Squads among the top 10,000 bracket of Fantasy Premier League managers changed a little for Gameweek 9.
The international break triggered 4.4% of Wildcards at that level of the overall rankings. This was more than double the figure from any of the previous three Gameweeks.
In this article, we will highlight the differences between the choices made by Wildcarders and the rest of managers, also discussing the effect of injury news during the break.
As expected, the Wildcard chip is the only one that has significant usage this week.
This leads to a cumulative percentage of managers in the top 10k who already used the chip to 73.7%, a number that is particularly high considering we are only almost half-way through the first Wildcard usage window.
The overall cumulative percentage of Wildcarders is much lower, 35.4% and we could see significant changes in the top10k fabric if the Wildcards that are to be used in the next few weeks make a big difference.
Most Popular Players
Next, we look at the most common picks of the Gameweek 9 Wildcards vs the total picks of the top 10k.
Most of the Wildcard picks actually explain themselves. The two cheap goalkeepers Rui Patricio and Lukasz Fabianski dominate the Wildcards selection.
In defense, the interest in the in-form Matt Doherty and the returning Benjamin Mendy is the main focus point. While they are in 72.4%, 69.2% of Wildcard teams respectively, their ownership in the top 10k reside at just 50.4% and 26.1%.
Meanwhile, it seems like Marcos Alonso and Kieran Trippier are the main fall guys.
On the other hand, midfield and attack options look very similar. The only exception is the shy appearance  of Raheem Sterling in 39% of Wildcards while it was Ryan Fraser’s position in the rest of the top 10k.
Speaking of which, the Bournemouth man, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane were the most popular picks that had injuries over the international break.
While Fraser had 42.6% top 10k ownership last week, the number only slightly dropped to 41.8% indicating that only 0.8% managers decided to sell him this week based on his injury concerns.
However, not all who kept him actually had him in the starting XI.
In fact, Fraser’s percentage in started top 10k teams is only 33.85% meaning that around 8% of managers have him on the bench this week.
Meanwhile, Salah and Mane switched places again for top 10k ownership. Salah now leads with 34.1% as opposed to 31.4% for Mane. The Egyptian has an even higher effective ownership since 6.7% of top 10k managers actually gave him the armband this week.
The other top captaincy choices this week are the very popular option of Sergio Aguero (67.2%) and Eden Hazard (7.2%). Other differential captains were Sterling (5.97%), Harry Kane (4.28%) and Alexandre Lacazette (3.5%).
It looks like so far this season, most of the obvious captaincy choices delivered and Aguero continued this pattern today.
Also, as the most owned players in the top 10k have been more or less the same the past few weeks, it can still be hard to beat the template with differential picks or captains. But this could all change.
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