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Going Out With a Bang – FPL Chips Analysis

The Going out with a Bang league was set up in the Fantasy Premier League to assess how the game’s new chips were best used for the season run-in. Launched in Gameweek 32 it looked at how those who took part used their Bench Boost and Triple Captain chips around double Gameweeks 34 and 37 in particular.

Now that the dust has settled, I have performed the following analysis to determine how successful the chips were and which order was the best way to play them. The data collated includes the top 50 managers from this 287-strong league, which was eventually won by Goonerbyron.

For this analysis managers have been grouped into three strategies, which relate to how the Triple Captain and Bench Boost chips were played:

  • Triple captain GW34 and Bench boost GW37 (TC34BB37)
  • Triple captain GW37 and Bench boost GW34 (TC37BB34)
  • TC and BB played in another way, for example TC33 BB34 (Other)

Analysis

Figure i
As we can see from the above chart, adopting the strategy of Bench Boosting in GW34 and Triple Captaining GWK 37 was the most popular option compared to Triple Captaining in GWK 34 and Bench Boosting in GWK 37.  There were 11 mangers in the Top 50 who decided to play their chips differently. Of these alternative strategies, triple captaining Romelu Lukaku for his DGW in 33 and then bench boosting for the DGW 34 was the most popular.

So, how did these strategies perform when looking at the chips in isolation? To calculate this we need to look at how many points were on your bench when you played the Bench Boost chip and add this to the extra points your Triple Captain got you.

Figure ii
Looking at this result, Triple Captaining in GW34 and Bench Boosting in GW37 looks to be the most fruitful with Alexis Sanchez (25) or Sergio Aguero (26) giving TC34BB37ers the edge. If you adopted the TC37BB34 strategy this was by no means a bad decision with significant bench points to be had in GWK34, however the lack of standout Triple Captaincy options in GW37 meant managers were left to take a punt on on Andy Carroll (3) Jermaine Defoe (10) Eden Hazard (12) or Dimitri Payet (12) which proved to be costly in comparison. The ‘others’ also benefited from a strong bench in GW34, however (in hindsight) Lukaku (4) as TC in GWK 34 was not the way to go.

Now, lets look at the total points gained by the managers’ squads when they played the Triple Captain and Bench Boost chips

Figure iii
As observed in the above chart there is not much difference in team points between TC34BB37 and TC37BB34. This implies that while TC34BB37 was the most profitable, over the two weeks the difference evened itself out.

Finally, we will look at how using these different strategies impacted on the total points gained by managers from GW32 through to GW38.

Figure iv

The analysis, which is represented in the above median total points chart shows that managers who adopted a TC34BB37 strategy had a slight edge overall, however, this is not significant. What we can observe from this is that if you wildcarded in GW33 to Bench Boost in GW34 your squad actually picked up more points in the non-DGW periods than managers who held their WC to GW36 for BB in GW37.

Conclusion

While GWK34 was the best week to use the TC chip, in the end both the TC34BB37 and TC37BB34 stategies yielded similar results. If you did not use Bench Boost and Triple Captian in GW34 and GW37 you were in significant danger of being left behind, as those that Triple Captained Lukaku in GWK 33 found out.

What next season has in for us I am not sure, however one thing we will agree on: if the chips are here to stay then save them for the double Gameweeks.

23 Comments Post a Comment
  1. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for this and for organising the league. Lots of great data there from these managers.

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      Not a problem. Thanks for your help in getting this published.

  2. Irish Madridista ⭐
    • 13 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Good stuff KoL.

    Next year it'll be on a heavy hitter anyway.. Screw Carroll 😛

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      No worries mate. You started the league on fire but then it seems like your punting got the better of you 😉

  3. Get up ya bum
    • 14 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Nice one mate. Did I make top 50?

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      Aye, you finished 7th, mate 🙂

      - You scored an extra 40 points from your chips which was the mean of the top 50 managers in the league
      - You scored a total of 275 points in GW34 and GW37 which was 22 points higher tham the mean of the top 50 managers in the league

      1. Get up ya bum
        • 14 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        Nice 😎

        Thanks brother, good work!

  4. Doosra - ☭DeclanMyGenius…
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 14 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Very good, Kins of Lyon! 🙂

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      Glad you like it, mate 🙂

  5. sharpelectronics
    • 9 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Interesting analysis, although given that this first season of the TC and BB chips seems likely to be atypical – how often are you going to get leading TC candidates such as Aguero and Sanchez BOTH bagging 20+ hauls in the same double gameweeks (meaning many of those who played TC in GW34 benefitted handsomely) then TC candidates in the other DGWs blanking or underperforming? Surely this meant that GW34 triple captainers did better this season than they would in an average season? Meanwhile, the good fixtures for teams such as City, Arsenal and United in GW34 meant the Bench Boost was justified that gameweek. If I'd tried it in GW37 it would have been with weaker sides and the benefit would have been considerably reduced.
    Mind you the one lesson I'd take from this season's DGWs is: Don't be temped by fixture pile-up sides with big squads such as Liverpool, as rotation will screw your neatly planned vision.

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      It is an interesting point but we can only deal with the data we're given. Usually each season we see at least one big club with a tempting DGW so there should always be a big hitter available for a DGW triple captain. Not forgetting the United had a great DGW fixture in GW37 they just didnt have the attacking assets.

      I do agree that clubs with a significant fixture pile up are to be avioded especially when using one of the chips on a player from their squad.

    2. Dino
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      I agree with Sharpe, while this is good work I don't think you can draw too many useful conclusions from it as it was very atypical of the two main triple captain candidates to hit 25 pts or so when the tc was played in gw34.

      The most useful stat you can take imo is that those who played the wc in 33 (or 32 I take it) made up more points in the non double gws than those who waited for gw37. Playing the wc with just two gws to take advantage of optimising your squad for form and fixtures doesn't make any logical sense.

      This season was also atypical in that neither of the top two ended up in the latter stages of either cup and neither got caught up playing a fixture v any of those teams in the latter stages either. This meant rather unusually we ended up with the hobsons choice of either discarding players from the two in form teams in a gamble on double gw and chip returns or holding onto them and risk losing out on said dbl gw returns.
      I think it is safe to say we all lost out doubly massively due to to this unique situation this year.

      Whether you play the triple captain/bench boost in 34 or 37 will still depend on who is playing when next season and with rotation normally more prone in dbl gw37 the triple cap chip still looks best played if there is a safe option in 34.

      1. Kings of Lyon ★
        • 13 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        Always good to hear your thoughts, Dino.

        I completely agree with everything you have said, this season has been unique in more ways than one and becasue of this it is hard to draw conclusions into what we will do next year.

  6. Suarezista
    • 10 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for this great analysis.
    I would have liked to know the percentage of using every strategy in the league as a whole, because I think there are more people who suffered with the BB34 TC37 than with TC34 BB37 which I think most people who used it did well especially those who WCed in GW36.
    To explain it a bit, top 50 has all people who did well so there won't be a big difference between strategies among them. While if we look at the higher ranks I think we will the percentage of using the TC34 BB37 lower.

    I know it is hard to make any analysis on over 200 hundred teams but just an idea crossed my mind.

    Thanks again 😀

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      That is a very good point which I do agree with. I have broken down the top 5 by strategy to show this

      Position 1st
      Strategy TC34BB37

      Position 2nd
      Strategy TC34BB37

      Position 3rd
      Strategy TC34BB37

      Position 4th
      Strategy Other

      Position 5th
      Strategy TC34BB37

      While only 12 of the top 50 opted for TC34BB37 a third actually made it into the top 5 showing the pull of the TC34BB37 strategy.

      It would have been good to include all 287 teams in the analysis however as I collating this data manually the top 50 seemed a decent sample size.

      1. Suarezista
        • 10 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        Cheers for this stat, it approves what I was saying, and is enough for me 🙂
        Thanks again for the hard work.

  7. JK - Cønt ⭐
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Any sauce for these chips?

  8. trikster102
    • 11 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    I forgot to use my Triple Captain in GW37 so then used it on in GW38 on Giroud. Worked out pretty well.

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      Fantastic! I think he outscored all the GW37 players ?

  9. the Penman
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Nice work, thanks for this. Think I can rest pretty easy having done WC33BB34TC37; with hindsight and perfect predictions Inwould have TC'd Aguero or Sanchez in 34, but I would probably have paid for it elsewhere by the looks of the stats. Onwards and chip wards to next year!

    1. Kings of Lyon ★
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      Not a problem. Aye, its an odd one but happy both stratergies worked out in the end 🙂

  10. Sif
    • 10 Years
    7 years, 8 months ago

    On Gray has a promoted striker without a Premier League record ever been priced above 6m, that's always been the cap right?