During the International Break, many FPL managers inevitably start to think about wildcarding. I’m still a big fan of the wildcard in an international break, despite one of the biggest draws – price changes – being less of a factor in recent seasons.
Reasons to Wildcard
I think one for the main reasons for the continued popularity of wildcarding in the international break is psychological; two weeks of looking at you team and studying its faults as it slowly leeches value makes it hard to do nothing. Also, there are real risks involved in most of your players having two games to get through before they can resume getting points for you. However, even as a fan of wildcarding in the international break, my view is that it is too early in the season to do so now.
The ability to hold your second wildcard past the end of January and the introduction of the chips mean that it is often best to save the second wildcard until after GW30. This means that if you wildcard now, you won’t want to do so again for over twenty-five gameweeks.
A lot of managers are looking to wildcard now because they are missing one or two premium player that they feel are essential. In my opinion, these managers are looking at the wrong end of their team. Switching premium players to reflect their form and/or fixtures is the bread-and-butter of playing FPL, it is what your free transfers are for (supplemented by hits, if that’s how you play). A good wildcard is about making the moves that feel like a waste of a free transfer or that could never realistically be expected to make back a hit; i.e. fixing your bench, goalkeepers, and cheapest starters.
The uncertainty around the premium players is still pretty high; Arsenal and Chelsea are getting used to new managers, Mane vs Salah is far from clear, Man Utd haven’t decided whether to be attacking or defensive, the Man City midfield is in flux, Kane still isn’t looking right, and we’ve no idea how the top-six will handle rotation around European games.
The situation for cheaper players isn’t any better.
Goalkeepers
Who are the best goalkeepers long term? I can see a case for at least ten different starters. If Man United revert to being the stalwarts of clean sheets then surely De Gea becomes the best way to cover their highly owned defence, despite his price. Can Ederson get enough clean-sheets and assists to make up for his lack of save and bonus points, or is he a waste of a Man City spot? Maybe rotating two £4.5m goal-keepers is best, but which ones? If Hamer gets his place back, is he the perfect enabling bench player / occasional starter?
Defenders
Where are all the good £4.5m defenders? Could a Burnley defender be worth the extra £0.5m now that they are out of the Europa League?
Can we risk a second £4.0m defender alongside Wan-Bissaka? This could go either way; Bennett could lose his place at Wolves, or one of Peltier or Jazz Richards could get back into the Cardiff team after some shaky defending last weekend. Personally, I’d be worried that an Alonso, Robertson, Mendy, Wan-Bissaka, Bennett defence wouldn’t be able to put out three starters close to European fixtures.
Midfielders
Who is the best £4.5m midfielder? Other than Stephens, who seems to always be on the verge of a price drop, most of the other options could soon be replaced in their respective teams. There is certainly no sign of this season’s Milivojevic or Capoue. Can we let a £4.5m midfielder who scores 1-2pts per week just sit on our bench or will we need the squad depth? If so, is someone like Neves or Kante worth the extra outlay?
How much rotation can we expect from mid-priced options like Bernardo Silva, Pedro, Lucas Moura and Mkhitaryan, and will they get enough points when they do play to still make them good value?
Forwards
How about cheap third strikers? Is Ings a reliable starter given his injury record? (He certainly will not play in GW6). There aren’t many other options below £6m – maybe Jimenez or Rondon – with no regular starters below £5.5m. At least there seems to be some good options in the c.£7m forward price bracket.
It’s Too Early to Tell
The answer to most of the above questions seems to be ‘it’s too early to tell’ and this, to me, is why you should hold on to your wildcard.
Obviously, every team is different and wildcarding now might be best for you. However, doing so is no guarantee that you won’t be facing similar problems further down the line. Whilst we may never get definitive answers to the above questions, by the second international break things should be somewhat clearer as we’ll have seen twice as many league games and a few European matches.
Even if your team looks poor now, maybe one or two hits can fix it. If you think that a (-4) would see you through to the next international break, or a (-8) would likely get you to the third one, then this is only a loss of 1pt per week, which to be is nothing compared with the advantage of still having the first wildcard in your pocket. Bigger hits may also be justifiable if they let you restructure your team, replace definitely injured players, or have a big effect on your team value.
Conclusion
I’ve already done Milivojevic + Firmino > Hazard + Ings (-4) this week as I was worried about price drops that didn’t happen. I probably should have waited, but I’m not too worried about a second hit if there is an injury to a key player, and my bench is good enough to cover the loss of a cheaper player. I will only consider using my wildcard if there are a couple of injuries to my premium players.
I’d preferably like to wait until at least the third break in late November before wildcarding, with one eye on the busy Christmas schedule. Whether I can handle another long fortnight of staring at my underperforming squad is another matter.
What are your thoughts? Why have you Wildcarded, or why are you waiting?
