With six blank fixtures decimating many Fantasy Premier League (FPL) line-ups, Gameweek 30 has been earmarked as a good opportunity for managers to play their Free Hit chip.
This article will discuss the potential benefits of this strategy but also why I’m not planning to play it myself.
The case for a Gameweek 30 Free Hit
Irrespective of how many chips you have left, there’s an obvious appeal to using the Free Hit in Gameweek 30. With only four fixtures and eight teams in action, many managers will struggle to put out anything close to 11 players. Not only will a Free Hit allow an FPL manager to gain the basic numerical advantage of a full complement of players, it would, of course, also allow them to pick the best ones.
Then there are the individual circumstances in which each manager finds themselves in ahead of Gameweek 30. If your squad has barely anyone playing and/or you feel there are major captaincy options that could severely punish, your reason for playing the Free Hit becomes even more justifiable.
Finally, in theory at least, this blankest-of-blank Gameweeks should offer such an imbalance between the disadvantaged state of most managers and the advantaged position that the chip would afford, that playing it seems almost intuitive. Identifying and acting on these big opportunities has historically been what defines the serious from more casual managers, particularly at this stage of the season.
However, such an assessment needs to be qualitative as well as quantitative. The advantage of fielding 11 players versus, say, five in Gameweek 30 is not as clear as it might at first seem.
The case against
While it is practically unfeasible that a depleted FPL squad limping into Gameweek 30 would ever be as strong as a full-strength squad custom-made for the fixtures at hand, it is not unrealistic to think that this disparity can still be mitigated without playing the Free Hit.
So often, a Gameweek score comes down to the performance of a handful of players, the most disproportionately significant among these usually being the captain. Usually, there is moderate diversity in terms of who these big performers are but, in a Gameweek where there are only four fixtures, the prospects for such variance become more limited.
It is not hard to look at Gameweek 30 players and quickly pick out the danger men; Spurs’ Harry Kane (£12.4m) and Son Heung-min (£10.9m), Aston Villa’s Philippe Coutinho (£7.5m) and.… Raphinha (£6.5m) at Leeds? It is not exactly what you’d call a vintage set of fixtures and, perhaps worst of all, it will not be easy to build teams where at least some of your players aren’t facing off against each other.
This is not necessarily a fatal issue but, if we accept that the Free Hit has some value and that value should be maximised, the efficiency of playing it in a week where the options are few and the payoff is probably minimal has got to be questioned.
2 years, 10 months agoDGW31
Burnley - MCI (H) & EVE (H)
Everton - whu (A) & bur (A)
Essentially SGW for Burnley and Everton have been struggling away this season.
Probably ignore Burnley players
Gordon and Rich would be the only Everton players of interest but likely to give both a miss.