Community Submissions

Wildcarding – Getting the Biggest Bang for your Buck

At its core the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game  is about scoring the most points per million pounds spent (ppm), while spending all 100.0 of your budget. PPM is what we call ‘value’. If you can maintain a the team with the best value for the whole season, theoretically you should have the most points possible.

We all know it’s not that simple, ‘playing for maximum points value’ may be optimal, but it’s far from easy. As a result there are a lot of other viable FPL strategies. If your strategy is to have a team with five heavy-hitters, some 4.0 bench fodder and a budget defence, this guide isn’t going to give you that.

I’m going to try and break down how I would build a Wildcard team using a value-focused strategy. The end result will be a team that’s balanced, has high-value players throughout, and a couple of heavy-hitters.

Finding the Value

First, let’s start by taking the top value players (so far) in each position and then calculating their average price and average points per million (ppm).

  • GKs  | 4.75 |  8.63 ppm
  • Def   | 5.21 | 9.09 ppm
  • Mid  | 5.94 | 8.43 ppm
  • Fwd | 5.73 | 8 ppm

Immediately you should notice two things:
– The best value players are cheap, really cheap.
– The best value positions are defenders, and forwards are the worst.

I think this is typically true every year. What this means is that, counter-intuitively, we should want as much money as possible in defence. This is easier said than done though, since top defenders are so much cheaper than top midfielders and forwards. Also, mostly it’s the cheap goalies (<5.0) that are good value, so it’s hard to spend big here either.

With that in mind, let’s use the above averages (multiplied by the number of slots) to get a rough idea of the balance of our “maximum value” team:

2 GKs = 9.5 (11%)
5 Def = 26.0 (31%)
5 Mid = 30.0 (36%)
3 Fwd = 17.5.0 (21%)
————
Total = 83.0

Pretty self-explanatory… Now let’s look at some of the players involved in the data above and build a realistic best-value team for the first 11 Gameweeks.

Fraser Forster (Tom Heaton)

Nathaniel Clyne, Fabricio Colocinni, Leighton Baines (Phil Jagielka, Calum Chambers)

Victor Wanyama,  Nacer Chadli, Stewart Downing,  Gylfi Sigurdsson (Seb Larsson)

Saido Berahino, Charlie Austin, Diafra Sakho

Now, stick with me. This maybe isn’t a team that inspires confidence, and there aren’t many obvious captains (we’ll come to that later). But without subs or transfers and Baines as perma-captain…this team would give you around 685 points and a 1.4k rank! (all for 84.0).

NOTES
– Without rules, the best-value team would have six Southampton players (without Dusan Tadic or Graziano Pelle!).
– For realism, I deliberately didn’t treble up on the Southampton defence or double on the Newcastle defence.

Building Your Team

Taking the above as our starting point, we’re going to try and make a Wildcard template out of all of that analysis:

[4.5] [4.5] = 9.0

[7.0] [6.0] [5.0] [4.5] [4.5] = 27.0

[8.5] [7.0] [7.0] [6.0] [4.5] = 33.0

[6.0] [6.0] [6.0] = 18.0

Total = 87.0

Now comes the fun part, every unspent 1.0 has a ppm of 0 (not good), so let’s spend that last 13.0! This is where you pick your heavy hitters, your Gameweek captain choices. You should still pick the best value players though (so no Yaya Toure or Robin van Persie!).

Let’s run through an example thought process:

  • The best value players who cost a bit more are Leighton Baines, Alexis Sanchez and Graziano Pelle.
  • I’m happy with Chadli/Sigurdsson/Downing, who are slightly below budget (+1.3).
  • Let’s upgrade the [8.5] to Sanchez (-2.4).
  • Let’s upgrade a [6.0] to Aguero (-6.7).

We still have a little over 5.0 to spend. Possible options are:

  •  Upgrade a midfielder to Eden Hazard and a 6.0-priced forward to Pelle.
  •  Upgrade a 6.0 forward to Diego Costa
  •  Upgrade a midfielder to Angel Di Mari, Raheem Sterling, Theo Walcott, Aaron Ramsey or Christian Eriksen
  •  Upgrade a 6.0 forward to Radamel Falcao or Danny Welbeck

Ok, the last one is not so realistic, but you get the idea. FPL options are changing all the time; be creative. When you’re done, a possible Wildcard team might look like:

Tim Krul (Brad Guzan)

Leighton Baines, Cesar Azpilicueta, Calum  Chambers, Neil  Taylor, Kieran Trippier

Alexis Sanchez, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Stewart Downing or Eden Hazard, Nacer Chadli, George Boyd

Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa or Diafra Sakho, Charlie Austin

That team is worth ~£100m and uses current prices. A lot of  players will have more cash than that to play with, but overall I’d be happy with that team in the short-/mid-term (it’s only an example anyway!).

Final Points

A few tips on this kind of team:
– You won’t have all the heavy-hitters, so just focus on having the best captains
– Your defence will be good, don’t be afraid to play four at the back from time to time
– Owning the right defenders at the right times will be important as attackers

You should now have a good idea how to repeat this kind of Wildcarding process later in the season, when the FPL landscape has changed a bit. As with all FPL strategies, the hard part is picking the value players before they are done scoring all their points; going onto the FPL site and sorting by value will only get you so far. It is vital to always be on the look out for exciting options with a budget price tag.

38 Comments Post a Comment
  1. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    this is excellent. Will refer back in January....any may actually refer back even sooner if my gwk 13 wildcard plans come to fruition

  2. GreenWindmill
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    Very interesting - like it a lot 🙂

  3. King Nil Miss ✩
    • 13 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    "Owning the right defenders at the right times will be important as attackers"

    Great advice!

  4. John t penguin
    • 9 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    Probably need to read this a few times
    But at first glance it seems to be a long way of saying pick a good squad
    Also seems to be using hindsight to justify the formula.

    1. John t penguin
      • 9 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      That reads badly
      What I am saying is there seems to be a part I am not grasping. I think it is just I am not looking at context of a WC.
      It feels like a eureka moment but it isn't sinking in. Probably Friday feeling
      Ok ignore these I will read it a few more times.

      1. John t penguin
        • 9 Years
        9 years, 4 months ago

        In fact I am going to put it into practice and make up a WC team for next week using this to see how it looks.
        It may actually be the answer to my poor record of WCing
        If you receive a cheque in the post you know it I has worked

      2. rickardinho
        • 9 Years
        9 years, 4 months ago

        Maybe I can be of help.

        I think the main issue with picking two 4.5 keepers and cheaper forwards is that you don't know ahead of time WHICH of the players in those budget ranges will be the best picks.

        Sure, Austin, Sakho, Downing, Chambers, etc would have been great value picks, but you don't know that ahead of time, so taking a stab in the dark on a 6.0 forward isn't as easy as it sounds in the article. This is why expensive players are the go-to choices in most cases because there is less risk involved.

        That said, we now have sufficient data to see which cheap options should be best value long-term, which minimizes the risk a great deal. (i.e. We know that Downing, Siggy, Chadli, Tadic, Austin, Sakho, Chambers, Krul, etc, are solid picks, so building a team around that group now is more straightforward than doing so in GW3 for instance, when we had very little data).

        Fwiw, although its very similar to my own strategy (see below), I've bookmarked this page and will use it as a reminder when its WC-time :).

        1. John t penguin
          • 9 Years
          9 years, 4 months ago

          That helps

  5. sedm2810
    • 9 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    The fact that the best 'value' is in defence doesn't mean we should spend more on defence!

    The point scoring system is weighted against forwards, they get no clean sheet points and fewer rewards per goal, making it really hard for a forward to be a good fantasy asset. Hence why every year there are fewer forwards getting 140+ points than any other position that GK. However, at the same time the top scoring players in FPL are usually those forwards that are able to overcome those odds by scoring lots of goals. There are more forwards that get 200+ points than any other position. The result is that there is a much larger disparity between the top scoring forwards than your 'run of the mill' replacement forward than there is between the top scoring defenders and a run of the mill replacement defender. You should plough your budget into the top scoring strikers. Even though they represent the worst 'value' on a 'points per million' basis they represent the best value on a 'point over replacement' basis. They are thus the way you can use your funds to maximise points.

    1. rickardinho
      • 9 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Great point, fully agree.

      I've considered moving for a Baines-Coleman double-up until January, but I just can't justify it when I have defenders like Clyne-Naylor-Chambers-Wisdom all performing well too, and for much cheaper.

    2. Marknlard
      • 14 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Great post.

    3. A.T
      • 13 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Says the guy with baines and Ivan in defence and Welbeck and Pelle in attack. 😀

    4. Cars and Mané
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      No offence, but this is nonsense.

      1. Cars and Mané
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        9 years, 4 months ago

        I take that back. I just don't agree.

        1. Cars and Mané
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 12 Years
          9 years, 4 months ago

          Let !e give some stats to back my outburst up.

          Costa averaging 7 ppg (amd i think hes over achieving). Sample of Pelle, Sakho, Austin and Berahino averaging 5.8 ppg. Costa's starting price was 1.7x theirs and he scores 1.2x their ppg.

          Baines averaging 6.3 ppg. I think he's marginally over achieving, but arguable not. Sample of Naylor, Clyne, Janmaat, PVA averaging 4 ppg. Clyne is evidently over achieving. If I exclude PVA its 4.5. Baines costs 1.5x the full sample, 1.45x ex-Pva. He's scoring 1.6x more and 1.4x ex-pva.

          The point being, baines is drastically outscoring his peers, Costa isn't for the price difference.

          1. Cars and Mané
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            9 years, 4 months ago

            If you carefully select premium defenders, they are worth investing in rather than typical premium forwards. As I said below, you need one premium forward to captain every week.

    5. Kalix
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Definitely that's another way to look at it, and in fact you'll notice the forward slots were the ones I chose to upgrade with the last 10-15 million (for reasons you mentioned).

      But if there were 4 more players like Baines, I'd happily drop Aguero AND Costa to own them all 🙂

  6. rickardinho
    • 9 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    This is a great article, and I'm happy to say that there's so many parallels with my team 😀

    Begovic Krul
    Baines Clyne Chambers Naylor Wisdom
    Sanchez Sterling Oscar Tadic/Siggy Downing
    Aguero Pelle Austin

    + 9.0-9.5 at GK
    + Defense of 7.0, 5.0, 4.5, 4.5, 4.0, though I'm strongly tempted to move towards Baines+Coleman since they are the two highest value players in the game imo.
    + Midfield of one captainable heavy-hitter and the rest are value options
    + Forwards consisting of 1 expensive captain choice, and the others more value-picks.
    + Having several value options allows an 8-forward strategy to minimize injury and rotation risk.

    1. Kalix
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Ya, doubling up on things like Baines/Coleman or Baines/Ivan or even Clyne/Bertrand are big ballsy plays that could cripple your season, or make you a hero 😀

      Putting big money into defence is a big risk/reward I think 🙂
      I've never been able to bring myself to do it!

      1. rickardinho
        • 9 Years
        9 years, 4 months ago

        I think Coleman-Baines-Clyne will be my defense of choice for the 2nd half of the season. Of course it also depends on what 4.5's are performing. Going back to a Saints defensive double-up might be shrewd too once their fixtures turn back, as they'll have good fixtures until GW37!

    2. John t penguin
      • 9 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      I did a calculation for mid to premium defenders for top eight teams last year with regards to doubling up.
      Assuming you are going to play them every week, it worked out that only two pairs out scored one of them plus another from different team. Think it was Coleman and jags and also mert and another arsenal defender. With mert n Coleman scoring a few goals last year and mert hoovering the baps I think this was difference.
      For me it showed that it is possible to get better returns for doubling up but you need to pick them from start or very early and obviously pick correct ones. So chances aren't that great

      1. rickardinho
        • 9 Years
        9 years, 4 months ago

        Good points. Clyne is the key for me - if he continues to perform as well as he has then he will effectively keep the No.2 position in my defense behind Baines. I can't really ignore the 2g+2a+3cs performance from Coleman in 7 games though...

        1. John t penguin
          • 9 Years
          9 years, 4 months ago

          I think Coleman baines may be exception to this, baines was out for good part of last year, so if fit would have likely been a good pairing to have and can't see it not being the best option this time.
          The Southampton situation this year is good example, in that for short spell it pays off but from next week onwards it could easily cost you points, so over length of season it won't pay off.

          1. rickardinho
            • 9 Years
            9 years, 4 months ago

            From GW23 onwards (when Saints' fixtures turn), it might be prudent to go 442, like this:

            4.5 4.5
            Baines Coleman Clyne Bertrand 3.9
            Sanchez Siggy Chadli Sterling 4.4
            Aguero Costa 4.3

            If you look at points per game that is one of the strongest lineups. I will strongly consider something like this.

  7. Nibbsy
    • 13 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    Nice article. Looking at something similar for my team:

    Foster Myhill
    Baines Azpi Chambers Hutton Yun
    Sanchez Hazard Siggy Downing Boyd
    Augero Costa Austin

    Just need to save 0.3 somewhere... any suggestions?

    1. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
      • 10 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Chambers - get a good 3 way rotator with Hutton/Yun

  8. Iwantmorepointsthanks
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 10 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    Thanks for the effort.
    Personally, I do not see any real benefit coming from the article.
    This is something that works better backwards / with hindsight.

    In the end, the fantasy football "reality" kind of dictates where we are all going to move to.

    I would imagine that many of our current teams or teams we plan to have look like what you came up with at the end of your article.

  9. Cars and Mané
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    I completely agree with this article and is exactly how I think about it.

    Will probably have Ivan, Baines and terry at the back next week. Always important to have one super premium forward to captain every week, ie aguero.

    Thanks for the effort.

  10. The Non Flying Dutchman
    • 9 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    I think the way to look at it is to analyse which team has the best fixtures over the next 6 weeks and from that team pick the undervalued players.

    Southampton have been the runaway value team of the season but I (and many others) think that ends at Villa this weekend.

    I believe the new value team is Swansea and I expect to see them perform well over the coming weeks.

    IMO the value players in the team are: Fabianski, Naylor, Siggy and Bony.

  11. Kalix
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    What some of you are calling hindsight, I'm going to cheekily call "Data" 😛

    There are definitely some caveats to this strategy:
    - Predicting clean sheets isn't easy.
    - There are a couple of side effects to not owning as many heavy hitters as possible (less captain choices, more hiding behind the couch).

    I think with so many heavy hitting MIDs faltering this year, this strategy seems "obvious" or easy...but most years you see people dropping Baines/Kompany/Ivan to make room for the 7 biggest attackers, which I think is often the wrong play.

  12. Kalix
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    I've been doing well this season, so I decided to try and understand my own thought process and put it down on paper (in the hopes of making it repeatable).

    I guess we'll all find out in a couple of months! 😀

    1. John t penguin
      • 9 Years
      9 years, 4 months ago

      Having thought about it . Probably xmas WC is best time to go with this. I normally end up with at least two big defenders after xmas as CS increase for big teams plus usually have extra cash to spend.

  13. tm245
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    Interesting approach to the WC. It does read a bit like a preseason squad framework, however, in that it focuses on establishing a foundation based on value and price points and then tries to maximize potential with the remaining cash.

    I often think of the WC as needing to do something a bit different: using your resources to secure certain pieces regardless of price because you consider them irreplaceable, and then using the remaining cash to make your team as liquid as possible as far as price flexibility and short term points potential are concerned. Not saying that approach is the right one but I find a WC too daunting to do anything else beyond putting a ring on those players I can't live without.

    I always like conversations like this one about value and replacement so thanks for the article.

    1. Woy of the Wovers
      • 13 Years
      9 years, 3 months ago

      I'm not sure you are doing much different. The players you consider as irreplaceable are likely to be those whose marginal ppm is a lot better than the lower price alternatives. I think Kalix has a more scientific approach, albeit reliant on historic scores that will be have some element of random chance.

  14. Kompany Man
    • 10 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    I used the six-game projections ad computed the optimal team (as I'm playing my wildcard this week), and for what it's worth, this also said to load in up defense. However, I ended up not following this advice. Perhaps the new bonus system has changed things, but my impression from previous seasons I have played suggests strongly to be investing in attack instead.

    In the end, I found a team that has a point projection near optimum but that I also believe in. Here's what I'm using:

    GK Foster, Krul
    DEF Ivanovic (later Baines), Yun, Dummett, Wasilewski, Wisdom
    MID Fabregas, Sterling, Tadic, Downing, Sigurdsson
    FWD Aguero, Costa, Pelle

    My main contrarian play is that I'm sticking with Pelle & Tadic even though their fixtures get much worse. In this case, I think the models are right in saying that they will continue to outperform their prices.

    It's worth noting that I've owned a bunch of these players for a while (e.g., Fabregas, Sterling, Sigurdsson, and Downing), so some of their prices for me are much substantially cheaper. I don't know whether they would be in the optimal team with current prices.

  15. Sonic
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 9 Years
    9 years, 4 months ago

    Great article and many great contributions from others comments. It's pretty much the rationale I used at the start of the season using the RMT feature as guidance for value and it's done me fairly well.

  16. Barry194
    • 10 Years
    9 years, 3 months ago

    Fab or Haz ?

  17. amaxkan
    • 9 Years
    8 years, 9 months ago

    Any end of season updates on this?