How well-prepared are the top 10k for FPL Blank Gameweek 31?

The majority of Fantasy Premier League managers inside the top 10,000 may have some work to do before their squads are ready for Blank Gameweek 31.

As things stand, many of them may still have to make a decision about whether or not they will play the Free Hit chip that week too.

It was over the last few days that we had confirmation of the Blank Gameweek 31 fixtures, which take place later in March and, more importantly, which ones do not.

With that information to hand, it appears as if managers at this level have used their most recent transfers to prepare for Double Gameweek 29 rather than Blank Gameweek 31.

In fact, their moves have actually reduced the number of Blank Gameweek 31 players represented in the top 10k between the two most recent Gameweeks.

Following the Blank Gameweek 28 deadline, there were seven Blank Gameweek 31 players in the top 10k Most Owned Players template, but now there are only six.

As you can see from the image above, the most popular players in the top 10k with fixtures in Blank Gameweek 31 are Nick Pope (£4.8m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.8m), Andrew Robertson (£7.0m), Mohamed Salah (£12.8m), Adama Traoré (£5.8m) and Raúl Jiménez (£8.0m).

The man to drop out was Virgil van Dijk (£6.6m), replaced in the template by Jamaal Lascelles (£4.3m), but the Liverpool centre-back still got himself in the points against Bournemouth.

Meanwhile, there were increases in top 10k ownership for both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.1m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£10.7m), both of whom were in the captaincy conversation for Double Gameweek 29.

The Arsenal man looks to have been a replacement for Jamie Vardy (£9.6m), who has slipped out of the top three most popular forwards in the top 10k, although he has it all to do against Manchester City after blanking at home to West Ham on Saturday afternoon.

Fantasy managers now have no more than two free transfers to spend between now and Blank Gameweek 31, which means that many inside the top 10k could, at this stage, realistically only get to eight active players without taking any hits.

Could that lead to a swathe of points deductions taken over the next few Gameweeks or does it increase the likelihood of widespread Free Hit deployment in Blank Gameweek 31?

There is certainly a high chance of the Free Hit receiving a lot of attention when the Premier League clashes with the FA Cup quarter-finals.

As you can see from the graph above, 75.2% of top 10k managers still have this chip left in their locker – and they may well be saving it for Blank Gameweek 31. Only time will tell.

What we can also see is that the Wildcard is approaching 50% usage in the top 10k, many of the managers at this level not feeling put off by the Double and Blank Gameweeks.

Double Gameweek 29, in particular, has proved to be one of the more popular rounds to pull the trigger on a new squad, as we saw 6.3% of managers in the top 10k use the chip in the build-up to Saturday morning’s deadline.

From analysing the Wildcard squads for Double Gameweek 29 among the top 10k, we have noticed that those overhauling their squads are probably not interested in using their Free Hit chip in Blank Gameweek 31.

That’s because, in studying the template of these teams, we can see that it features nine players with a fixture that weekend.

Pope, Alexander-Arnold, Salah and Jiménez are the assets who overlap with the rest of the top 10k, but Robertson and Traoré have largely been avoided by those with a clean slate.

Top 10k Wildcarders have opted to add Matt Doherty (£6.2m), Charlie Taylor (£4.3m), Romain Saïss (£4.5m), Imsaïla Sarr (£6.3m) and Diogo Jota (£6.3m) to their squads due to favourable fixtures in the short-term, as well as outings in Blank Gameweek 31.

There was only mild success for that crop of players in Double Gameweek 29 though as Doherty and Saïss recorded clean sheets against Brighton but Sarr and Jota drew blanks in their Saturday afternoon matches – although of course, these assets have clearly been brought with a future Gameweek in mind.

Finally, as already mentioned, Aubameyang has some serious work to do at the Etihad Stadium midweek after blanking against West Ham.

That will be of huge disappointment to the 49.5% of managers inside the top 10k who handed him the armband for Double Gameweek 29, arguably influenced more by Saturday’s home meeting with the Hammers rather than by a trip to Manchester City.

However, the 25.9% who backed Salah will be very pleased with how this round of action began. His nine-point score, doubled-up to 18 is likely to have made a big difference for them considering how many others did not captain the Egyptian.

Obviously, we still have potentially two more games to go for De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero (£11.9m), although only Pep Guardiola will know how accurate that statement is, while Nicolas Pépé (£9.2m) was another blanking asset for Arsenal against West Ham.

STATS TAKEN FROM LIVEFPL.NET.