A number of Fantasy Premier League managers inside the top 10,000 deployed key chips for Gameweek 5.
5.2% of them opted to use the Wildcard over the international break, while 2.6% went for a Triple Captain.
With each passing Gameweek, the top 10k becomes less and less influenced by those who used multiple chips in the earliest rounds.
With Gameweek 5 now in the mix, only 37.9% of those in the highest echelon of FPL have deployed two chips.
12.7% have used three while 3.8% have already committed four of their chips.
As things stand, 32.2% of those in the top 10k have now used their Wildcard and we can also take a look at which players were the most popular in the Gameweek 5 editions.
By far, the most fashionable option in Gameweek 5 Wildcards among top 10k managers is Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne (£9.8m).
He has been selected in 77.2% of such squads, 7% more than any other player – which made for plenty of frustration when it was revealed he was on the bench for the trip to Norwich City.
Behind the Belgian is, not surprisingly, budget Sheffield United defender John Lundstram (£4.2m), who has been racking up regular game-time in the Blades’ central midfield trio.
Interestingly, it would appear that a number of Fantasy managers at the top level are opting for a double-pivot of bargain bucket defenders.
41.8% of top 10k managers who Wildcarded for Gameweek 5 also included Crystal Palace’s injured centre-back Martin Kelly (£4.1m) in their side.
That brings the total of top 10k managers in possession of both Lundstram and Kelly to 23.7%.
It is clear that the double savings in defence were influenced by interest in the more expensive Manchester City attackings.
Raheem Sterling (£12.3m) was snapped up by 66.2% of top 10k Wildcarders for Gameweek 5 with 58.4% going for Sergio Aguero (£12.1m), making him the most-fashionable forward in such squads.
Interestingly, a total of 30.2% of the top 10k Wildcarders opted for both players in their brand new squads, although the two combined for just one attacking return against Norwich.
Mohamed Salah (£12.5m), who scored nine points in Saturday’s lunch-time game also features in the Wildcard picture here with 65.4% of those wielding that chip among the top 10k retaining faith in him.
The 35.7% who brought in Tammy Abraham (£7.2m) will be very happy with his huge haul away at Wolves and it’s interesting to see that he was preferred to fellow goal-scorer Mason Mount (£6.4m), who did not feature among the most popular midfield assets.
Instead, the man in that price bracket who drew the attention of Wildcarders in the top 10k was Daniel James (£6.2m), although he blanked against Leicester while Mount found the net late-on at Wolves.
We saw that Gameweek 3 Wildcards at this level largely featured a disposal of Liverpool defenders, but they are clearly back in fashion despite failing to keep a second clean sheet of the campaign against Newcastle.
Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.1m) and Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) both feature among the most popular defenders in top 10k Wildcards, the right-back selected in 45.9% of these and his centre-back colleague in 29.9%.
Gameweek 5 Captains
Meanwhile, there was a big difference between the top 10k and everybody else when it came to choosing captains for Gameweek 5.
Those in the upper echelons largely favoured Aguero, with 39.1% of them handing the Manchester City man the armband.
Salah was backed by 30.9% and Sterling 19.2%.
The vote was much more evenly split from an overall perspective with Salah just about the most popular with a share of 23.3%.
Sterling was just behind him on 21.5% while Aguero was off in third place with 15.4%.
Not surprisingly given Norwich’s situation coming into Gameweek 5, there were also a number of Triple Captain chips deployed in the top 10k.
As already mentioned, 2.6% of them played this enhanced captaincy chip.
The majority of these were played on Aguero, 1.2% of those in the top 10k choosing the Manchester City forward, 0.6% on Sterling and 0.6% on Salah.
Data taken from LiveFPL.net. Visit it HERE.
