Under 10% of Fantasy Premier League managers played their Wildcard for Gameweek 3.
After two weeks of the campaign, 6.8% of players worldwide pulled the trigger to create themselves a new squad.
That was 2.4% more than played their Wildcards in Gameweek 2, just 4.4% of managers shaking things up at the first hurdle.
So far, 11.3% of managers have played their Wildcards.
Not surprisingly, it was the most popular chip for Gameweek 3, as the majority of FPL players hope to use the others later in the campaign.
The Wildcard has certainly been the talk of the town in the Fantasy Football Scout community this week, so it is helpful to have a look at the Wildcard templates both overall and among the current top 10,000 managers.
Understandably, Sterling is the most popular player in Wildcards for Gameweek 3, chosen in 73.0% of them.
Following his four goals in two games, Teemu Pukki (£6.8m) is just behind the Manchester City man, currently sat in 61.2% of Wildcard squads.
Snapped up by a similar number of managers was Sheffield United’s budget option John Lundstram (£4.1m).
His 14-point haul in Gameweek 2 has convinced 61.2% of Wildcarders of his ability to offer value this season.
Despite much of the pre-season debate revolving around whether or not we should have Sterling or Kevin de Bruyne (£9.6m), those who have Wildcarded early simply asked ‘why not both?’
The Belgian midfielder is the second-most popular option in his position among those who went back to the drawing board for Gameweek 3.
These early-movers have also largely ditched Mohamed Salah (£12.5m), opting to spread the cash elsewhere.
In order to facilitate this, 46% of these managers have opted for Sadio Mané (£11.5m) as their coverage for the Liverpool attack.
They have also moved away from the Reds’ defence following a disappointing start to the season.
Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) is the most fashionable of Liverpool stoppers with 36.5% presence in overall Wildcard squads for Gameweek 3, with Andrew Robertson (£7.0m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.0m) not earning enough interest to make the top-five in this position.
Manchester United players are also proving popular, with Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£5.6m), Anthony Martial (£7.7m) and Marcus Rashford (£8.7m) in the template.
Even though those currently in the upper echelons of the game are still, to some extent, skewed by chip usage, it is still interesting to see who some of these managers have turned to in order to press home their advantage.
Their Wildcard template picture is actually remarkably similar to the overall one, the only differences coming in the budget areas.
Lewis Dunk (£4.6m) has been turned to with no Liverpool defenders making the cut, while Todd Cantwell (£4.6m) is in 33.9% of top 10k Wildcard squads.
Just 10.2% of managers have used the Triple Captain so far, with 2.3% of them deploying it for Gameweek 3.
Kane appears to have been the chief recipient of this enhanced armband among the current top 10,000, while Sterling, Rashford and Mané also received attention for it.
All stats taken from LiveFPL.net.
5 years, 1 month agoI wasn't considering to WC this early, but now that I see my rivals WC team I think I should have.
Not only he has a great team, I'm also 0.3m short to copy it and 8 of his players are about to rise in the next few days.
Did I already f**k up or will I be able to recover from this?