The LOTTERY

I've joked a few times recently in my weekly roundups that, because of cumulative fatigue, nerves, or complacency, form tends to get more ragged for just about every team in the last few weeks of the season, and game outcomes thus wildly unpredictable. Hence, trying to predict FPL points returns becomes even more of a lottery than usual.

Apparent fixture-difficulty is no longer much of a reliable guide to likely points returns. (We just saw Manchester City held to a goalless draw by [second] worst Premier League team ever, Southampton!) And, basically, any attacking player might produce something between 0 and 3 attacking contributions across a couple of fixtures - regardless of how 'hard' or 'easy' they ought to be. Few, if any, will get any more than that; quite a few of the most fancied options, the biggest names.... will probably blank twice.

With only 2 games left to play - within the space of 7 days (less than 5 days for Palace, City, Wolves, and Bournemouth!), it really is impossible to guess how most of the remaining fixtures are going to pan out. Hence, elective transfers - choosing to swap out a starting player for someone else - at this stage of the season are a huge gamble, particularly if they're to be made at the cost of a 'hit' (although there can be indirect costs even with a Free Transfer, if you then don't have that available to sort out a last-minute injury problem and have to use a 'hit' there instead). It's always very difficult to be confident of recouping that 4-point spend in just one gameweek; but you can sometimes justify it if you foresee likely additional value in the new player over the next 2 or 3 fixtures as well; at the fag-end of the season, that consolation is no longer available to you. You are simply betting that the player you're dropping wouldn't have scored anything, and that the player you're bringing in is bound to score something,.... and should produce more than 4 points more than the guy you're replacing. And that is a VERY BIG BET at any time, but especially amid this end-season climate of increased uncertainty.

The one small kindness the Fantasy Gods have shown us this year is that the final Saturday is full of very unevenly-matched fixtures, so there should be rather more predictability about results than usual then - and the prospect of some good points returns from several leading players. (It's actually looking rather a promising Gameweek to drop the Bench Boost or Triple Captain chips,.... if you've somehow forgotten to play them until now. Even without a chip for that last week, it's probably worth saving up transfers until then.) But even that apparently tempting prospect may turn out to be illusory, just a taunting mirage.

And making elective transfers this week??  GOOD LUCK with that!!