The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 31

Rarely do we dispose of a Gameweek in the space of a few hours. But today we will see the back of Gameweek 31, and it will come as a blessed relief.

Despite being reduced to just four fixtures, these matches have absorbed and divided the Fantasy football community. While planning for the double Gameweeks occupies us for weeks in advance, in the main, we are united in our opinion of how they are played.

That has not been the case for Gameweek 31, with the new Free Hit chip the cause of much dispute.

Looking back, the strategy seemed so simple. I had previously subscribed to the idea of activating the chip in advance of today’s matches.

But my head was turned by the tactic of building towards Gameweek 31, preserving the chip to supplement a Bench Boosted double Gameweek, softening the blow of postponements to follow.

I stuck steadfast to that ploy, sacrificing points in the lead up to today by acquiring assets such as Theo Walcott and Charlie Daniels earlier than required. However, by fielding 11 players without hits, I will hope to recover some of those points.

But will the Free Hit managers gain an advantage? Almost certainly.

They haven’t carried Gameweek 31 mediocrity up to this point, though their initial edge will have depended on their own activity in the market.

Did they keep Son Heung-min after his run of blanks? Did they go back for Riyad Mahrez?

Then of course, they are in a better position to exploit today’s events.

Rightly or wrongly, so many presumptions have been made on this.

For my part, I have firmly believed that eight, maybe even seven players will be enough to navigate today’s four matches without suffering significant damage to rank.

The issue isn’t so much that goals can’t or won’t be scored, it is more that the chances of a large proportion of Free Hit managers finding the big earners appears slim.

Free Hit managers probably have three or four slots to have a stab at finding their heroes.

They can shop for differentials, but the chipless are already buying Junior Stanislas and Wilfried Zaha. That pair will both have to deliver, or the points will need to come from other sources for the Free Hit to really make an impact.

The more obscure the heroes, the smaller the group of managers that will benefit, minimising the impact on ranks.

Like so much of the conjecture leading up to today, this is all theory.

The Free Hit experience is new to us, and we’re learning on the job. Those, like me, who have kept it back to deploy in tandem with the Bench Boost can only hope that some advantage will be gained.

But ultimately the evidence to support or debunk that argument will be difficult to gather.

Today we will collect numbers on the effectiveness of the Free Hit. With the help of our latest addition to the team, Ragabolly, we will carry out a post-mortem over the next 24-hours.

But it will take to the end of the season to assess the real winners and, in all likelihood, we may never settle the argument.