FPL Gameweek 9 Free Hit: Pros, cons + best team

Price Change Predictions

	Player	Club	Factors
No Change	Haaland	MCI	B, Vs
No Change	Mateta	CRY	B
No Change	Thiago	BRE	A
No Change	Welbeck	BHA	B
No Change	Woltemade	NEW	B

Risers

Fallers

Player	Team	Price	Progress	Tonight
Woltemade	NEW	7.4m	87.9%	Likely
Van Hecke	BHA	4.4m	88.3%	Likely
Lammens	MUN	5.0m	99.0%	Maybe
Casemiro	MUN	5.5m	94.0%	Maybe
Truffert	BOU	4.5m	90.3%	Unlikely
J.Timber	ARS	6.4m	79.5%	Unlikely
Tavernier	BOU	5.5m	87.8%	Unlikely
Roefs	SUN	4.7m	83.8%	Unlikely
Cullen	BUR	5.0m	85.4%	Unlikely
Mitchell	CRY	5.0m	83.4%	Unlikely
Szoboszlai	LIV	6.6m	86.3%	Unlikely
Petrović	BOU	4.5m	82.7%	Unlikely
Raya	ARS	5.9m	67.8%	Unlikely
Rogers	AVL	6.9m	80.8%	Unlikely
J.Palhinha	TOT	5.5m	79.6%	Unlikely
Guéhi	CRY	5.1m	57.9%	Unlikely
Matheus N.	MCI	5.3m	74.9%	Unlikely
De Ligt	MUN	5.0m	78.7%	Unlikely
Dúbravka	BUR	4.0m	71.7%	Unlikely
Gvardiol	MCI	5.8m	68.1%	Unlikely
Amad	MUN	6.3m	65.8%	Unlikely
Sánchez	CHE	4.8m	62.7%	Unlikely
King	FUL	4.5m	63.2%	Unlikely
Saka	ARS	10.1m	58.2%	Unlikely
Neto	CHE	7.2m	49.9%	Unlikely
O.Dango	BRE	6.0m	54.5%	Unlikely
Ballard	SUN	4.6m	55.2%	Unlikely
Schade	BRE	7.0m	55.9%	Unlikely
Donnarumma	MCI	5.7m	56.5%	Unlikely
Chalobah	CHE	5.2m	47.1%	Unlikely
Sessegnon	FUL	5.4m	48.4%	Unlikely
Lacroix	CRY	5.1m	41.9%	Unlikely
Gusto	CHE	4.9m	46.4%	Unlikely
Kroupi.Jr	BOU	4.6m	44.6%	Unlikely
Anderson	NFO	5.4m	40.5%	Unlikely
Gibbs-White	NFO	7.3m	39.5%	Unlikely
Garnacho	CHE	6.4m	39.8%	Unlikely
Foden	MCI	8.3m	11.2%	Unlikely
Livramento	NEW	4.9m	34.1%	Unlikely
Barnes	NEW	6.4m	30.8%	Unlikely

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Player	Team	Price	Progress	Tonight
Mbeumo	MUN	8.6m	64.4%	Likely
Caicedo	CHE	5.9m	95.9%	Likely
Rodney	CRY	4.5m	98.8%	Likely
Dasilva	BRE	5.0m	71.7%	Maybe
Tel	TOT	6.3m	92.2%	Maybe
Pinnock	BRE	4.3m	96.1%	Maybe
Vicario	TOT	5.0m	93.1%	Maybe
Strand Larsen	WOL	6.3m	89.8%	Unlikely
Coppola	BHA	4.3m	94.5%	Unlikely
Okafor	LEE	5.5m	94.5%	Unlikely
Dixon	EVE	3.9m	94.0%	Unlikely
J.Araujo	BOU	3.9m	92.4%	Unlikely
Welch	EVE	3.9m	91.3%	Unlikely
Lewis	MCI	4.8m	89.5%	Unlikely
Maguire	MUN	4.4m	89.8%	Unlikely
Kerkez	LIV	5.7m	87.7%	Unlikely
Travers	EVE	4.4m	90.5%	Unlikely
Mainoo	MUN	4.7m	89.5%	Unlikely
Ortega Moreno	MCI	4.8m	89.3%	Unlikely
Kelleher	BRE	4.5m	88.9%	Unlikely
Boateng	BUR	4.8m	88.7%	Unlikely
George	CHE	4.9m	91.2%	Unlikely
Darlow	LEE	4.0m	85.2%	Unlikely
Knight	BHA	4.5m	83.2%	Unlikely
M.Bizot	AVL	4.3m	86.5%	Unlikely
Arrizabalaga	ARS	4.2m	82.8%	Unlikely
Abbott	NFO	3.9m	85.0%	Unlikely
Cox	BRE	4.0m	83.5%	Unlikely
Mac Allister	LIV	6.3m	82.4%	Unlikely
McGill	BHA	4.0m	82.4%	Unlikely
Baleba	BHA	4.7m	80.8%	Unlikely
Neave	NEW	4.4m	81.9%	Unlikely
Sonne	BUR	3.9m	80.2%	Unlikely
Colwill	CHE	4.8m	82.9%	Unlikely
Akinmboni	BOU	3.9m	79.9%	Unlikely
Young	AVL	4.4m	78.7%	Unlikely
Matete	SUN	4.4m	80.3%	Unlikely
Gannon-Doak	BOU	4.9m	79.4%	Unlikely
Gruev	LEE	4.8m	79.7%	Unlikely
Jordan	BUR	4.0m	79.0%	Unlikely

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FPL Fixture Ticker

Watchlists

	Player	Club	Factors
No Change	Raya Martin	ARS	C, Vs
No Change	Alisson	LIV	C, Vs
No Change	Donnarumma	MCI	C, Vs, Sus
Up	Ramsdale	NEW	C
No Change	Sels	NFO	C, Vs
No Change	Dubravka	BUR	C, £

Last updated: 2 Dec, 2025 3:14pm

	Player	Club	Factors
No Change	van Dijk	LIV	B, Vs
No Change	Muñoz	CRY	A, Sus
No Change	Jurriën Timber	ARS	C, Vs
No Change	O’Reilly	MCI	A, Vs
No Change	de Ligt	MUN	C, Vs
Up	Thiaw	NEW	A
No Change	Andersen	FUL	A
No Change	Milenkovic	NFO	C, Vs
No Change	van Hecke	BHA	B, £
No Change	Mukiele	SUN	C, £

Last updated: 2 Dec, 2025 2:34pm

	Player	Club	Factors
No Change	Saka	ARS	A, Vs
No Change	Bruno Fernandes	MUN	A, Vs
No Change	Foden	MCI	A, Vs
No Change	Semenyo	BOU	C
Up	Gakpo	LIV	A, Vs
No Change	Minteh	BHA	A
Up	Anderson	NFO	A, Vs, £
No Change	Fernández	CHE	B
Up	Bruno Guimarães	NEW	B

Last updated: 2 Dec, 2025 2:44pm

	Player	Club	Factors
No Change	Haaland	MCI	B, Vs
No Change	Mateta	CRY	B
No Change	Thiago	BRE	A
No Change	Welbeck	BHA	B
No Change	Woltemade	NEW	B

With a full set of chips to use in the first half of the 2025/26 season, Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers are being forced to veer away from the usual popular strategy of waiting for a Blank or Double Gameweek to deploy chips like the Free Hit.

READ MORE: FPL Gameweek 9 tips – Best players, predicted line-ups, team news + more
READ MORE: FPL Gameweek 9 Wildcard: Pros, cons + best drafts
READ MORE: FPL Gameweek 9 Bench Boost: Is this the best time to use it?

For those managers considering a Gameweek 9 Free Hit, we look at the potential pros and cons of using it now and have put together a couple of team drafts to consider.

GAMEWEEK 9 FREE HIT: THE PROS

Woltemade v Gordon: Which Newcastle attacker to buy? 5

Typically, the main reasons to use a Free Hit chip – which allows you to make unlimited changes to your FPL squad for a single Gameweek before reverting to your original team for the following round of fixtures – are:

To capitalise on appealing fixtures for a team or teams that you own no or few players from (especially if it means ditching existing players with tougher matches that week)
To cope with a raft of unexpected suspensions and/or injuries (particularly short-term ones, if you want the same players back soon and/or have money tied up in them) that are too numerous to be dealt with using free transfers alone

With that in mind, owners of Crystal Palace assets who have enjoyed their players’ points hauls in recent weeks might look at the Eagles’ upcoming trip to Arsenal with some disdain, particularly when there are similarly priced players enjoying what look to be comparatively better fixtures this weekend.

For example, Gameweek 8’s hat-trick hero Jean-Philippe Mateta (£7.6m) could easily become Newcastle United’s in-form forward Nick Woltemade (£7.4m), who plays Fulham at home, or even Chelsea’s Joao Pedro (£7.5m) – at home to Sunderland – or West Ham United captain Jarrod Bowen (£7.8m), whose Hammers side surely can’t be worse versus Leeds United than they were against Brentford.

You can also use a Free Hit to temporarily rid yourself of any potentially uncertain starters in favour of some safer bets.

For example, we wouldn’t advocate selling Erling Haaland (£14.7m), despite a trip to Aston Villa being slightly less appealing than a month ago. But there’s plenty of competition for places elsewhere in Manchester City’s XI. We’ve just seen the popular Tijjani Reijnders (£5.7m) be subbed early in Gameweek 8, before being benched in the Champions League during the week. Could the same thing happen again this weekend, especially as the winter fixture schedule becomes more and more congested?

Elsewhere, managers might choose to swap out the underperforming Mohamed Salah (£14.4m) – who was also benched for a Champions League match that Liverpool rallied to win comfortably – but keep some Reds representation for the trip to Brentford in the form of Cody Gakpo (£7.5m). He was on target for the third straight match in all competitions during the midweek win in Frankfurt.

Manchester United assets like Bruno Fernandes (£8.9m) and Bryan Mbeumo (£8.0m), at home against Brighton, suddenly look much more appealing after their Gameweek 8 victory at Anfield. They could temporarily be brought in for Everton or Tottenham midfielders, who’ll face each other.

Like last weekend, several of the lower-ranked teams are facing each other, meaning there should also be plenty of budget-friendly enablers to allow FPL managers to load their teams full of heavy hitters.

GAMEWEEK 9 FREE HIT: THE CONS

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