Chelsea, Arsenal & Liverpool to Shape your season? Wildcard Worries Part 2

Apr 24

Guest post written for FantasyYIRMA.com

WILCARD WORRIES by @FPLHINTS

For the last 5 FPL seasons I have used my all-season wildcard to coincide with the March/April Double Gameweeks (DGWs). I believe this is the most optimum time to use it in terms of points maximisation. I try and avoid using it for the mini-DGWs (i.e. two teams playing just twice – as was the case with Villa and QPR recently) and rather use it before a “big” DGW, i.e. involves more than two teams.

DGW34 will ensure that Chelsea, Liverpool, Hull and Leicester play two games. Shortly after that, we will see DGW37 when Arsenal and Sunderland play twice. To factor in these two scenarios, I plan on having at least 9-10 players to cover me for DGW34 and at least 3 for DGW37. The players for the latter DGW will probably assume bench duty for my squad in DGW34.

Potential wildcard purchases:

3 Chelsea players:

Dilemma – Retain Ivan, JT and Hazard? or sell JT so that I can bring in Fabregas?

3 Liverpool players:

Dilemma – Triple Midfield of Coutinho, Hendo & Raheem? or also factor in Moreno/Mignolet?

By Dean Jones (Flickr: Coutinho Goal) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Dean Jones (Flickr: Coutinho Goal) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

1-2 Leicester players:
Dilemma – Will Schlupp and/or Cambiasso really score big to avoid the drop?

1 Hull player:
Dilemma – It has to be N’Doye or no Hull cover – but he lacks form.

3 Arsenal players:
Dilemma – Happy to bench Ospina/Koscielny v Chelsea but I wouldn’t feel the same if I did that for Ozil or Sanchez if I bought them with my wildcard.

1 Sunderland player:
Dilemma – Defoe seems to be the only OK-ish one from their team, but will I really sell Kane or Aguero for him? Nah.

Going on past experience, the super FPL combination of DGWs and wildcard activation can provide par scores of 100 or more. In fact, with Mr Yirma in company last season, I scored my highest ever FPL score (173) during DGW31 – hat-tricks galore on that occasion. The fact of the matter is that anything can happen during a DGW. Remember, the wildcard can be your final “hadouken” and may even define your season.

The Chief

The Chief of FPL Hints (Ash) is a former Top 100 FPL manager and a multiple finalist at the Football Blogging Awards. He talks about fantasy football through his tweets, weekly blog posts and ad hoc podcast appearances.