Tips

The Complete Guide to FPL Blank Gameweek 27 tips and advice

Drowning in mayonnaise? Swimming in ketchup? Floating in salt and vinegar?

Chip planning can leave you feeling engulfed in a sea of condiments. Thankfully, like David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson striding down the beach ready to dive in and save us, we have our own David (aka DavidMunday815) and Neale (aka Skonto Rigga) to keep our heads above the vinegar.

And if that doesn’t cut the mustard, the Fantasy Football Scout guide to Gameweek 27 features a healthy dollop of fixture planning with a generous serving of discussion, strategising, and debate.

First a warning – don’t miss the deadline: remember this week we have a 18:45 UK Time deadline as two matches are taking place this evening.

The main topic of discussion in the lead up to the deadline has been the fixture developments following the draw for the FA Cup quarter-finals. The ensuing Blank and Double Gameweeks present opportunities for Fantasy managers. Neale, in his article last Tuesday, outlined the three popular strategies for navigating these crucial Gameweeks. However he pointed out that:

“There is no right or wrong way to deploy chips in FPL … Last season, Yusuf Shiekh Wildcarded in Gameweek 25, Bench Boosted in Gameweek 37 and used his Triple Captain chip in Gameweek 38 – and finished first in the world.”

This sentiment was echoed by the FPL General in his opinion piece on why you should tailor your chip strategy to your squad:

“The most important thing is to do what is right for your team. We are all going into this period from a different starting point.”

Discussion continued on the Scoutcast this week as David, Luke, and Az answered questions about chip strategies and outlined their thinking. Plans have also been debated on site with Flapjack looking at deploying his Free Hit chip in Gameweek 31 and Deulofail highlighting which players could do well.

Meanwhile, in his community article, Pep Pig put forward an alternative view focusing on which teams and players to target for those not using their Free Hit or Wildcard chips in Gameweek 31.

Elsewhere, Geoff started a Hot Topic on the three main chip strategies.

Although at this stage the picture is not entirely clear – we know about the Blank fixtures for Gameweek 31 and we have a good idea about the Gameweek 33 Blanks, but we don’t yet know when the rearranged fixtures will take place.

We could find out today when the broadcasters announce which matches they have chosen to show live in April, but there’s a chance we may not find out until after Gameweek 31.

For the moment, many FPL managers have assumed that the fixtures will simply move along to closest available Gameweek but others, such as Jarvish, have had a stab at predicting what would suit the TV companies. A Double Gameweek for Manchester City with fixtures against Fulham and Cardiff anyone?

No I’m not trying to give you nightmares but yes, that was Leroy ‘one-point-in-a-Double-Gameweek’ Sané scoring a belter of free-kick in the Champions League on Wednesday evening. City players continue to be the subject of debate – they Blank this Gameweek and in Gameweek 31, but they have three appealing fixtures in between and are in scintillating form. David gave his thoughts on what to do with their players in FPL Question Time.

Someone who never wants to give you nightmares is Greyhead, who this week enlisted the help of Britney Spears for his regular look at The Great and The Good. One manager who must feel like screaming and shouting after no doubt being driven crazy by his recent run of form is Ville Rönkä – it’s now 10 (ten!) red arrows in a row for the Career Top Ten Hall of Fame Manager.

Elsewhere in ‘The Great and The Good’, Torres Magic continues to stockpile his reserves – he’s made one transfer already this week with his money in the bank increasing from £7.7m to £8.9m. FPL Transfer Spy suggests he’s sold Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso for Leicester’s Ricardo Pereira.

The Portuguese international was the subject of a recent Members’ article, comparing him with his Leicester colleagues Chilwell and Maguire. The Foxes are the only club to avoid any of the “big six” in the next nine Gameweeks, with all five of their home matches during that time against teams currently in the bottom half of the table.

Attacking defenders were the focus of a community article by Chris Kish this week, who lamented the unreliability of clean sheets. While another Leicester City player, James Maddison features in the differentials article, spotlighting players with under 5% ownership.

However both Maddison and Chilwell were mentioned as injury doubts in Claude Puel’s press conference, as reported by Neale in his first team news bulletin. Neale will round up all the team news later on today after the remaining press conferences, and there should be a summary from Rotation’s Alter Ego.

With City and Chelsea Blanking this week, and Manchester United hosting Liverpool, attention in the short term turns to Arsenal. David has delved into the numbers to uncover who are the best Arsenal players to sign for Blank Gameweek 27. While on this week’s Captaincy video David and Neale discussed Aubameyang’s armband credentials.

With Gabonese international playing the full ninety minutes in last night’s Europa League action, perhaps a rested Alexandre Lacazette could prove the better option. David’s Captain Sensible article will no doubt help us to make up our minds, but it is a tricky debate this week.

According to G-Whizz, who serves up the latest DS stats, fixtures and clean sheet odds, Arsenal are joined by their north London rivals Tottenham as the stand out options ahead of the Gameweek. The inclusion of Spurs is a little surprising given that they travel to a Burnley side who are undefeated in their last seven matches.

Finally, Liverpool players should not be discounted either this week or in the long term: after their trip to Old Trafford they have a favourable fixture run and matches in both Blank Gameweek 31 & 33. David asked whether it might be time to bring in Sadio Mané alongside, or perhaps instead of, Mohamed Salah?

To view all our discussions please visit our Hot Topics page, and if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.

If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.

COMMUNITY TOURNAMENTS

Gameweek 26 saw the finals of both FFS cup competitions take place. The free-to-all FFS Cup was won by Man-Chest-Heir F.C, who transferred in Son for Richarlison on his way to a score of 67, while Jay # was victorious in the FFS Members Cup. Jay # took a bold 8 point hit ahead of the final but each of this new signings – Son, Pogba, Lacazette – delivered.

Well done to both managers on their success in the competitions, and commiserations to our losing finalists Jambo17 and Get It Inter Ya.

Happily they don’t have to wait long for another chance at cup glory as the next FFS cup competitions start within a week – FPL managers have from now right up to 18:45 GMT on Tuesday February 26 to enter their teams. For details on how to enter please follow this link.

In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing competition the safety score in Gameweek 26 was 57, this saw 82 managers eliminated. 534 teams are through to Gameweek 27, when the threshold for elimination moves up to 14%, a minimum of 75 managers will depart. The final will take place in Gameweek 37.

Jay Lovejoy is the new leader of our main FFS League, with Sean Tobin second on the same number of points. They are both 3 points ahead of Omer Weisberg, the previous leader, who drops to fourth. Jay and Sean move up to sixth and seventh overall, only 19 points behind the new world number one Joel Tesfai.

Jay is in his thirteenth FPL season with one previous top 10,000 finish – 9,256 in 2013/14. Sean has had five top 5,000 finishes in eight seasons, the best of which was 923 in 2014/15. He is number one in our Live Hall of Fame and recently appeared in one of J0E‘s Meet the Manager videos.

For insights into the Hall of Fame managers, last week Neale put together an analysis of the current top ten in the Live Hall of Fame, including player ownership and chip usage.

Adam Levy has increased his lead over Tore Bjørheim to 18 points at the head of our FFS Members League. He’s up to eighth overall, only one point behind Jay and Sean. It’s getting very tight at the top! This is Adam’s sixth season, his best finish of 10,847 came last year.

Mark maintained his 39-point lead over David in the FFS Mods & Cons. He is number two in our Live Hall of Fame and recently appeared in another of J0E‘s Meet the Manager videos. Rumour has it that he’s brought in Newcastle’s Salomón Rondón as one of his two transfers this week.

James Wells strengthened his grip on first place in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league. He holds a 32-point lead over Callum Croal (aka Jambo17) the runner-up in our FFS Members Cup.

Jonathan Horrocks is the new leader in RedLightning’s January to May League following an impressive Gameweek score of 96, as previous leader JOZ V drops to tenth. Jonathan has had five previous top 10,000 finishes in twelve seasons, the best being 1,673 in 2010/11.

If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round-Ups, please email us a summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spreadsheet or head-to-head competition at geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk

TopMarx Fan of Fantasy Football and Monty Python. "Archimedes out to Socrates, Socrates back to Archimedes, Archimedes out to Heraclitus, he beats Hegel. Heraclitus a little flick, here he comes on the far post, Socrates is there, Socrates heads it in! Socrates has scored! The Greeks are going mad, the Greeks are going mad! Socrates scores, got a beautiful cross from Archimedes. The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside. Follow them on Twitter

1,640 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Mo Mané Mo Problems
    • 9 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    Everton and Watford have settled the Marvin Silva debacle.

    Were Everton wanting a refund?

    1. Mo Mané Mo Problems
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Auto correct lol. Marco.

    2. Kiwivillan
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Should send back. Faulty goods

  2. acidicleo
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    United DG32 has confused me again with FH strategy..
    Looks good for TC now!!

    1. Shultan
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      I know i want to TC pogba!

    2. Revival
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Man City could get a DGW in GW32 of Fulham (A) and Cardiff at home.... Triple captainers must be tempted by that too?

  3. Shultan
    • 7 Years
    5 years, 1 month ago

    How many players has everyone got from tonights matches?

    3 here (fab/diop/anderson)

    1. SADIO SANÉ
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      0 here

    2. MTPockets
        5 years, 1 month ago

        none

      • Eytexi
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        2: Fab & Felipe

      • Stockport Hatter
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        2. Fabianski and Fanderson.

      • FPL_Gyarados
        • 10 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Grand total of 0

        1. FPL_Gyarados
          • 10 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Oh no wait I have 1, Fabianski. How could I forget!

      • Yank Revolution
        • 12 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        1

    3. HurriKane
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Im sorry to break this to you but Fanderson going to blank tonight

      See you guys in 2 hours 😉

    4. Nomar
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Oh FFS! AwB out too?

      Down to 10 at best now. This is a disaster! Damn early Friday night kickoff!

      1. Salah’s Sonnet
        • 12 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        He would of been out even if it was not an early Friday night kick off.

        1. Nomar
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Didn’t see that last night when I last checked.

    5. Team Cruel
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      updated

      1. FPL price manipulators are …
        • 10 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Team saved for next GW

    6. Surfeit of Lampteys
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Got a good feeling for Fulham tonight. Think they'll win.

      1. THE SHEEP HUNTERS
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I think Watford @13/10 is the value tonight and was going to play the double with Hammers but I don't trust them either.

      2. Wheyyyy
        • 5 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I tipped them 2-1 😮

    7. Arteta
      • 8 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Wasted months on this game, just to miss the deadline when at least 5 of my players are out. Unbelievable haha
      But it's fine because I don't care anymore 😀

      1. FPL Daniel
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        See below. Plenty of veterans in the same boat. It happens. Unlucky

    8. FPL Daniel
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Dear Nomar and Syd. Dear colleagues veterans, really sorry to see that you've missed the deadline. This is support post. I feel ya lads. Stay strong. It might mean nothing at the end.

      Lads any chance to set up reminders from the Chrome or so in order this not to happen to us?

      1. FPL price manipulators are …
        • 10 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        No. They deserve it. To be on FFS and still miss the deadline is a level on its own

        1. FPL Daniel
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          Nah man. We got previous winner forgetting to press the wildcard button and made a mega hit. We need to be supportive to eah other imo. It could happen to anyone of us

          1. FPL price manipulators are …
            • 10 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            That's what lols were invented for

      2. Nomar
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Thanks Daniel.

        It’s my own fault, so I can take all the lumps I’m getting on here. Some people have lives and other priorities other than FPL.

        Can’t do anything about it now, just got to hope my playing players score decently.

        1. FPL Daniel
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          That's why always important to set up the bus team as Jonty calls them... I always do that and will do it tonight.

          Cheers Nomar, good luck in the doubles, then you'll recoupe if any damage happens now.

          Cheers

          1. Nomar
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 14 Years
            5 years, 1 month ago

            I usually do that as soon as the game updates, but for some reason I didn’t do it 2 weeks ago.

            Obviously was just destined to eff up this GW.

    9. Rainer
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      A professional wouldn't miss a deadline...

      1. Revival
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 11 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I've being waiting 2 weeks for this deadline

      2. FPL Daniel
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Yes he can. You are playing the year for 2 years

        1. FPL Daniel
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          *the game not the year

    10. Guy Demel
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Felipe Anderson(c)

    11. Farke in hell
      • 7 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Playing Alisson and Fabianski on bench. Will this backfire?

      1. Baps hunter
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 6 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        I will tell you later 🙂

    12. FPL price manipulators are …
      • 10 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      There's only one Anderson playing tonight. We know who you're talking about. There's no need to put an F before his name.

    13. jaybradlights
      • 14 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      3 of the top 5 in my main ML played their Free Hit this week - could be a big make or break week. Have other leagues got the same? The casuals may have just bogged this one...

      1. GOTHAM City F.C.
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        No

      2. Revival
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 11 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        Don't see any FH used in mine, lots made no transfers so looks like they forgot the deadline

    14. Magumbo
      • 12 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Fearing Auba this week

      1. FPL price manipulators are …
        • 10 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        As an Auba owner I fear Laca. Many in my ML have gone for Laca

        1. Teror
          • 9 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          I went for Laca

    15. Revival
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Captaincy stats for top 10k
      Son 35.57%
      Aubameyang 28.43%
      Salah 12.11%
      Anderson 7.81%
      Lacazette 6.40%
      Pogba 4.08%

      1. FPL Daniel
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        And EO%?

        1. acidicleo
          • 7 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          son 113.58
          salah 104.13
          auba 63.01

      2. FPL Daniel
        • 14 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        So Auba Vs Son. As expected. I have both

        1. FPL Daniel
          • 14 Years
          5 years, 1 month ago

          So blanks for Son and Salah needed. All eyes in Auba

    16. Teror
      • 9 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Anyone thought about WCing in GW30 to set up for GW32. FH in GW31. TC in GW32? I'm just NOT KEEN to waste TC in GW35 when GW32 seems the most appetising one in which to do so.

      1. Kiwivillan
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 9 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        FH31 doesn't work for 33 as same teams playing mostly. Aguero got 2pts in his second game. If TC a good SGW score is fine

      2. acidicleo
        • 7 Years
        5 years, 1 month ago

        have you used your BB?
        TC32 seems juicu with united fixtures now.
        in your strategy GW33 could be an issue..

    17. el polako
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      Lanzini is back 🙂 !!!!!

    18. TRIPOS TOPPER
      • 6 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      no 1 in world has front 3

      Aguero
      Rash
      Quaner

      Quaner clearly the differential!

    19. Sim Simma
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      5 years, 1 month ago

      The final ❔