With Gameweek 5 of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) on the way, we’ll be getting some top insight from our team of pundits and Hall of Famers.
Here, three-time top 200 finisher Lateriser discusses various Wildcard ideas.
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While this is a week of relative calm for those of us who don’t own a certain Erling Haaland (£14.2m), from next week onwards, things do get fairly interesting.
SEASON TICKER OVERVIEW: NEXT NINE GAMEWEEKS
GAMEWEEK 6 WILDCARD
Gameweek 6 has emerged as one of the Wildcard windows (in addition to Gameweek 8 and 13) because of the shift in fixtures, primarily for Haaland, Cole Palmer (£10.4m) and Arsenal.
While the entry point is not the best for players from the Gunners, they will be very popular from Gameweek 7, given their run.
Haaland is taking on half the league for expected goals (xG) at the moment and seems like a very enticing option to own from Gameweek 6.
FPL managers have a decision to make whether that is along with or without Mohamed Salah (£14.5m), who has some attractive fixtures from Gameweek 8. How the goal-share percentage shifts once Alexander Isak (£10.4m) becomes a regular is also going to be interesting, but the early signs are that he might be good for Florian Wirtz (£8.4m) and Salah, as his all-round ability seemed to improve both players in the Champions League on Wednesday.
When it comes to Arsenal, there are already some question marks about Viktor Gyokeres’ (£9.0m) early subs, but he still looks a good pick while Kai Havertz (£7.4m) is out injured and he remains on penalties. The Arsenal defenders look like great picks irrespective.
When it comes to Chelsea, with the exception of Liverpool at home, they have good fixtures for the mid-term starting from Gameweek 6. Palmer also seems to be showing signs of being back to his best.
GAMEWEEK 8 WILDCARD
Outside of Gameweek 6, Gameweek 8 appears as a good window (if you can get to Haaland for Burnley at home without a Wildcard) as it will be after the Chelsea v Liverpool game.
It’s also just before Gameweek 9, which is seemingly a good window to Bench Boost with decent fixtures for our bottom-priced assets playing from Burnley and Leeds United, as well as nice fixtures for most teams that will be popular on a Wildcard.
Gameweek 8 is also good for a Bench Boost (due to Burnley and Leeds United’s fixture), but it’s immediately after the international break, and we’ve seen a few random benchings because of this before, which is why I’m not as keen.
If you Wildcard in Gameweek 6, you can save transfers for a Gameweek 9 Bench Boost in case there are any surprises/injuries, and if you Wildcard in Gameweek 8, it will be closer to a Gameweek 9 Bench Boost and should ideally have fewer issues to fix.
HOW I WILL MAKE MY WILDCARD DECISION
I don’t quite know whether I want to Wildcard in Gameweek 6 or not.
To make my answer clearer, I’ve built a dummy Gameweek 6 Wildcard draft, which you can see below.
We discuss chip strategy in depth on this week’s episode of The FPL Wire which you can view here:
