This weekend is Gameweek 8 of the Fantasy Premier League (FPL), however there will only be seven Premier League games. So, I’m going to do a bit of scenario planning and talk about using chips.
But first, what’s actually happened?
Brighton and Hove Albion v Crystal Palace remains off, despite the train strike that precipitated the postponement now being cancelled.
Two more games: Manchester United vs. Leeds United and Chelsea vs. Liverpool, have been postponed as anticipated. This has been caused by the necessity for more police officers in London for the burial of Queen Elizabeth II next Monday.
Gameweek 8 now looks like this (UK dates/times):
What Does This Mean for Your FPL Team?
At least 30% of teams won’t have their first team goalkeeper (Alisson and Mendy are each owned by 15% of managers). 45% of players won’t have Trent; 37% of players won’t have Reece James; 46% of players won’t have Salah; 27% won’t have Gross; 18% won’t have Rashford; you get the idea…
It’s impossible to write down every single scenario but I’m going to set out a couple so that you can see how I would handle it.
The Best Scenario
The best plausible scenario is that you have 3 players out (probably 2 Liverpool and one Chelsea) with two free transfers.
In this scenario, you can either utilise your bench and/or make one or two transfers and there is basically no problem.
The Middling Scenario
In this situation you probably have 4 or 5 players out and only one free transfer.
This is a bit more awkward. Getting 11 players out should be your priority. Using your free transfer and a hit or two feels absolutely fine. This is because there will be loads of managers in the same place as you.
The Worst Scenario
The worst possible scenario I can plausibly think of is that you have 6, maybe 7 players out and no free transfers.
It’s this sort of situation that you can think of using a chip. A free hit is usually very useful. Typically at the season end all of the big teams have cup games so they all miss a week. Given that almost all our players play for the better teams, it seems very likely that this will mess us up later in the season if we use our Free Hit now.
A wildcard has less risk in my opinion. You will have a free wildcard between gameweek 16 and 17 and you were probably going to play it soon anyway. My main concern is going without Salah and not being able to get him back so I would consider that.
In terms of who to target on your wildcard. Newcastle have excellent fixtures so going Pope and Trippier feels great to me. Leicester have a tough game at Tottenham but are good after that. Obviously, you can’t go anywhere near their defence but I like Maddison for this run. Kane has an okay fixture run but I don’t trust the rest of them that much.
Tripling up on Man City feels good to me. Haaland, Cancelo/Dias and De Bruyne (with the latter being a makeweight for Salah if required). You probably have two Arsenal assets in Jesus and Martinelli and I don’t mind a triple up now but more medium term I don’t want it.
Mitrovic and Pereira have a brilliant gameweek 8 fixture and a good run. You can’t start Pereira regularly but you can play him this week to make way for Trent and James who I would keep on the bench. It’s easier to do that than go without and get them back.
That should be enough to get you started 😊
My Situation
I fall somewhere on the better side. I have 10 playing players and 1 free transfer. Cucurella, Trent and Salah have postponed fixtures and Romeo Lavia is a long term injury.
I had no plans to move Lavia until wildcard given his status as third player on my bench every week. I could simply move Lavia to Bailey as I have a bit of money in the bank. This would get me 11 players out this week and give me a third playing bench player. Plus, Villa have an okay fixture this week. But they’re terrible and I don’t really need a third playing bench player…
My current favoured plan is to move Toney to Mitro because I wanted to do this anyway given their fixture swings in opposite directions. And, to move Salah to De Bruyne because I hate the idea of leaving that much money on my bench. Obviously this is for a hit but a -4 for the 4th best forward in the game and a literal god feels okay to me.
I know, I just said Salah is hard for me to let go. But I do have a route back to him. And a perma-cap in the form of Haaland.
I will think on it.