Our team of contributors are returning as we count down to the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Gameweek 9 deadline.
This time, we hear from FPL Milanista (aka Obay), who you can find here on X. He has six top 10k finishes to his name, as well as a further five in the top 25k.
Every FPL manager knows that feeling when a carefully planned Gameweek turns into a disaster, but sometimes the damage goes beyond a single bad weekend.
The last two weeks have been particularly painful for me, with a series of unfortunate events and decisions that have left me questioning almost every move I made.
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
It all started with the decision to bring in Bukayo Saka, hoping to get ahead of the curve on an explosive asset, especially with Arsenal scheduled to face Hull at home in Gameweek 10. He looked like an ideal captaincy option for that fixture, and I was convinced I was making a move that could give me a significant advantage.
However, just a couple of days later, he picked up an injury and forced me into an immediate rethink. With three Arsenal players already in my squad, I had to make room, and the defender I decided to sacrifice was Ezri Konsa, whom I thought could become a problem for my team very soon.
Of course, football has a funny way of punishing you for such decisions: just a week later, Konsa delivered a 14-point haul!
To make matters worse, I replaced him with Bobby Thomas, who left the pitch in the 59th minute and returned a miserable one-pointer. And then came the final blow: my last-minute decision to captain Cole Palmer over Erling Haaland, only for Palmer to receive a red card and finish on -1 points as my captain.
Looking back, it has been a disastrous couple of weeks in which I effectively wasted three free transfers bringing Saka in and then taking him straight back out, while also missing out on a huge return from a player I had owned just days earlier.
The damage has not stopped there. I now find myself dealing with Thomas, Joao Pedro and potentially Riccardo Calafiori all carrying injury concerns, with only one free transfer available to put things right.
On top of that, Malick Thiaw also seems to have lost his place in the team, adding yet another headache to an already frustrating situation. Beyond the points lost, what has disappointed me most is the sheer accumulation of incidents. Any one of these situations would have been frustrating on its own, but having them all happen in such a short period has taken the enjoyment out of the game.
I have felt emotionally detached from FPL over the past four days, and honestly, I think that is a perfectly understandable reaction. With only two days remaining before the next deadline, the challenge is to step back, reassess the situation with a clear head, and try to recover rather than allowing the previous two Gameweeks to dictate my next decisions.
COPING WITH ADVERSITY IN FPL
So, how do we cope when FPL seems to be working against us?
ACCEPTANCE
First, accept that bad luck is part of the game. We can make sensible decisions based on the information available and still get punished by injuries, red cards, unexpected substitutions or huge hauls from players we sell. The outcome does not automatically determine whether the decision was right or wrong.
Bringing in Saka ahead of a potentially favourable fixture was a reasonable move at the time and his subsequent injury does not necessarily make the original reasoning flawed. Learning to separate decision-making from short-term outcomes is one of the most important skills an FPL manager can develop.
TIME OUT
Second, do not be afraid to take a break. Stepping away from FPL for a couple of days, including avoiding social media, is a perfectly valid way to reset mentally.
Constantly checking other managers’ scores, watching others celebrate their green arrows, or reading endless discussions about the players you sold can turn a frustrating week into an obsession. There is no need to expose yourself to that noise when you are already disappointed. T
he game is supposed to be enjoyable, and taking a short break can help you return with a healthier perspective. Missing a few discussions or temporarily muting the FPL world will not ruin your season.
DON’T CHASE YOUR LOSSES
Third, resist the temptation to chase your losses. After a bad run, it is easy to make unnecessary transfers, take a hit, or captain a differential simply because you feel you need to make up ground immediately. That is often how one bad week becomes three.
Instead, assess your squad objectively: identify genuine problems, distinguish confirmed injuries from minor doubts, and prioritise the transfers that improve your team over the coming weeks. With only one free transfer in my situation, patience and careful planning may be more valuable than trying to repair every problem at once.
JUDGE THE DECISIONS, NOT THE OUTCOME
Another useful approach is to judge your decisions by the information available at the time, not just by the points that followed. Keep asking yourself whether the transfer, captaincy choice or chip strategy made sense before the deadline.
If the logic was sound, accept the unfortunate outcome and move on. If there was a genuine mistake, learn from it without turning it into a reason to doubt every future decision.
Reviewing your process is productive but repeatedly replaying what could have happened is not.
A MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT
Finally, remember that one bad run does not define your season. FPL is a marathon, not a sprint, and there will be periods when everything falls into place for you and others when seemingly every decision backfires. The key is not to eliminate bad weeks, because that is impossible, but to prevent them from influencing the weeks that follow. Avoid making emotional decisions, do not let other managers’ scores dictate your strategy, and keep focusing on the long-term picture. There is always another Gameweek, another opportunity to make a good transfer, and another chance for your fortunes to change.
MOVING ON
As for me, with two days left before the next deadline, it is time to draw a line under these frustrating two weeks. I cannot recover the points I have lost, undo the transfers I made, or change the decisions that have already been punished.
What I can do is reassess my squad, make the best possible use of my remaining transfer, and approach the next Gameweek with a fresh mindset. The damage has been done, but there is no reason to let it continue.
Sometimes, the best FPL move is not a transfer or a captaincy punt. Sometimes, it is simply taking a deep breath, stepping away from the noise, and remembering why we play this game in the first place.
- READ MORE: FPL Meerkat’s Gameweek 9 Free Hit draft
