Wildcard fever gripped the Fantasy Football Scout community this week as initial Fantasy Premier League (FPL) squads were ripped up to make way for this season’s emerging stars.

Our hot topics focus on the players being acquired and discarded, while our community writers look at long-term planning as well as the value of bookies odds to Fantasy managers. We also catch up on how Chelsea’s defence is faring in our latest Members tables and find out who is top of the charts in our community tournaments.

The Community Articles

Wayne Rooney and Eden Hazard are two of the most prominent heavyweights falling out of favour with the community. With their ownership plummeting, Dr Claw put forward the pros and cons of discarding Manchester United’s Rooney, while jkdeclan looks at the arguments for and against dumping Chelsea’s Hazard.

In looking for alternative captaincy contenders, Your Mum’s Athletic has been investigating whether paying close attention to bookies’ odds can help Fantasy managers. He’s also popped down to the bookies to serve up the latest odds going into Gameweek 3 and how they may influence our captaincy decisions.

Meanwhile, Andy85wsm dropped by to help the community pinpoint the best Manchester United full back to draft in, in the light of their two clean sheets so far this season. Rodallegabomb was also on hand with his look at the prospects of the latest bandwagons.

Finally, Jarvish is amongst the eagerest of beavers with his look ahead to the second half season and the best potential times to play the new chips FPL have introduced.

Don’t forget, if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.

The Hottest Topics

With the gentle flutter of Wildcards transforming into a typhoon, there was plenty of discussion this week over the merits and pitfalls of making wholesale changes to our FPL squads. In our hot topic on the issue, both wildcarders and non-wildcarders put forward their cases.

Demi is amongst those wildcarding and put forward his justification for the move so early in the season here, while Beavis has been taking a look at the community’s emerging wildcard template.

A crucial consideration in Wildcarding is to ensure new squads look ahead as much as look back at the best performers so far, according to John Terry’s Dog’s discussion on advanced planning.

There was a raft of names put forward this week for both Wildcarders and non-Wildcarders alike. Balders made his case for drafting in Memphis Depay, after his stunning brace and assist in Manchester United’s Champions League qualifier this week.

Stoke’s surprise summer signing Xherdan Shaqiri is on Arvin-ation’s watchlist, while Sheeit has been urging the community to consider Swansea’s underlying statistics king Jonjo Shelvey.

For Dat Guy, Bournemouth’s kind fixture run should not be overlooked, while the Railwayman has been keeping a close eye on Norwich’s midfielders.

Manchester City’s Alexsandar Kolarov has been one of the most frustrating Fantasy figures of recent years, with bench-warming duties alternating with surprise points hauls. But with some fine displays so far this season, Jaffalicious wonders whether he has finally thrown off the “Lolarov” tag. Your Mum’s Athletic joined the discussion on the defender later in the week to analyse just how often he makes last-minute cameos in matches.

For those looking for other differentials, the community had plenty more names in the frame in our hot topic on Wildcard punts.

With every player brought in Fantasy managers wave goodbye to another, with Wayne Rooney one of the highest profile departees this week. Here Jaffalicious takes a look at just how poorly the Manchester United striker has performed recently. AV-B has turned his attention to Eden Hazard and whether Manchester City’s David Silva is a sensible replacement.

There were plenty of Rooney and Hazard owners featured in our weekly Rough with the Smooth hot topic, which gathers your tales of woe and joy from the latest Gameweek.

Jafalad was also cursing his decision to draft in and captain Southampton winger Sadio Mane. Champ, meanwhile, was air high-fiving Arsene Wenger. The Arsenal manager’s decision to leave Champ’s captain Theo Walcott on the bench saw his armband switch to Liverpool’s goalscoring striker Christian Benteke and enabled his first substitute Riyad Mahrez, who also got on the score sheet, to come into his side.

For those whose start to the season has been atrocious, Kings of Lyon had some words of comfort, as he recalled the Fantasy managers in recent years who clawed their way back to respectability in his Who Wants to be a Millionaire league.

Mark may be in need of some words of comfort as well ahead of next week’s Scoutcast after Facer was amongst those to spot a large and very fast spider behind him during Monday night’s broadcast.

Finally, visitors of the more welcome variety were discussed in Beavis’s hot topic asking if any of our community had met each other in real life.

The Members Tables

Has age finally caught up with Chelsea’s defence? D1sable’s latest table looking at the worst back lines this year certainly indicates that may be the case.

If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.

The Community Tournaments

After Gameweek 2 Mr Robot has taken a lead in @OCPRODIGY’s Scout Picks Challenge, which is based around our own Scout Picks.

Meanwhile, the first round results of Jaffalicious’s FFS UEFA tournament, based around the Champions League, can be found here.

The community’s big spenders are battling it out in Epic Fail’s £100 entry ‘High Rollers’ cash league. The current leaders in joint first are Blsoe Badger and D1sable.

In TorresMagic‘s Last Man Standing competition, 2690 teams survived after 172 were eliminated when the safety score was set at 24.

Andy continues his fine start in FPL and holds on to first place in the FFScout Moderators and Contributors league. He has a commanding 36 point lead over second placed Applebonkers.

In AZ’s cash league waytooaddicted takes the lead followed by Djenko Unchained in second.

If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round Ups please email me a brief summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spread sheet or head to head competition, at jonty@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk.