ve got two locks here, right off the bat – Gabriel and O’Reilly. They’re both excellent, have multiple routes to points, play for the two best defences, and – as you’ll see in this week’s fixtures piece – have the best run of games to finish the season.
As noted, you definitely want a City triple-up. O’Reilly and Haaland take two spots, but Guehi is an option for the third. Personally though, I’d use it on a midfielder – Cherki or Semenyo – and just stick to O’Reilly at the back.
You also want a Leeds defender. That doesn’t sound very exciting, I know, but their defence has been good recently, and they get to play Burnley, Spurs, and West Ham in three of their four remaining games. They’re also super cheap.
If you want the slightly safer pick, take Struijk at 4.3. He’s hit on DefCons in two of his last five games, but was right on the edge in the other three games – 8, 9, and 9 respectively.
Personally, I’d just take Justin at 3.9. He’s no slouch with DefCons, getting 10, 17, 9 and 9 in his last four games. He’s also at least got a little bit of attacking threat… not much, I’ll grant you, with three returns on a combined 2.7 xGI across the season, but I’d give him the slightest of edges in this regard.
Despite my Palace-bashing, I’d still probably just take Munoz. Maybe you stumble into a clean sheet, against Everton for example; even if you don’t, he’s the best chance you’ve got for a defender getting an attacking return on any given week. Again, we also have plenty of money to spend.
Finally, Hill just continues to pick himself. He remains an absolute bargain at only 4.2, has hit on DefCons in five of the last six weeks, and Bournemouth are third in our defensive fixture ticker. Senesi is a better pick in a vacuum, thanks mostly to his excellent through balls from the back (his 5 assists on the season are no fluke), but he’s not really worth a whole extra million.
So, my defence of choice would be:
Gabriel / O’Reilly / Munoz / Hill / Justin
Bruno is a lock. We don’t need to waste any more time on that.
Again, I’d prefer a City midfielder to doubling up at the back, with Cherki and Semenyo being the obvious options.
My initial instinct would be to go with Semenyo, based on his season as a whole. On further reflection though, I think I have to go with Cherki. He’s just in far better form, with four returns in his last four Premier League starts, versus… zero for Semenyo. He passes the eye test too, looking absolutely fantastic and brimming with confidence when you see him play, and his underlying stats have been excellent (his xGI in that last blank against Burnley was a ridiculous 1.26).
After those two, I frankly think there’s a big drop off.
As noted a couple of times now, we’ve got plenty of money sloshing around, so we might as well take a swing on either Saka or Palmer.
On paper they’re two of the best midfielders in the game… even if they haven’t played like it for long stretches of this season. They also play for two pretty poor attacks, relative to what we’d expect from the sides. They both have decent run-ins. Honestly, there’s very little to separate them, and I wouldn’t argue whichever one you picked.
Gun to my head, assuming both are fit the rest of the way, I’d probably take Saka. I just like his fixtures slightly more – i.e., I like all of his fixtures, whereas Chelsea face a good Forest defence, Liverpool away, and Sunderland away, with Spurs at home the only clearly easy matchup.
You’ve got plenty of options for your last two spots – all with some question marks, but also all solid picks.
Casemiro has been in ridiculous form (four goals in his last six games), and it’d be fun to just gamble on him keeping that up throughout his last few weeks with Man U. He’s got multiple routes to points too, with an absurd 25 and 23 (!!!) DefCons in his last two games. The fixtures are so-so, but he’s been returning against everyone recently, so I don’t really care. At only 5.8, I’d probably just take him.
Anderson has been reliable across the entire season, and you can basically back him for 90minutes and around 5pts every week.
If you want a more fun pick, you can hope that Gibbs-White’s hot streak continues. His fixtures look scarier on paper than they are in real life – Chelsea’s defence isn’t great, neither is Newcastle’s, Man U away isn’t an ideal fixture, but Bournemouth at home in the last week is fine. If you’re chasing in a mini-league, for example, he’d be an exciting, high-upside choice.
Obviously, there are tons and tons of midfield options (Rogers, the Liverpool lot, Sarr, Tavernier, etc. etc.), and I’m not going to go through every one individually. These are the names that stand out to me though, and – were I wildcarding myself – my picks would be:
Bruno / Cherki / Saka / Casemiro / Anderson
Support Independent FPL Content
Haaland is another lock. Easy-peasy.
I wouldn’t say there’s a standout pick for the second spot, but DCL is my ‘next best’ option.
He’s obviously super cheap, at 5.7, which enables you to get the likes of Munoz and Saka in addition to Haaland and Bruno. Burnley, Spurs, Brighton and West Ham is a pretty nice fixture run to end the season, his underlying stats have been pretty good recently even if the returns haven’t been great, and he’s averaging an excellent 0.52 xG/90 across the season. I’d back him to get a couple of goals over the remaining four games.
Thiago and Bowen are the second and third-highest scoring forwards, but their fixtures are worse enough, compared to DCL’s, to make me prefer the latter.
Joao Pedro is still very highly-owned, and is supposedly fit again, but I wouldn’t go there. Again, I don’t love Chelsea’s fixtures, and he’d blanked in four of his last five games before the injury.
Watkins was in great form, then promptly let us all down by blanking against Fulham. His next two fixtures are great – Spurs and Burnley – Liverpool at home isn’t terrible in GW37… City away is terrible in 38, but you could always move him then. He’s so streaky though, and pretty pricey, and Villa will be prioritising Europe, that – unless you really want a fun, high-upside pick, I’d leave him.
Isak deserves a mention, I suppose… but he’s super expensive, I don’t love the fixtures, and who the hell knows if and when he’s actually going to start, based on the season he’s had.
My slightly unexciting forward line, therefore, would be:
Haaland / DCL / Kroupi (budget enabler, at 4.6, who’s actually a good player too)
After all that then, this would be my Gameweek 35 wildcard draft:
This also actually leaves a ton of money in the bank – 5.6 – so you’ve got plenty of flexibility to change things up over the next four gameweeks.
Alternatively, you could spend it now to upgrade Casemiro to a riskier, higher-upside pick – you can afford Palmer plus Saka, for example, and still have 0.8 left. The choice is yours!
Finally, I’m well aware that I haven’t covered every single player here… I’ve probably forgotten some pretty obvious ones, actually. So, if you’ve got any quibbles, or want my amazing take on a particular pick, just fire away over on Reddit.
Thanks for reading, everybody, and best of luck with your wildcarding in Gameweek 35!
The best free website for FPL tips to beat your friends and win your mini-leagues
Follow us on Twitter for our latest analysis @Full90FPL
© 2025 Full 90 FPL
