The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 4

Spiderman (or was it Spiderm4tt?) once said – “with great power comes great responsibility”.

That definitely chimes for any Fantasy Premier League manager with a Wildcard active.

The seemingly endless possibilities in front of us is dazzling and confusing but the burden is almost too much.

The gut wrenching feeling when a Wildcard is played and is perceived as “wasted” is an emotion that lingers in memory.

When it hits, we look for anything, any crumb of comfort that will help us justify decisions in order to ensure we leap a pit of despair.

Initially, the excitement and the sheer relief granted by the opportunity to refresh our squad mask these doubts.

It’s only now, hours before committing our decisions, that the doubts creep towards us. That we remember, with dread, how it feels when a Wildcard backfires.

In previous seasons I have likened it to a supermarket dash. That analogy still rings true.

You speed through, giggling at the choice and freedom you have been granted. Only to look back when the opportunity is gone and immediately begin to wonder what has been missed, what opening has been passed up.

For me, the pressure has been intensified. I’ll be sharing the fallout from my Wildcard with a bigger audience than ever. Revealing my errors and forcing myself to justify decisions and back-peddling.

Already that’s having an impact. I’m perhaps putting too much stock in bandwagons like Raheem Sterling – afraid that I’m missing the obvious, I’m backing these players for fear I’ll be exposed.

I’ve seen posts this morning questioning those still debating Wildcard decisions.

But I’m firmly in that camp.

Such is the power of the Wildcard, no decision can ever be finalised, even at this late stage.

We give ourselves the chance to deliberate every position right to the end. It stands to reason that we will keep doing that – we will keep replaying and rebalancing player vs player scenarios until the bell tolls.

It’s a tortuous process that absorbs us but one of the key pleasures of playing this game, particularly when we can share the agony on these pages.

I’ve enjoyed reading through the deliberation over the international break. I’m still reading now, adding your opinions to my own in order to finish this process once and for all.

There’s an expectation from myself and others that I’ll overcome my mediocre start to the season and a successful Wildcard is likely key to that.

My spider senses are tingling – I’m not sure I’m up to bearing all this responsibility.