FPL
18 July 2025 102 comments
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After the defensive contribution points bombshell comes another big Fantasy Premier League (FPL) announcement: we’re getting two of every chip in 2025/26!

That does not include the Assistant Manager, however: that’s been given the boot after just one (half of a) season.

There are no new chips, either, just the old favourites of the last 10 years: Wildcard, Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain.

WHEN CAN THE CHIPS BE USED?

No more Double Gameweeks - so when should we use our chips? 9

Similar to the use of the first Wildcard in recent seasons, we must play this first set of chips before the Gameweek 19 deadline passes.

We cannot carry them over into the second half of 2025/26.

The second set of chips then becomes available after the Gameweek 19 deadline has passed.

INITIAL REACTION

While we’re all used to playing a Wildcard before Christmas, a number of us will never have activated any other chip before the midway point of a season.

Typically, they’re saved for later in the campaign when we get to Double Gameweek season.

But now, our hands are forced. It’s use it or lose it when it comes to the first batch of chips.

And, barring a weather-related postponement or unexpected event (eg another pandemic), we’re not expecting any Blank/Double Gameweeks before Gameweek 20.

So, it’s over to the Season Ticker to see if we can spot any stand-out, one-week fixture opportunities.


We’ll have more in-depth articles to come on each chip, so this is very much just a kneejerk first glance.

Regarding the Triple Captain, Erling Haaland and Manchester City face all three newly promoted clubs at home between Gameweeks 6-15. Mohamed Salah has back-to-back meetings with Sunderland and Leeds United shortly before he departs for the African Cup of Nations.

Free Hit-wise, a popular strategy will be using it when two (or more) of the big guns face each other. We might not want to sell their players for the long term but for that one week, a temporary evacuation may not be the worst idea. Gameweek 3, for instance, sees Liverpool host Arsenal. The following week, the champions face Burnley. So, offloading Salah and co, and bringing in Newcastle United, Manchester United and Brentford players, is one potential play.

As for the Bench Boost, we’re already seeing heightened talk of a Gameweek 1 deployment in the comments section. Not only does it get this chip out of the way (it can be a headache to plan for mid-season), we should also have a decent idea of who is going to start based on the final pre-season friendlies.

Let us know your thoughts below.

COMING SOON…

It’s been a busy week on the site with the redesign, subsequent tweaks and introduction of new features.

And get ready for another tool coming very soon…

102 Comments Login to Post a Comment
  1. The Hunt
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 16 Years
    4 months, 20 days ago

    As if pulling all those chips together once a season didn't give you enough of a headache.

    1. Feanor
      • 16 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Waiting till March or April or May to use a BB or FH chip sucked. This is a big improvement.

  2. ᶠᶦˡᵗʰʸLucre $$$
    • 10 Years
    4 months, 20 days ago

    July 18th 2025 - the date FPL died. RIP.

    1. Runnerboy31
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Ridiculous comment

    2. White Pony
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 7 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I quite like the changes, but everyone's entitled to their own view.

    3. chocolove
      • 15 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      "The one who can not follow the changes" died. RIP

  3. Feanor
    • 16 Years
    4 months, 20 days ago

    I suggested this in a few Blackbox streams last year. Glad to see Mark was paying attention.

    1. Moon Dog
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Why would you want two bench boosts... I was hoping they'd remove that one!

        1. Feanor
          • 16 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          My other idea was that when you free hit you got points from all 15 players, so bench boost would have gone away as a separate chip. Too radical for old Mark, that one.

      • ⭐ Bemba_Da ⭐
        • 15 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Yes, mark makes immediate improvements should be the headline here

      • Baps Hunter
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        This been suggested many times and cc's have been talking about it. Now they have more content to create and this is fun extra imo. Waiting with the chips was always basically the only valid strategy, now planning the autumn becomes more interesting.

    2. 1912 F.A Cup Winners
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Bench boost gameweek one then!!

    3. ⭐ Bemba_Da ⭐
      • 15 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      The game needed a refresh, felt it became stagnant and boring for a while

      The defensive contribution element is promising, removal of am chip good

      Element of x2 of each chip also good, keeps players engaged and not the feeling you messed up your whole season on one triple c punt early on the season.

      All I want is faster servers on updates, re-positioning of certain players and competitive pricing so we don’t see the same template building into gw1. Variances of templates etc with pricing would be good

      1. FHRITP
        • 2 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        You will never get rid of template teams when theres 3 transfers every week.

    4. Qaiss
      • 9 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Open to these changes. Everyone always uses the chips at the same time, this just mixes it up a bit. Could make it more swingy but let’s see

      Just at least they haven’t added stuff like ability to make changes after the deadline. It could’ve been worse peeps

      1. ⭐ Bemba_Da ⭐
        • 15 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Yes, with second chip arguably allows for more risks to be taken since you have a second one to fall back on

    5. The Hunt
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 16 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      BB GW1,
      TC GW2
      FH GW3
      WC GW4

      Repeat GWs 20, 21, 22 & 23

      Sorted.

      1. AllThePies
        • 10 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.

      2. RedLightning
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 15 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        A popular strategy for those whose main object is an early number one ranking.

    6. Robwooly
      • 3 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      The only drawback I see is many are going to BB in gw1, which has been so succesful for me. The flipside is those who burn chips early doors then struggle may stay in the game longer.

    7. riot
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      A few thoughts:

      - Defensive contributions seems cool, I'm glad it's one metric between both positions.

      - Pleased there's no AM anymore. FPL is about the 20 players in a club's matchday squad for a game. Anything else is totally irrelevant.

      - I don't like having 8 chips, but I'm willing to accept that it's a better 'experiment' than AM and is a way to reward better planning. That said, I don't particularly want FPL to become even more spreadsheety and optimised. I think the majority planning for months to use the Chip 1 on Matchday X and Chip 2 on Matchday Y is boring - not saying it always works, but as someone who tries to go against the grain it usually does. Still, trying something new is fine and maybe it'll be great.

      - I suggested it last week so I'm clearly biased, but I would really love to see a chip that can only be used in a SGW (or on a SGW player) sometime. I think that'd be an interesting way to express skill and reward adaptability. It'd also give the more mundane weeks potential high stakes, and encourage engagement at these times. Just opinion of course.

      Looking forward to playing this year! I like seeing the little kit designs on my guys on the big green square, it's been something I've done every week for half my life. As long as FPL stays uncomplicated, I'll always be playing.

    8. bitm2007
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I would have preferred no chip at all.

      1. Underdogs11
        • 5 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Yeah. Don't like it at all. I would prefer a game without chips. That's what I liked about FPL, that it"s a "slow game", almost like chess in a way. Now it becomes more action, more luck based and harder to analyse. Too many parameters. 😉

        1. TimeDrifter
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 15 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          Agree. There'll be analysis paralysis on chip strategies, overuse of stats and the end result will still be template teams and template strategies.

      2. Babit1967
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Same

      3. Zalk
        • 14 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        I absolutely agree, they're going the wrong way with this.

    9. riot
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Separately, just a small thing I wanted to comment on while I was logging into the premierleague site.

      There's now an option to select an ex-premier league team as your favourite club. I think that's really cool, Blackburn, Derby etc are a great part of recent English top division history and are still huge institutions despite not being in the top 20 this year. I hope there's an option for a supporters' league for these clubs too when FPL launches. I'm a Newcastle fan and even though it sounds a little cringe, I'd have really appreciated this during our Championship years.

      You can also select a favourite player which I'm less enthused about, but sure. Maybe I'll see one of you in the Jacob Murphy Cup Gw38 final.

    10. supermaths
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I'd like to see more formations available.
      "Flat back 7 with 3 sweepers, you say?"
      - Of course, Mr Pulis

      "2-3-5?"
      - Of course, Mr Ardiles

      1. supermaths
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        It should be up to us to decide how many players of each position we want, up to 15 in total

        1. Deulofail
          • 9 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          With caveats, I essentially agree, and used to beat this drum about once a year too

        2. FHRITP
          • 2 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          No thats stupid. Nobody would have a defender.

          1. Deulofail
            • 9 Years
            4 months, 20 days ago

            That's just price-dependent

        3. Studs Up
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 5 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          the math ain't gona math

          1. supermaths
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 9 Years
            4 months, 17 days ago

            * Maths

    11. Deulofail
      • 9 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      RP. Posted on the wrong article

      FPL trying to increase viable player picks in their game is a good thing, of course. I'm not sure this iteration of Defensive Contributions does that a great deal, but at least it does do it a bit!

      One reason the pool of players we pick from is relatively small is the risk of rotation. Although PL teams are increasingly stacked with talent, thanks to the money coming into the league and the dense schedules, we don't want to waste our FPL money on that talent due to the fear and reality of cameo appearances and reduced minutes, leading to 1-pters. And FPL can't price players too low in case an injury or two produces a unicorn that everyone wants to ride (which happens anyway, producing further conformity). So there are lots of players who are simply not desireable, but only due to the rules of the game. Untapped potential.

      So my proposal would be pretty simple: Pick your squad of 15 players. At the end of the GW, the players who scored the most points are pulled into your final XI. That way, people are much freer to play FPL (more purely?) by picking their favourite players or taking risks on obscure picks. The pool of options is suddenly much bigger. Of course, you are still restricted by budget, so it might not pay to have expensive players "on the bench". You could still put all your money in the XI and fill the "bench" with dross. There is still a risk of your players not playing, but it is reduced, and potentially reduced enough that you are willing to try and access the reward.

      More players = more potential strategies. You could try something different. Rotation strategies in attack (and defence) now viable to try. Option to keep a recovering or injury-prone player on the roster as you're less likely to score his 1-pt appearances (or sell him). I could go on. The point is that I think there will be more options, more interesting decisions and freedom to play (in the childlike sense). And a way that FPL could adapt to the times.

      Not to mention that it might be better for people's mental health to know that their poo player scores from early kickoff might be replaced by the end of the gameweek. Something to get excited about/look forward to, rather than dread. A bit like Fantasy World Cup/Euro, except without intensive manual intervention every day.

      1. TallestJohn
        • 8 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        I kept seeing "Best Ball" come up when reading about Fantasy NFL and it's basically what you've described, with the only difference being Fantasy NFL is almost exclusively in a draft format. I've never played that particular variant but it could be interesting keeping Gabriel Jesus or Doku in your squad for a few weeks on the off chance they start and get a big haul.

        1. Deulofail
          • 9 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          Yes, I've taken a very long-winded route to say the game should autosub-in your best-scoring players. Your last sentence gives me the fantasy feels! That's what it's all about 😀

          1. CMF
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 7 Years
            4 months, 20 days ago

            I've been saying this would be a great chip to use for a few years... imagine the sheer joy of knowing you have it in your back pocket for a week when you have a selection headache, then the heartbreak when you don't use it the week that you have three double-digit hauls on the bench.

      2. Zalk
        • 14 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        I can come up with hundreds of ways to change the game for the "better", but it's such a core part of the game to pick 11 players...and that's all the points you get.

        Why not make it a pool of 25 players? And increase the budget so you can have even more. Autosub everyone so that you get the most amount of points from your set of players. Auto-change the captain to the one scoring the most points. Add VC points too. There's an endless number of ways to change the game.

        Sorry, I just don't understand this desire to change the game.

        1. Deulofail
          • 9 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          What don't you understand about it?

          FPL have tried it before with Ultimate FPL. That had 25 players per team. I considered suggesting increasing the squad size, but fundamentally it's the auto-picking of highest-scoring players that I wanted back here, and put up for discussion.

          The game can be improved. And this is one relatively small change that I think would have a positive impact by increasing the pleasure I would have in playing it. I gave my reasons, and now not sure how to respond to you haha

          Let me know if you have any specific questions or arguments 🙂

    12. PartyTime
      • 4 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      …like having 2 wives

      1. Deulofail
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        2 free hits per season

        1. bitm2007
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 11 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          that's more like two one week affairs that have no impact on your long-term relationship.

          1. Deulofail
            • 9 Years
            4 months, 20 days ago

            That's not what I meant by 'hits' but I can see why you went there. Adultery is above domestic abuse on the 'ripe for comedy' hierarchy.

    13. Qaiss
      • 9 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I’m still annoyed that Bowen cost me a top10k finish last season after I so nearly went for him

      1. Sun God Nika
        • 5 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        That guy saved me when there was no hope of winning me leagues
        Absolute unit

    14. Rwilliams90
      • 14 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      GW4 looks a decent time to play BB as Palace and Fulham have Burnley and Sunderland at home.

    15. Sun God Nika
      • 5 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Release the GAME

      1. Conners
        • 6 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Release the Kraken.

    16. Captain Mal
      • 1 Year
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I don't mind defensive contributions that much, they won't massively affect the game anyway, might make some CBs more desirable than their FBs counterparts and that's it.
      2x chips sounds terrible. Should be good for marketing purposes though.

    17. Runnerboy31
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I’ll never understand why engaged managers get annoyed by new additions to the game.

      Engaged managers should be able to make better decisions than casuals. More chips / new rules mean more decisions. More decisions mean more opportunities to make better decisions.

      I had my best ever year last year (11K). AM was a net -30 points or so for me and so about doubled my OR but I was happy they tried something new even if on that occasion it worked against me.

      1. Deulofail
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Maybe if you listened to the complaints, you might have a chance to understand!

        I'm not seeing engaged managers complaining that these new additions are making things easier for the casual player to beat them

      2. Qaiss
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Because they can’t control the scenarios as much when new things are added. They want to use AI models, watch hours of pods, get team leaks and beat casual players easily, racking up an easy top50k rank

        1. Deulofail
          • 9 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          I think the defensive contributions metric is tailor-made for the "AI models" crowd. FPL are in cahoots with FFS, Hub and other tool-builders and content creators to increase engagement. They want people to watch pods and buy subscriptions to lock them into a habit and grow the fantasy (advertising) industry, and I think this new rule set is aligned with that goal.

          The main complaint I've seen is actually that this makes it too hard for the casual player and annoying for the engaged manager. It requires too much effort and stats-crawling for no extra pleasure. These points seems to be kinda the opposite of what you and Runnerboy are suggesting the engaged managers are saying.

    18. Deulofail
      • 9 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      FFS, can you write a script that automatically posts a comment to the last article whenever you publish a new one, saying, "there's a new article, losers" or whatever might be appropriate. Back in the day, mods would keep us updated, but the community spirit died some years ago, and we're left to fend for ourselves down here, monitored silently by the police state, of course. 😀

      1. keefy59
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 7 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Are you referring to my comment on Ultimate FPL ?
        I thought it was probably more relevant to post it on the discussion of no longer used features .
        Having said that it would be great to see it bought back without the pay to play & financial pay-out .
        This would make it available world wide without gambling restrictions .

        1. Deulofail
          • 9 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          Not referring to you or your comments at all! Sorry about that!

    19. FPL Brains
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 14 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Another fun change to the game, I don't agree with the premise of "remove all the chips" at all, if anything, it should bring more variety and marginal gains to the game.

      1. Deulofail
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Gains to be made on those who don't use the chips productively are pretty sizeable, so punish anyone who is not paying full attention at the right times of the season (I don't like that, meself).

        Whereas gains to people using their chips sensibly are relatively marginal, because the chips push people towards buying the same players: those who have more fixtures or better doubles. I think no chips leads to more diversity for this reason. With no chips, people will have to pick players for the longer-haul, generally, and won't be punished for picking their favourite players, as all players ultimately have the same number of fixtures. They can go a different route to the crowd, making decisions based on footballing ability and predictions rather than much more predominantly based on fixtures, which is boring.

        1. TimeDrifter
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 15 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          Good point - 'making decisions based on footballing ability and predictions rather than much more predominantly based on fixtures'

      2. Zalk
        • 14 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        I guess it depends on what kind of game you want FPL to be, as I wrote a bit further down here.

    20. Milk, 1 Šuker
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      This is seismic news along with the defensive contributions addition!

    21. Conners
      • 6 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Glad they ditched AM, even though I did quite well from it.

      Pretty certain I'll use a BB in GW1 so that I don't have the complication of planning it during my 1st WC.

    22. TimeDrifter
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 15 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Defensive Contribution Points - No Thanks!
      When I watch a game, I enjoy the anticipation of my players getting a goal or assist. It's exciting to see Muñoz cut into the box and take a shot. Or Ait-Nouri whip a ball across the goal for an assist.
      I'll never be there thinking, 'come on Virgil, get another few clearances so I'll get 2 Defensive Contribution points.'
      Especially when an assist gets 3 pts and the potential of bonus pts.
      If the FPL player prices reflect this potential to earn DC points, then for the same price, I'll pick a FB to a CB all day long.

      1. Conners
        • 6 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        I get you, but think about it like this...

        You'll most likely have 2 CB's and a defensive cheap mid on the bench and these changes will spice things up a bit rather than getting a 1 or 2 pointer every time your player subs in.

        1. TimeDrifter
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 15 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          Possibly, but that all depends on the prices. Even so, in the past few seasons, my subs rarely came in. When they were needed, it was usually only the first one. I guess it would be better to have 4 pts from a cheap def mid, than 1 or 2 from an attacking mid. Fair point.

          1. Freshy
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 15 Years
            4 months, 20 days ago

            I saw a fake post on FB
            Caicedo price reveal 9.5

            1. TimeDrifter
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • 15 Years
              4 months, 20 days ago

              Good one!

    23. Totalfootball
      • 8 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Yesss 8 chips will be sooo cool !
      Game was getting boring coz everyone used their chips at the same time (at the end)
      This is a welcome much needed change I feel

      1. Tommy Template
        • 11 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Everyone still will use it at the same time. Content creation, Review etc to blame on that front I'm afraid.

    24. Totalfootball
      • 8 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Just hope the defensive contribution points don't make the game complicated ...
      Rest all is fine...AM chip was way to confusing and needed to go

      1. SM001
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        The defence points will have no impact at all. Pointless change. Literally! 2 points cap, great. Players get 2 points just for playing for 60mins.

    25. Studs Up
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      People just need to accept it's not a game of skill...

      1. Feanor
        • 16 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        That's what people with low ranks say to make themselves feel better

    26. Zalk
      • 14 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I guess whether or not you like these new changes every year to the game depends on what you want fpl to be. Personally, I've always seen it as chess, or a marathon. Small gains every week and with as little variance as possible, outside the core rules of the game. You don't see changes to the rules of chess every year just to make the game more exciting. The defensive additions are ok to me but all these new chips...

      Imagine introducing a booster chip in chess. "Next round all your pawns can move as the queen". Might sound fun to some, might bring a bit of variety to the game, but to me it has nothing to do with chess. Just because you can come up with a new idea doesn't make it a good one.

      Anyway, just venting the disappointment...

      1. Deulofail
        • 9 Years
        4 months, 20 days ago

        Chess has endured because the rules produce a great game that people love to play. FPL is a terrible game. We only play because we like football. The game itself is 100 times worse than monopoly and basically a waste of everyone's time! But since we are here to play it, maybe of us have opinions on how to make it better. I'm not a fan of the new rules either, but I would be a fan of a different set of rules/adaptations.

        Chess has also gone through iterations over the centuries to become the game it is now. It's also not for everyone, but it's fairly settled as a ruleset now. That said, there are plenty of innovations around chess that change the game, and people like and play those variations too. It just doesn't affect the core game, as it would in FPL.

        There are also multiple fantasy football games. It's not like this variation (FPL) is the chess of....chess. I'd say it's probably one of the lesser variations, but I only play it because it's official, with more subscribers, and I don't want to be fishing for the best game each year. So there's another motivation to improve it (perhaps that helps answer your question above)

        1. Zalk
          • 14 Years
          4 months, 20 days ago

          "FPL is a terrible game".
          Well, I'm glad you made that clear so that I don't have to spend any more time on this. I love FPL, have from the start, and don't want any changes to it, especially not chips-wise. Other variations I don't care about so feel free to play them, I don't mind that at all.

    27. Tommy Template
      • 11 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      I think it was quite a lazy decision to be honest regards the chips. There's thought in the defensive idea at least which serves to make defensive players slightly relevant again and perhaps crucially make promoted players relevant. But this double chips is just a giant steaming turd. Play a new chips every 4-5 gameweeks? Scores are just going to be artificially all over the place all season.

    28. Nightcrawler
      • 6 Years
      4 months, 20 days ago

      Assistant manager was the most fun chip last season . Saved us from the monotonous 2nd half of the season with everyone using the same chip on the same week's

      Disappointed to see it go