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Greetings all, and welcome to your full strategy guide on when to use your first-half FPL chips in 2025/26.
(Otherwise known as easily the most challenging article I’ve had to write this preseason!)
Is it too early to be thinking about this stuff? I say, absolutely not!
The teams we pick heading into gameweek 1 should depend heavily on when we’re planning to use our chips.
If we’re going to use an early wildcard, for example, we can more aggressively target the first few fixtures. If we’re planning to wait, we need to look longer-term.
Also, we’ve got loads more chips this season. So, we need to both be aware of what we have at our disposal, and – I reckon – have at least some idea of how and when we’re going to use them.
As some of you might already know, we launched our very own FDR fixture ticker this season. It’s all very exciting!
I used that ticker to inform all my analysis and advice for this article. You can see it in full for yourself on this page, or directly in the Google Sheet.
There have been a number of rule changes for FPL chips, heading into the 25/26 season. We’ve broken those down for you here.
In summary, though, these are the most important:
That last one is particularly important. It basically serves as a mini-wildcard, and we should have used all our transfers before we get topped up again.
With all that cleared up, let’s get stuck into when to use your FPL chips in 2025!
Let’s start with this one, since it’s definitely the easiest of the bunch.
Realistically, there’s only a handful of players you might use it on. Salah or Haaland, most likely. Isak or Palmer (depending on what Palmer we’re getting this season) being the main alternatives. The usual suspects!
We have two triple captain chips, and there (almost certainly) won’t be any double gameweeks in the first half of the season.
So, all we need to do is pair one of those players with an easy fixture.
At that point, it just becomes… pick your favourite combo. Just a few mouthwatering options include:
All of those could be monster scores. The one you pick depends on two things.
First is when you’re playing your other chips, since you can’t play two in the same week.
Second is just personal preference. I trust Palmer’s floor far less than Salah’s, for example.
Finally, of all the chips, this requires the least planning. You’ll almost certainly have one of those four players when one of those fixtures rolls around, and they’re all good options.
There’s a lot less pressure on wildcarding in the first half of this season, compared to normal.
That’s because of the aforementioned AFCON rule changes. Again, your transfers will get topped back up to 5 in GW16. So, if you time it right, you can make up to 5 transfers in GW15, then you could just make up to another 5 in GW16. Basically, you can turn your whole team over.
The temptation, therefore, is to drop your first wildcard early.
I don’t normally like doing so. If you put the time and effort into your opening day team, you should be confident in holding that lot for the first chunk of the season.
This year, however… I might not be able to resist.
Obviously, don’t play it too early. Our preseason picks are, to an extent, guesswork. The first 4+ weeks are all about gathering information, and working out what’s real and what isn’t – fits for new signings, who’s actually nailed, etc. and so on.
Gameweek 7 is looking like the frontrunner, for an early wildcard.
Arsenal’s fixture swing is the main reason why:
These are their defensive FDR’s, per our fixture ticker. The first six gameweeks are a bit up-and-down defensively, and worse offensively. From GW7-17, however, they just have so many good fixtures. Having been the best defence in the league in recent years, a defensive double-up – plus Saka – looks pretty tasty.
So, that’s three transfers that need making.
In fairness, I don’t love any other side’s fixture runs as much, from then on. Palace also start a nice little run of attacking fixtures, shortly afterwards. Newcastle’s defensive fixtures are fine. But, it’s nothing to blow me away.
Why I do still like this idea, however, is that it just feels like a good, in-between moment to play your wildcard.
We’re through the first six weeks, so have a decent amount of information about who’s for real, who’s nailed, and so on. We also only really need to set our teams up for the following 8 gameweeks, when we can use all our AFCON transfers.
I’m just including this as a slight alternative to the GW7 strategy.
International breaks always plague us, early on in the Premier League season. Annoyingly, one of our breaks this season comes between GWs 7-8.
So, holding off a week would be a bit more sensible, in case we get any international injuries.
The downside is that we then also miss Arsenal at home to West Ham. The last two seasons, Arsenal have beaten West Ham 5-2 and 6-0 at home. We’re all probably going to want three Arsenal players. That’s a lot of points to be missing out on.
It’s a bit early to say right now, obviously… but, if I do wildcard early, I’ll probably just take the risk and do it in GW7 instead.
If you’re smashing the season early on, I wouldn’t use your wildcard just for the sake of it, or just because it’s your ‘strategy’.
That’s particularly true if you’ve been happy enough with your team early on to save enough transfers to just get Arsenal players in for GW7/8. Again, I don’t love anyone else’s fixture runs after that anyway.
If you can hold off for a while, GW13 feels like a nice, aggressive time to play your wildcard.
Firstly, you get a great selection of fixtures to choose from in GW13 itself. You also get some very nice fixtures for the likes of City and Liverpool over the next couple of gameweeks, and Newcastle too after they play Everton away.
Secondly, you’re obviously getting your AFCON transfers in GW16 anyway. So, you can focus on the short-term, max out on those fixtures, and still reconfigure your team soon enough (swapping out Salah, for example).
As a slight alternative, you can wildcard in GW12, then bench boost in GW13. See the next section for more details on that.
Overall, I have to say that I like this plan the most.
That said, you can’t 100% commit to it preseason. If you have a terrible start, you’ll probably want to/be tempted into a wildcard in GW 7 or 8. If you can navigate the first 12 gameweeks without wildcarding though, and particularly get those Arsenal players in, you can go on a big old points spree from GW 13 onwards.
Well, this is when I normally try to wait until… or as close as I can get!
I know the circumstances are different this year. But there’s still an argument to be made that you should put off wildcarding as late as possible.
In fact, there’s specifically an argument that the AFCON transfers, and extra chips, make this an even better idea.
You can drop your first triple captain early. You can use regular transfers to get Arsenal players in GW7/8. You can treat your AFCON transfers as a mini-wildcard to aggressively attack the following few gameweeks, even setting up for a bench boost.
And, all the usual reasons for waiting on your wildcard still apply. You have more information. You can deal with whatever injuries you have. You probably won’t be using your second wildcard until late, so you’re reducing the gap between those… which would be enormous, if you’re wildcarding as early as 7/8.
It’ll definitely feel like you’re ‘behind’ as you get towards GW 19… because the vast majority of players will definitely have already played their wildcards. With half the season still to go, however, you can definitely more than make up for that.
This is my second-favourite plan!
Having two bench boosts massively reduces the pressure we normally feel to play this as the ‘perfect time’. Which is a lot more fun, in my book!
As I see it, there are two main options here.
James has been pushing the ‘Bench Boost Gameweek 1’ idea for a while now. He even wrote a whole bloody piece about it! You can check that out here.
One argument against this plan is that you can’t be sure who will actually start gameweek 1. So, you might think you have a full playing bench… and find out that you didn’t after all!
The other argument is that you’re putting a fair amount of money on your bench. I don’t really care about that one, though, since you should really be aiming to have a playing bench in your GW1 team anyway. And, if you’re aiming for an early wildcard (as lots of people are this season), you can reallocate that money pretty quickly anyway.
There are several good arguments in favour of the GW 1 bench boost. Again, I’d encourage you to just read James’s piece for all of them.
And, on top of all that good, logical, analytical stuff… let’s not forget that it’s also just a really fun thing to do!
The other bench boost strategy is simply to pair it with your wildcard, or your AFCON mini-wildcard.
This will help guide your picks in both cases. I’d much rather do it for the actual wildcard though, rather than wasting a limited number of regular transfers on bench players.
If you’re looking to wait a little on your wildcard, for example, you might play it in GW12 rather than GW13, and still take advantage of these aforementioned fixtures:
Then, you can still set yourself up with all the right players for 13. But, we’ve actually also got some nice fixtures in 12. So, you can grab those, and still get the fixtures in 13, and really max out on those with 15 players.
That’s just one example. In general, BB1 is definitely the more fun strategy, and I wish James all the luck in the world with it. But… I’ll probably be boring, and just play my bench boost after my wildcard.
Of all the chips, I feel the least strong – by far – about the free hit.
Normally, you just save it for the second half of the season, and use it to deal with double/blank gameweeks.
Which we still will do, for our second free hit… but now we have this other, luxury FH in our pockets too!
Here are the main candidates for free hitting, according to this guy.
If you’re simply looking to rack up as many points as possible, you’ve got so many juicy fixtures to pick from here:
We’ll probably have loads of Liverpool and Man City players already. But we can also pounce on Palace, Fulham, Newcastle, Chelsea, even Spurs here too.
Yummy yummy.
As noted, we’re all already going to have Liverpool and City players. Unfortunately, they all play each other this week!
It just so happens, too, that there are a number of other tasty matchups.
Arsenal, Chelsea, and Forest all have great matchups. We can also get the likes of Bowen against Burnley, and Spurs players home to Man U.
It’s a bit boring… but this feels like a sensible option, and I’m probably leaning towards it right now.
Again, I’m probably looking to wildcard and bench boost around here.
If you’ve already used your wildcard, however, you’ve got two more great sets of fixtures to exploit here:
Here’s what I’m currently planning:
I don’t think it’s necessary at all to pick a triple captain right now.
If Haaland is smashing it, I’ll TC him vs Burnley in GW 6. If not, I’m fine waiting to use it on him or Salah in GW 14 or 15, for example, since I won’t be using any other chips then anyway.
We can play that one by ear. They’re all great options.
Phew! That’s far too much strategising for this guy – my poor little brain is all scrambled.
I do think this stuff is worth thinking about, nice and early.
Obviously though, you don’t need to 100% lock in on any chips strategy yet. I’m advising staying patient on your wildcard, for example… but if your team is in an absolute state by GW 7, and it’d require a massive hit to fix it, you’re probably better pivoting at that point.
After all, they say the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry… but in FPL, it feels like that ‘often’ should be an ‘always’.
Anyway, cheers for reading everybody – and, if this wasn’t completely terrible, do consider chucking us a few quid, following us on Reddit, and/or signing up for our newsletter below.
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