Social media has created the impression that we’re in peak chip season (and I certainly contributed by playing my Triple Captain last week).
It was true among the most engaged managers, your toughest competition in the game. However, a broader look at the whole player pool still shows it’s not as widespread a trend as you might expect.
Wildcards, Free Hits, and Triple Captains were flying in Gameweek 3, but 70.4% of managers didn’t play a chip that week, according to LiveFPL.net:
And 90% of players still didn’t use their wildcards. ❗
Yet so many people on social media discuss WC in isolation, trying to convince others that “this is a great gameweek to wildcard”. It doesn’t work like that. Rather than inducing chip anxiety, a better approach is to teach your audience how to spot the right moment for their specific team.
That’s the theme of today’s article.
🍕 What’s on today’s menu?
3 different ways to use free transfers in GW4…
… while factoring in captaincy
Why I still like Wildcard 7?
Haaland or no-Haaland on Wildcard? Is it the same as in pre-season?
Team-dependent case for Wildcard 4
Team-dependent case for Free Hit 4
Targeting Fulham with Liverpool and United: It’s now or never?
And much more!
Gameweek 3 Review: Haaland and all the others under scrutiny
My Gameweek 3 ended with a small red arrow. It could have been much worse if it wasn’t for the active triple captain chip on Erling Haaland (£15.5m), who scored 27 points with one goal and a full bonus.
It was in line with an EV of 8.5 points – it seems FPL is fair to me so far this season.
All those discussions on FPL Twitter about whether it was a fail or not drove me crazy. No, it was not a fail. An average outcome, yes, but far from a fail. People need to realise how much variance that chip carries and how prone single-gameweek results are to (bad) luck.
Jonny Currie from Solio Analytics created this amazing visualisation to demonstrate that. It shows a distribution of outcomes based on 100,000 simulations:
Here’s the rest of the team:
My players delivered 3 returns, and my bench produced 3. If you can’t see the third in the screenshot, it’s the hidden Maguire’s DEFCON.
Playing Verbruggen and Pedro instead of Kinský and DCL cost me 3 points. A warning not to be a p**** and to stay loyal to my usual style of not hedging my bets and always going for the maximum ceiling? Perhaps.
As always in low-scoring weeks like this, let’s discuss whether there’s a problem with my picks. It’s a good chance to review the data and context, which is more important than ever given the low sample size of Gameweeks.
Bart Verbruggen, Pascal Gross, Diego Gómez: Brighton conceding 2.82 xG against Leeds, right after conceding 2.92 against Chelsea, might not be ideal for a future clean sheet prospect, but with Coventry next, Sunderland in Gameweek 6, and Kinský ready to deputise, it’s just something to monitor at this point.
Juggling all those injuries must be frustrating for Fabian Hürzeler, but it won’t last forever.
Pascal Gross took 4 set-pieces, had a pretty advanced average position for touches with the ball, and missed one massive chance, so he continues to tick along. The Seagulls also should likely have been awarded a penalty.
Diego Goméz is someone to be cautious about – he takes a lot of shots, but with just 0.05 xG per shot, they are not very dangerous. Femi Azeez might eat into his minutes quite soon, most likely after the IB. Let’s see if there’s any useful info at the press conference.
Antonín Kinský: So far, what I predicted in the pre-season is coming true. The attack still needs a lot of work, and RDZ makes some questionable line-up decisions at the #9, #10, and #8 positions.
But this was the second straight good defensive performance, which is something to watch.
Tarik Muharemovič and DCL: Muharemovič has the second-highest defensive contribution volume and has met the threshold in 66% of cases so far, while DCL missed two very good chances. The important thing is that he can still get those shots.
Riccardo Calafiori: The game against Chelsea was a huge statement from Arsenal, as they allowed just 0.35 xG – in other words, just 5 shots inside the box, 4 of them from very wide angles, and only one that was dangerous, but more because of the placement than the quality itself.
Frankly, Arsenal’s 0.04 xG per shot conceded so far this season is simply absurd. They just don’t allow good attempts. I feel I’m highly under-exposed to their defence.
João Pedro: No news here. Hull at home next.
Dominik Szoboszlai: Once again, he took all of Liverpool’s set-pieces. While all 3 of his shots came from outside the box, 2 had massive xGOT (xG on target) and were saved by Kjell Scherpen’s nice saves after he made that mistake for Isak’s opening goal.
Also, Cody Gakpo stole one good shot from him. Again, no new information – we know that open-play xG isn’t Szoboszlai’s appeal.
Issa Diop: Another DEFCON two-pointer collected – that’s why he’s on the team. I suspect Ipswich might survive if Exequiel Palacios can stay healthy.
Fixtures over the next 6 gameweeks, ranked by goal difference using Solio Analytics’ model
Chris Richards: The most underwhelming asset so far, and hitting 9 defensive contributions was simply annoying. With so many good options in that £5.0m price bracket, I probably tried to be too clever by picking someone from the Palace team.
The combination of fixtures and how well he rotates within the team pushed me towards him, but I probably underestimated that Palace are not in great harmony. It cost me some DEF points. The run of Ipswich, Leeds and Forest probably looks better than it truly is.
Bruno Fernandes, Bryan Mbeumo and Harry Maguire: This trio is key to everything. Although United aren’t as good as we might have expected before the season, both Bruno and Mbeumo can produce in any given game. Harry Maguire is likely to depart soon – I expected higher DEFCON and set-piece involvement, and the clean-sheet odds are objectively questionable.
⚠️ Chris Richards, Harry Maguire, Diego Gómez
❓ Bryan Mbeumo and Bruno Fernandes
✅ The rest
My Gameweek 4 team: 3 different routes using free transfers
Although we’re only four weeks in, this gameweek seems pivotal for the first half of the season.
I have 3 free transfers, a Wildcard, a Free Hit and £0.0 in the bank:
At first glance, the team looks healthy, and using free transfers while saving both the Wildcard and the Free Hit seems doable.
But is it truly better than using a chip?
To answer that, we need to look deeper.