I reflected yesterday on the great uncertainty surrounding Erling Haaland's prospects for the remainder of the season.
But in fact, as we go into this fraught final stretch - with a Double Gameweek coming up next week, and a big Blank Gameweek the week after that (and the chance of a further small Blank/Double as well, due to the FA Cup Final now being held before the end of the league programme) - we really have bugger-all idea what anyone's prospects are,.... because it's now very nearly three full weeks since we last saw anyone playing league football (four weeks since City and Arsenal saw league action!).
Such a long hiatus in the league programme is unprecedented - and highly undesirable. It is a uniquely weird time of year to be starting over like this.
Some teams may have reaped huge benefits from the unaccustomed bit of rest, and perhaps even more from some intensive tactical training over the last week or so. Others may have gone to seed, lost their fluency and focus as a result of the long lay-off (especially if they weren't even involved in this past week's FA Cup or European ties...).
Thus, this gameweek is, alas, just about the worst possible time to play a Wildcard.
Unfortunately, it also, this season, the more-or-less inescapable time to play the Wildcard: the final run-in getting under way, only 7 gameweeks left (and, for most people, all the bonus chips still to play in that cramped period!), and relatively big Double and Blank Gameweeks coming up in the weeks immediately after this one. Unless you hang on to it to 'smart-bomb' a late round of one of your mini-league cup competitions, there really is nothing useful you can use the Wildcard for after this week - there is no alternative.
But that's hard to do when we really don't know what we're going to get from any team this weekend: 'form' is pretty much out of the window. At the very least, we're almost sure to see a few big surprises...
And hence all of those Wildcard selections we make this week are even riskier than usual, a huge shot in the dark!
GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE!!!
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