“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word, ‘crisis’. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity.” – John F Kennedy
If what we have seen over the last few Gameweeks cannot be described as a Fantasy Premier League (FPL) crisis, nothing can. Teams have been decimated with blanks and even the most patient of managers who leave their transfers very late have been on the receiving end of some sudden postponements.
Hopefully, the worst is behind us, with the Premier League now outlining clear criteria for postponements and the UK government also reducing isolation periods to seven days from the usual 10.
There is some merit to the strategy of beefing up your bench, by replacing the likes of Josh Brownhill (£4.4m) and your £4.5m forward of choice with more ‘promising’ options. I’m still not totally convinced by this idea, though: even if you upgraded your Brownhill to say a Jarrod Bowen (£6.5m), you could still be on the wrong side of a fixture postponement. Doing this also kills your squad structure when you want to bring in premium players further down the line.
So yes, we must be aware of the danger. Leave your transfers as late as possible, although I know this can be brutal for those living in different time zones. After that, don’t stress about factors beyond your control. We are hopefully at the tail-end of this pandemic and I know it can be extremely disheartening to see weeks, even months of meticulous planning go down the drain but hang in there.
Now for the ‘opportunity’
The Premier League, in its most recent meeting, has decided to scrap the FA Cup third and fourth-round replays with a view to creating space in the schedule for postponed league matches.
This is explained more in detail in this article by Tom Freeman on the site.
In short: a mammoth Double Gameweek 22, while not confirmed, looks a very strong bet, and we might even see some doubles in Gameweek 21, too.
Now, like any FPL manager, the first thing that pops up in my mind when I hear “Double Gameweeks” is potentially using one of my chips.
For the discussion below, I am assuming that there is no major double in Gameweek 21 and that Mohamed Salah’s (£13.1m) departure to the Africa Cup of Nations happens in Gameweek 22.
It is also worth mentioning that teams that are knocked out of the Carabao Cup like Manchester United will likely have a free midweek prior to Gameweek 22, while even the weekend prior we could see fringe players fielded in the FA Cup third round.
As Tom mentioned in the aforementioned article, the following teams are extremely unlikely to have a double in Gameweek 22, unless they have postponements in the next three Gameweeks.
- Leeds United
- Liverpool
- Manchester City
- Newcastle United
- Wolverhampton Wanderers
Chelsea might still have a Double Gameweek in 22 as they have fixtures from around the Club World Cup in Gameweeks 24 and 25 to reschedule. One of those is against Arsenal, so the Gunners might have a Double Gameweek 22, as well.
Initial thoughts on Chip Strategy
Free Hit in Gameweek 22
I’d seen the idea of deploying the Free Hit discussed in detail on the FFScout boards and on Twitter before FPL handed us an extra one of these chips, so now it’s an even more attractive proposition.
Even without the second chip (and there’ll be some FPL managers who have already used their first), it’s not without merit. Due to the recent postponements, most managers are loaded up with players from teams who have not missed games so far, such as Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. A Free Hit chip would allow you to pick up the players with doubles in one swoop without worrying about point hits/transfers while still keeping your core players from the top three sides.
However, I still think it is necessary first to look at the fixtures in Gameweek 22, as they stand.
Salah will likely be at the African Cup of Nations, so playing the Free Hit would let you get the Egyptian back in your squad in Gameweek 23 (which he will still miss) and you would not have to use two transfers to sell him and buy him again.
But, I really like the Brentford fixture for the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.3m) and Diogo Jota (£8.1m). It would not surprise me to see them outscore most Double Gameweek options. Joao Cancelo (£6.8m) has a decent fixture too, at home against Chelsea, who they kept a clean sheet against at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season.
You also get to keep your Chelsea defence and skip the Man City fixture but, do you really want to? Chelsea play Liverpool in Gameweek 21, Spurs in Gameweek 23 and then they blank in Gameweeks 24 and 25. Why would you want your Chelsea players back? You would rather sell them in Gameweek 21 in preparation for the doubles.
I think there’s a case to be made for selling Salah in Gameweek 21 as well.
Spurs will almost certainly have a Double Gameweek 22, with so many fixtures pending. In Gameweek 21, Salah travels to Stamford Bridge, the last game before his scheduled departure to AFCON. Son Heung-min (£10.3m) plays Watford that week and is a great captaincy option. This will be followed up by a Double Gameweek in 22.
The fixture in Gameweek 23 isn’t great admittedly, away at Chelsea, but as a fan of the Blues, I can tell you that game will suit Son’s counter-attacking attributes.
Apart from this, there will obviously be Blank Gameweeks later in the season due to Carabao Cup and FA Cup fixtures where the Free Hit can be useful.
I would have been originally leaning towards not using the Free Hit chip as I already own the likes of Michail Antonio (£7.8m), Bowen, Josh King (£5.8m), Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.5m) and Tino Livramento (£4.4m), who are all likely to have doubles. I am also perfectly fine with playing Jota, Alexander-Arnold and Cancelo in Gameweek 22, while Bukayo Saka (£6.3m) and Aaron Ramsdale (£5.1m) might also have doubles.
Now, of course, FPL have made the decision a no-brainer for many of us.
Bench Boost
While the point above about several teams having a free midweek prior to Gameweek 22 adds credence to this idea due to the lower likelihood of rotation, you simply never know with COVID knocking about. It wouldn’t be surprising to see any of your players miss out with a positive test post-deadline. So I think this chip should be saved for a later day.
Triple Captain
This is the chip I would likely have been deploying had FPL not dropped the Free Hit bombshell and I still might, depending on how the fixtures fall. However, there is merit to saving this chip for later, as well, as Liverpool might have a double later on in the season with FA Cup/League Cup involvement. Having backed Salah as a perma-captain all season, surely he deserves the Triple Captaincy as well.
Using the second Wildcard
There is also a lot of discussion around using the second Wildcard to prepare for these doubles, but again I would ask – would you be selling the likes of Cancelo, Alexander-Arnold, Jota etc? Probably not. One of the merits of using the Wildcard before a big double is to Bench Boost but as discussed earlier, that is simply not on the cards.
It just seems too early to use the second Wildcard in my opinion. So much is yet to happen. There are surely bigger gains to be made later on in the season with fixture swings. I’d rather take a hit or two than use the second Wildcard.
Summary
These are just my initial thoughts based on the information we know at present. As we have already seen over the past few weeks, there is little point in planning long term at the moment but with Double Gameweek 22 on the horizon, I think we simply have to – even if you’re playing your Free Hit, you’ll still want to look at fixtures around the double.
If you’re saving the first/second Free Hit chip, every transfer you make from now should be for a team that has already had a fixture postponed. It is also worth looking at which teams have a good single Gameweek already in Gameweek 22; West Ham stand out immediately. Their pending fixture is Norwich, which would give them a double of Leeds/Norwich, both at home. Everton are scheduled to play the Canaries as well and will likely have leaky Leicester tagged on.
We will be discussing Double Gameweek 22 and much more on this week’s episode of the FPL Wire; do check it out in the link below when it lands.
Merry Christmas and stay safe.
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