A-glitching we will go!

 

The new 'Assistant Manager' chip (AssMan to its friends - though I don't think it has many of those...) has been available since the close of the Gameweek 23 deadline last Saturday.

Many FPL managers are rushing to use it straight away - partly because the Double Gameweek for Liverpool and Everton next week offers an opportunity to extract more points from it (though also from the other two bonus chips, so it might be a slightly tough call as to which is the best to go for),.... but also because - as I gather from all the grumping on the forums - a lot of them regard the damn thing as so insanely over-complicated, and so problematic to fit in alongside plans for your other chips, it's better to use it at once..... simply TO GET IT OUT OF THE WAY.

And a lot of these early adopters have been discovering that IT DOESN'T WORK!  Well, it seems that on the mobile app version of the game, activating the new chip seems to freeze up the rest of the game... making it impossible for you to carry out any other needful tweaks to your team, such as making transfers or substitutions or swapping your captaincy around. Awkward.

It seems there's probably a software update you have to install to get the game working properly again on your phone.  And the web-based version of the game does not seem to have had these problems, so if you can log into your accounnt through a browser, you should be fine. 

But BE WARNED: it would be unfortunate if you left it until just before the Gameweek deadline to make your weekly team tweaks,.... and suddenly found that you couldn't do anything.

It is really not unexpected that the introduction of this new chip might cause a major snafu. It is a very complex addition to the game - lasting longer than any previous chip, introducing a completely new set of points rules, and introducing the major new element of 'managers' (who nevertheless still operate in some ways like - and interact with the game interface for - players: they cost a transfer fee, changes of manager use up a transfer, and they count as one of your quota of three 'players' from any one club). That is an awful lot of new stuff to assimilate into the game.

The FPL Gnomes really should have done some beta-testing on the idea first, but..... Ooops.  Oh, no: they were in such a headlong rush to get this damned thing out, they probably didn't even do any alpha-testing....!

They ought to have done some public consultation on such a major and disruptive change to the game format too. (If they had done, I think they would have got very substantial negative feedback on the idea; not from the majority, probably; but a significant amount from the more intelligent and committed players - enough, hopefully, to make them realise that this idea should have remained part of the dumb-but-innocuous 'Fantasy Challenge' side-game series, and not been incorporated into the main game.)

I absolutely bloody HATE this stupid new chip - and I am urging everyone to please consider quitting the game, or at least refusing to use the damn thing. 

And if you can't bring yourself to do either of those things, please do criticise the Assistant Manager chip as vigorously as possible on any relevant social media channels you use, raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip