My Gameweek 27 experience felt a bit like when you go to the dentist thinking you might just need a bit of a polish, only to find you need extensive root canal surgery. The team that I had thought might get me through to at least to Gameweek 30-something chip-free was, in fact, riddled with decay and I head into Gameweek 28 with no fewer than 11 players in need of extraction.
However, just as I am lucky enough to have a good dentist (shout-out to Dr Soltan), I am also fortunate enough to have my second Wildcard available and, while I can’t say it was entirely planned, it’s given me an opportunity to better exploit the Double Gameweeks in 28 and 29 and to help set myself up for the season run-in.
Wildcard ‘Philosophy’
As former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld once said; “There are known knowns, there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns” and this is about as accurate a description of the current state of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) as you could hope for. The immediate picture of Double Gameweeks 28 and 29, along with Blank Gameweek 30 is, at the time of writing, reasonably clear, but there are fixtures, blanks and yet more doubles still to be scheduled.
Trying to plan now for every permutation is not only impossible but likely detrimental, too. We can only work with what we know and, even then, we have to prioritise what is most important. With that in mind, I’ve tried to structure this Wildcard in a way that attacks Double Gameweeks 28 and 29, has reasonable solidity for the long term and, also, flexibility in terms of the player prices across the team. If needed, I want to be able to swap players out easily and have options when I do.
Consequently, I’ve avoided the temptation to throw my team at the upcoming Double Gameweeks ‘Leeroy Jenkins’-style, knowing that I will leave some points on the table at the expense of a longer-term view. I also haven’t committed to when I’ll use my remaining Bench Boost and two Free Hit chips (though I do have some ideas) nor have I expressly attempted to build a team for Blank Gameweek 30 which, as it stands, doesn’t appear to have the upside that might merit it.
So, without further ado, here’s my Gameweek 28 Wildcard.
