'Mystery Chips' - a BAD idea!

 

I mentioned yesterday that I really dislike the idea of 'Mystery Chips'. I may have been prejudiced somewhat by the truly godawful one they visited upon us in FPL this year, but.... I really think they're a bad idea in general.

Here's why:

1)  Fantasy games like this are essentially about planning. So, it is absolutely counter-productive, destructive of the purpose of the game, to introduce elements which prevent players from planning ahead. Introduce new chip ideas occasionally, if you must (I'd really much rather not, though, thank you!) - but at least tell us what they are, before the start of the competition.

2)  This idea of concealing the nature of the new chip for a while necessarily entails that it will have a shortened period of availability, only being launched part-way through the competition. And this causes intolerable congestion, possibly confounding the rest of one's chip strategy. This was ultimately my biggest gripe against FPL's novelty 'Assistant Manager' Chip last season. That only became active in Gameweek 24, so there wasn't that much time left in which to play it; and most Fantasy managers would have kept their 2nd Wildcard and their Free Hit and both the bonus chips for use in that latter part of the season as well. (In fact, the FPL case was even worse, because the new chip had a bloated three-week duration. And, moreover, an expected Double Gameweek for Liverpool was yet to have its date confirmed, and since this was likely to be a prime opportunity to use the Triple Captain chip on Mo Salah [which did indeed pay off handsomely!], nobody could play the new extended chip until they knew for sure which gameweek they had to keep free for that possible TC play.) In effect, many people found they had barely a third of the season in which to try to use up six or seven weeks of chip options. There's a similar problem here in Fantasy Club World Cup: most players will have kept all their chips (except perhaps the Wildcard, which can be worth punting on early, in the group stage), and now have to juggle using a chip in every round.

3) All chips - well, 'bonus' chips, anyway - are unnecessary gimmicks, superfluous to the basic gameplay. They merely introduce the thrill of additional uncertainty - appealing to the gambling addicts out there, but frustrating the majority of serious Fantasy managers who are only seeking a test of their judgement of teams and players. Shifting the stakes of selection decisions with chips like these creates an uneven playing field in individual Gameweeks/MatchDays: you can't really compare your score against other people's when some are playing highly valuable bonus chips and some are not. And having such rare and one-off additions to the game increases the chances that a few players will get absurdly lucky with the chips, and obtain a massive but scarcely deserved advantage from them. Double-points for the captain selection is fine, because that happens every week, and freak instances of luck, good or bad, should generally balance out over the season as a whole. Allowing people to get even more from their captain just once in the year..... is simply betting on a die-roll.

Having said all that, I don't in fact hate the new chip they've introduced in this Fantasy Club World Cup game: the 'Qualifcation Bonus' for players who make it through to the next round. If you're being smart, you should be choosing your squad based on who you think is most likely to qualify for the next round (and the one after that!), and this is - to an extent, anyway - reasonably predictable.

What I don't like about this chip is that, together with the others in the game, it makes the latter stages of the tournament overcrowded with chip options. They should have introduced the 'Qualification Bonus' to replace one of the other two bonus chips.

And 'keeping it a secret' until half-way through - WTF is the point of that?? It's just childish.

The Great FREE HIT Controversy

Every year, we get a few folks who take it into their heads to argue very vociferously for a weird - obviously wrong-headed! - position on some aspect of FPL strategy. 

The most common focus of contention is the optimal chip strategy for navigating the various blank and double gameweeks in the latter part of the season. (Though that perennial challenge has become hugely easier this year, now that we're no longer losing the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend from the Premier League programme. Moreover, from this season we're enjoying the new luxury of being able to save up to 5 Free Transfers. If we are ever able to do so [a big ask!], that effectively becomes an additional 'rebuild chip', giving us greater flexibility on where to use our Wildcards and Free Hit. In all past years, when we generally only had 1 FT to work with each week - and never more than 2 - and multiple Blanks/Doubles to worry about, chip strategy was a lot more stressful,... although also somewhat easier, since the most essential options for playing the 'rebuild chips' were always pretty obvious and unarguable.)

There has always been a quirky minority of FPL managers who like to think that the Free Hit chip is better used in a big Double Gameweek, so that you can maximise your number of doubling players for it.

While I never like to rule any idea out of consideration completely, there are a number of very obvious flaws in this proposal:

1)  If it's such a big and good Double Gameweek that you want to go fully loaded on doubling players, then.... you probably want to play your Bench Boost on it! And that probably necessitates using your Wildcard to bring in the best doublers for it the week before.

2) The teams with the doubles are mostly the teams who've progressed well in the Cup,.... who are mostly the teams who are doing better in the League as well; and hence they are likely to be teams you'll already have players from (though you'll almost certainly want to bring in more for a Double Gameweek), and players you'll want to keep thereafter.

3)  Conversely, the (usually preceding) Blank Gameweek is generally one with mostly weaker teams left taking part, teams from whom you don't usually want many - or any - players.

Hence, while it might possibly - in exceptional circumstances - be conceivable that the 2nd Wildcard would work better than the Free Hit in the big Blank Gameweek for certain managers, it is pretty unlikely. 9 times out of 10, the players missing in the Blank Gameweek are players you want to keep; and thus you only want replacements for them for that one week. And similarly, most of the players you want for an optimum big Double Gameweek are players that you already have.... and/or that you'll want to keep for at least a few subsequent gameweeks as well. The Free Hit naturally works better with a big Blank Gameweek, and a Wildcard better with a big Double.

Yet last year, there was a particularly heated debate on this very topic on many of the FPL online forums. Many, many people - close, it seemed, to being the majority?? - had somehow convinced themselves that the Double Gameweek was such a rich fixture opportunity that year that one simply had to play the Free Hit on it. In most cases, this was compounded by a decision to try to navigate the big Blank without using a chip at all; these poor fellows clung obstinately to the notion that they were somehow being exceptionally clever in thus being able to keep their 2nd Wildcard to help them get around the smaller Blank/Double resulting from the FA Semi-Finals in April.

There was, of course, absolutely NO LOGIC behind that contention. They were  strangely in denial about the very basic points I outlined above, that you rarely want to replace your blanking players for more than that one week, and that you rarely need to bring in a lot of extra players for a Double Gameweek because you'll have plenty of players from the best teams already. They were also overlooking the fact that you can usually anticipate which teams are mostly likely to progress to the FA Cup Semi-Finals, and thus 'set up' for the later - much smaller - Blank/Double challenge when you play your Wildcard.

Furthermore, these folks had failed to consider the additional 'hidden costs' of their strategic choice. Most of them were condemning themselves to putting out a seriously short team in the Blank Gameweek. But they were also mostly having to use multiple transfers - and often a few 'hits' - to minimise the number of gaps in their lineup. Thus.... a) They were bringing in players that they really only wanted for the Blank Gameweek a week - or two, or three - earlier than they really wanted, at the expense of better players. b) They were also usually having to quickly offload some of these players in the weeks following the Blank, again at the cost of missing out on having a superior player available for a week or two - that all potentially costs you points! c) They were burning through transfers to do this (and even 'Free Transfers' have an effecive points cost...), which hampered their ability to make other changes they might have wanted or needed to carry out during those weeks. d) They were running the risk of going into the Blank Gameweek with an entirely empty bench, which again would have cost further points if they suffered any unexpected dropouts from their starting team. e) And in most cases, even after inflicting all this pain on themselves, they were stil mostly only fielding 9 or 10 players for that Gameweek - some only putting out a pitiful 6 or 7.  It was horrible to watch: UTTER INSANITY.

Now, as it turned out, that big Blank Gameweek turned out to be one of those rare shockers where all of the games wound up being low-scoring, and what goals there were came from unexpected sources; just about none of the big players produced anything. It was, in fact, one of the lowest-scoring gameweeks in FPL history!!  (Though this was also partly due to the fact that so many people had fielded short teams, the number of points available was exceptionally low.)  This, of course, massively ameliorated the negative impact of the rash 'No Free Hit' strategy: people who'd used their Free Hit - or otherwise managed to put out a decent eleven without needing multiple transfers - might have expected to get at least 15 or 20 more points than the folks who ended up with short teams, but most of them wound up with an advantage barely half that. However,.... 5 or 10 points is a huge lift. And, as I just outlined above, most of the 'No Free-Hitters' had also spent points on 'hits' and compromised their squad for a week - or two or three - either side of the troublesome Blank Gameweek; so, their actual deficit was usually somewhat intangible, but surely far greater than just the points-gap in that gameweek.

But you know how people who've just done something stupid love to cling to any excuse to persuade themselves that they haven't been stupid after all...?  The 'No Free-Hitters' suddenly started crowing about how they'd somehow anticipated what a terrible gameweek it was going to be, and of course they'd been right, and this was a complete vindication of their strategy. 

No, they'd been very lucky to only lose maybe 20 or 30 or 40 points on their more sensible rivals; but that wasn't any sort of vindication.

Oh, but then the following Double Gameweek proved to be a real humdinger, with oodles of points flowing in from every game. It was - bizarrely - one of the highest-scoring Gameweeks in FPL history!! Now, of course, those darned 'No Free-Hitters' went apeshit about what far-sighted geniuses they had been: not only had they done far less badly than might have been expected in their weak Blank Gameweek, but they'd done exceptionally well in the Double Gameweek! Their brave but shrewd gamble had sensationally paid off!

A few things:  1) They'd done not-so-badly, not well.  2) They'd been absurdly lucky to get away that lightly; no-one could have predicted two such extreme sets of points returns in the critical gameweeks.  3)  They still did bloody awfully in the Blank Gameweek (just not quite as badly as they might have done, relatively speaking...).  4)  Almost everyone did well in that exceptional Double Gameweek; many who had not followed the perverse 'No Free Hit' path did far better in that week than those who had. (I myself pulled in very tidy returns for both Gameweeks; and I'd been able to set up for the Double with regular transfers only - no need to use a chip or any hits. Hence, I still had my Wildcard to deal with the later Blank/Double problem.)

This whole bizarre story is a fascinating case-study in the kind of mass hysteria - and self-harming delusion - that so often grips the FPL hordes.  [I never searched into the possible origins of this curious 'No Free Hit' cult, but I imagine it must have been started by one of the online FPL 'gurus'....]

The AssMan cometh....!

 (Sorry. I just couldn't help myself; I've been waiting to use that line for months...)

Now, while I absolutely detest the gimmicky novelty and incongruousness of this new bonus chip that the FPL Gnomes, in their unwisdom, have foisted on us this year, and advocate strongly for everyone to BOYCOTT using it (or indeed, to quit the game altogether - as I myself have done), I understand that the majority of FPL managers are willing to accept it (at least as a one-off experiment....), can't resist the curious challenges it poses. Hence, since I endeavour to be generally helpful to other players of the game in these posts, I have been willing to set aside my antipathy to the chip and offer some observations on when and how to use it in my weekly rundowns of selection issues, and also in this comprehensive guide to the so-called 'Assistant Manager' (though it's actually got bugger-all to do with managers and is simply a 'Team Results' chip).

And so, I will now proffer some additional thoughts on this new chip - as ITS HOUR appears to be nigh.

As I mentioned at the weekend, traditional 'Chip Strategy' has been thrown into turmoil by removing the usual clash between the FA Cup quarter-finals and the regular Premier League programme this year. However,... most people are still alarmed about the semi-big Blank Gameweek for the FA Semis in GW34 and - wisely - fear that they will need their Free Hit (or their 2nd Wildcard, if they've somehow used their Free Hit already...) to get through that. The likely Double Gameweek following on from that in GW36 or 37 could still be a strong option to punt the Bench Boost chip, if you've still got that; and even if you don't go for that ploy, it's probably the best time to use the 2nd Wildcard, to set yourself up as well as possible for the final few gameweeks of the season (which often get a bit eccentric, with some teams getting overcome by their nerves in struggling to achieve their season goals, while many others.... just have nothing left to play for) and to 'optimise' the first eleven as far as possible for that final double.

Hence, since you can only play one 'chip' at a time, for most people it's simply not going to be possible to play the Assistant Manager chip after Gameweek 33. (And FPL hasn't actually specified if you'd be allowed to choose to play it for less than 3 gameweeks at the end of the season - because you forgot about it, or felt too constrained by your plans for the other chips to play it any earlier; it's quite possible that it will cease to be available in GW37, if you haven't already activated it.)

But, fortuitously enough, it is looking as though the next few gameweeks could be the most appealing window to try to make use of the chip anyway.

Manchester United now have a run of 3 successive table-bonus opportunities - and those are HUGE for this chip: a draw with the table-bonus is worth as much as a win without one; a win with a table-bonus is enormous. Now, with United's form under Amorim, that still looks like a massive - and perhaps unnattractive - gamble; but it is worth considering as an option. If they can't pull off a good performance against Forest this week, you could switch to another manager/team for Gameweek 32. Brentford, always dangerous going forward, even though their defence occasionally falls apart, could have a good chance of getting something from their trip to Newcastle - also a table-bonus. And Everton could well manage another upset against their cross-town rivals Liverpool, at least to the extent of holding them to a draw perhaps - again, a table-bonus. And Marco Silva's already pulled off some table-bonus surprises: the chance of Fulham getting something from their London derby match-up with Arsenal shouldn't be written off. Spurs, even away from home, should be fancied to pick up a few goals against floundering Chelsea; and while they're probably not anywhere near favourites for a win, it's not too remote a prospect. And - although I admit it seems ridiculously unlikely - I would piss myself laughing if Leicester managed to get anything off City!! All in all, this is a very interesting week for the Assistant Manager.

However, things may get even better next week(end); and I think most FPL managers have planned all along that GWs 31-33 would probably be the best slot to try to use for this new chip.

Brighton might still be 5 places above Palace going into that week (though that's a bit touch-and-go); and then the following week, of course, Palace will have a table-bonus double bill against City and Newcastle (both away; quite likely to lose both - a double gameweek isn't always infallible magic, but... it's still somewhat tempting, three table-bonus fixtures in two gameweeks is the kind of mother-lode you look for with this chip). West Ham at home against Bournemouth in GW31 might perhaps be a more tempting option, quite a strong possibility of a table-bonus draw (and if they get some form going, perhaps they could even discomfit Liverpool at Anfield the following week?? Nah....!). Brentford away to Chelsea, or Villa playing Forest and Everton playing Arsenal at home could also be handy table-bonus prospects in GW31. Wolves at home to Spurs (maybe, if the gap widens), or Brentford away at Arsenal, and Everton away at Forest could also be tempting table-bonus punts for GW32.

And then in GW33, of course, there's always the possibility that there could be another Double Gameweek (probably for City and Villa [unless they both lose; I'm writing this on Sunday, so don't know yet]: not very attractive teams at the moment, and not with very good fixtures in that week - but if they can get some scoring form going between now and then, perhaps they could make the AM punt worthwhile with goals alone. There aren't too many obvious table-bonus opportunities that week - Everton hosting City and Spurs hosting Forest, perhaps. However, it's too far away for us to have much idea of how the table gaps might have evolved by then; maybe some of the mid-table battlers will have pulled apart, giving a few more options.

Even more than with most aspects of FPL, this is sheer bloody ROULETTE: because the chip's life is extended over three weeks, there are just too many imponderables to try to assess, it's a complete shot in the dark.

However, it does now seem incontestable that you HAVE to activate the 'Assistant Manager' chip in Gameweek 30 or 31.

The final fuck-you from FATE and the FPL Gnomes (possible band name??) is that the decisive factor in choosing between these two possibilities ought to be the possible double-fixture(s) in Gameweek 33; but we almost certainly won't have those confirmed before the Gameweek 30 deadline on Tuesday evening, so..... just got to flip a coin, and keep your fingers crossed. (I think I'd probably go for the GW30 deployment, just because I like the already-known fixture options over the three gameweeks a little more. Also, if Gameweek 33 turns out to be the bigger - or only - additional Double Gameweek, you might want to use your Bench Boost in that.)

It's ANNOYING, yes. The better path would be to refuse to use the damn chip.

#DownWithTheNewChip

Do we MISS IT, now that it's gone...?

 

It's easy to 'forget', amid everything else that's going on in the world of football - and the wider world! - but.... this weekend is a momentous landmark for the game of Fantasy Premier League,

In the past, the FA Cup Quarter-Finals always clashed with the regular League programme; this is the first year in which Premier League games have been suspended on this weekend to accommodate the Cup.

For the last many years, we always had a HUGE Blank Gameweek around this time of year, usually in GW29 or GW30. Potentially, it could involve 16 EPL teams missing a fixture in the Gameweek because of their involvement in the FA Cup round. Usually, one or two lower-division sides would still be in the Cup at this stage; and occasionally some of the EPL teams in the quarters might have been drawn against each other in the League for that week, minimising the fixture disruption just slightly. But we'd always be missing 10 or 12 teams; sometimes 14 or 16!

It was pretty much impossible to navigate such a COLOSSAL HOLE in the fixtures without using the Free Hit chip. But the upside of this disruption was that a few weeks later, the missed games would be caught up in midweek - creating a HUGE Double Gameweek for all of those teams. Typically, you'd want to get a stacked squad with all 15 players having good double-fixtures for that week - so that you could Bench Boost. And to achieve that, you'd almost certainly have to use your 2nd Wildcard the week before. (But you might decide to forego that maximal Bench Boost possibility because you were likely to need the WC even more for the sometimes only slightly less calamitous Blank Gameweek on the FA Semis weekend a month or so later....)

Hence, FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend was the dominant factor in dictating chip strategy  for the season. [I flagged this as being one of the BIG changes to look out for this season five or six months ago.]

And a lot of FPL managers clearly can't shake these old habits of thought. They still seem to be convinced that you have to save your Bench Boost for the BIG Double Gameweek at the end of the season. Nope, there are no 'big' Double Gameweeks any more!

Of course, the focus for planning how to use our chips has now switched to the Semi-Finals weekend (GW34 this year), which can still be a major upheaval; but it's not nearly as big a hazard - as big a blank - as the Quarter-Final weekend was in the past; and it doesn't offer nearly such a big upside in its resultant double-fixtures (especially if, as is suggested, they may be split over two gameweeks this year).

I really did rather enjoy the annual challenge of the Big Blank and the Big Double. The game is a bit less exciting, a bit less demanding without it. (And there's arguably no real need to have a 2nd Wildcard chip at all any more: it's reduced to being a luxury makeover facility, rather than an essential life-saver!)

To Free Hit, or not to....?

 

A lot of people seem to be pondering resorting to their Free Hit chip this week. Is that a good idea?

NO.

1)  You keep your Free Hit (and the second WildCard) in reserve for as long as possible, in case you might need it to deal with an unexpected emergency like a sudden multiple injury/suspension crisis (can happen at any time, but becomes more likely as the season wears on) or a last-minute postponement (of more than one game - because there are other ways of dealing with a loss of only 4, 5, 6 players...).

2)  If you're lucky enough to escape any such unexpected crises, the best use for the Free Hit - which most people plan for - is to deal with the expected crisis of a 'big' Blank Gameweek. (However, this year there is no longer a really big blank, since the FA Cup Quarter-Finals - which could potentially wipe out up to 8 EPL fixtures - no longer clash with the EPL schedule. And the newly introduced facility to store up to 5 Free Transfers also gives you much more flexibility in addressing occasional fixture speed-bumps. Hence, for many people, it might be possible to get around even Gameweek 34 - the FA Semi-Final weekend, when 3 or 4 EPL matches could be missing, and hence the occasion when most FPL managers have provisionally planned to use their FH chip - without needing the Free Hit.)

3)  If you find you don't need the Free Hit for a Blank Gameweek, or any less expected emergency, there can also be a case for using it to 'optimise' a squad for a Double Gameweek. (Indeed, many managers in the past have asserted that this is a preferable approach to using it on a Blank Gameweek; but that is a perverse delusion.)  However, as with the Blank Gameweeks, there are no longer any really 'big' Double Gameweeks in the calendar; and any Double that is 'big' enough to be worth optimising the entire squad with doubling players is more worth playing the Bench Boost on - so, the better strategy is to optimise the week before with the 2nd WildCard (if you can't do it adequately just with regular free and paid transfers). But NOTE that a Double Gameweek is really only valuable for good players/teams with good fixtures; there's no point loading up the squad with weaker players who are likely to lose twice (just because they'll get double 'appearance points'....?!).

4)  If you don't hit any unexpected crises and are able to negotiate the only two Blank Gameweeks left in the regular schedule simply with transfers... it can be quite useful to hang on to the Free Hit (and the 2nd Wildcard) to 'optimise' a team for one of the last few weeks of the season (particularly if that might help you progress in one or more of your Cup competitions).

Thus, the Free Hit is almost certainly likely to be more needful and useful in the much larger Blank Gameweek of GW34.... or the Double Gameweek(s) that spin off of that, GWs 36 and/or 33. Even those might very well be able to be navigated without needing to use a chip; in which case, it's still useful to hang on to the Free Hit for a possible emergency that may come up in the last 9 gameweeks of the season... or simply to have some fun with as a late-season 'smart bomb'.  There is NO WAY anybody should be considering using the Free Hit this early in the season, for a Blank Gameweek that involves only 4 teams.

 

Moreover, these aren't even 4 very good teams for FPL. Even Liverpool, with too much rotation in midfield, too many injuries in attack, and an overpriced defence, don't have any obvious picks apart from Mo Salah; few people have had more than two of their players at a time, and most were struggling to think of a third to bring in for their recent successive Double Gameweeks (most went for Cody Gakpo, who'd suddenly hit form; but he got injured again, so could have been relinquished before this blank weekend). Newcastle have had alarmingly yo-yo form all season, and again Isak is looking like their only must-have at the moment; Gordon's returns have been slightly disappointing this season, especially over the last few months (when he's been struggling with a few knocks, and has often looked rather tired; and now he's picked up an extended suspension....); Hall has done surprisingly well at full-back, and became a popular FPL pick... but got a season-ending injury a couple of weeks ahead of the Blank Gameweek. Palace have only recently started to come good, and still don't look strong enough to be trebled up on. And Aston Villa have struggled in the league this season, look a pretty unconvincing mid-table side (doing much better in the Champions League!): there are really none of their players that have been worth having - even for that recent Double Gameweek!

So, there was really no excuse to have ever had more than 6 or 7 players from the affected clubs; and a number of the likeliest picks have already been eliminated by injury or suspension in the last weeks before the Blank. You can carry 2 or 3 players (even 4, if one of them's a keeper) on the bench for a week (well, assuming you haven't got a terrible bench: this is why you need to keep a good bench, to give you the easy option to switch out players who are going to miss a week or two - or just face one tough fixture - without needing to burn through transfers, and possibly lose a lot of squad value on 'transfer tax' with short-term sell-and-buy-backs): and of course you'd like to hang on to players like Salah and Isak, because you'd probably lose A LOT of money on them if you sold them and immediately bought them back. Any remaining essential changes, you should be able to comfortably deal with using saved Free Transfers. 

If poor forward planning leaves you in a situation where you still have more blanking players (and other absentees through injury/suspension) than you can carry on the bench or replace with stored Free Transfers, then you have to bite the bullet and take 'hits' - pay points for extra transfers - to get around the problem. You might compromise, and consider putting out a team of only 9 or 10 players, to keep your transfer points-spend down, (It can be difficult for defenders to earn you more than 4 points.... unless you're really, really confident in their clean-sheet prospects - and that's a very precarious hope to bank on. In all other positions. however, good picks should be capable of earning you at least 4 points, hopefully 5 or 6 or more - so, taking a 'hit' to replace a non-playing first-team member, except perhaps in defence, should always be worth it.)

If, somehow, you find yourself in a really deep hole this week, you might consider instead using the 2nd Wildcard to get out of it. This chip is a bit of a luxury, something that can be held on to for emergencies, but doesn't have any compelling 'tactical' use in the way that the Free Hit does. So, although it would be preferable to be able to save it longer, there's not as much risk with using it early as there is with the Free Hit.

How to use the Assistant Manager chip

 

Setting aside my profound antipathy towards this silly new gimmick chip for a moment... I thought I'd put together a few key thoughts on what you need to consider if you are going to use this chip.

1)  Since the adoption of an 'assistant manager' involves paying a transfer fee, you may have to use one or two transfers to juggle your squad to free up the money (it's not very much money; but it has the potential to be a bothersome inconvenience). Because an 'assistant manager' is treated as part of your per-club player quota, you may also need to make transfers to get rid of a third player from a club that you want the manager from. And you will almost certainly need to give yourself the flexibility of changing your manager during each week that the chip is active, potentially costing you 2 more transfers. Thus, you really ought to try to get as many Free Transfers as possible saved up (under a new rule this season, you can now bank up to 5 FTs at one time) to help you deal with these issues when you decide you want to use the chip. It is also probably worth trying to avoid using the 'Assistant Manager' chip in the run-up to one of the season's two expected 'blank' Gameweeks (GW29 and GW34, when a number of League fixtures will be cancelled because of Cup ties on the same weekend), since you might also need a lot of saved Free Transfers to negotiate those. Similarly, for a major 'turn' in fixtures, when the difficulty of the upcoming fixture sequence shifts drastically for a number of teams at around the same time, you may want to have as many Free Transfers in hand as possible to be able to make multiple squad changes in a short space of time.

2)  The so-called 'table bonus' (for obtaining a result against a side ranked 5 or more places above you in the League at the start of the Gameweek) is HUGE: it is the most important aspect of the 'Assistant Manager' rules, and has to be the main focus of strategy for this chip. (It's worth 10 extra points for a win, 5 extra points for a draw. Absent that bonus, you only get 10 points for a 2-0 or 4-1 win. Even a 0-0 or 1-1 draw with a 'table bonus' can be worth as much as a win without one. So, one successful use of the chip to obtain this bonus is likely to be worth as much as or slightly more than backing a top manager for two wins in a double gameweek. If you can pull off the 'table bonus' twice in a double gameweek, that can be some very big points.)

3)  Unfortunately, it's impossible to know exactly which teams are going to be 5 or more places above your target 'Assistant Manager' team until the end of the preceding gameweek; particularly so this season, when the majority of the table is so tightly packed together that it is very possible for most teams to rise or fall several places in only one or two weeks. With the 'Assistant Manager' being in play for three weeks, you can't expect to know which teams/managers will be most likely to produce good returns in its 2nd and 3rd weeks when you first activate it (and, of course, there may be changes in form or injury troubles affecting the picture too). Also, it's rather easier for players to maintain consistent form over an extended period, and sometimes to do well even when their team isn't. Team form, by contrast, can lurch very suddenly from one extreme to the other, sometimes even from week to week (ahem, Newcastle). But even more importantly for this chip, team form is much more fixture-dependent; a good, in-form attacking player can score goals against almost anyone, but teams mostly settle at a level - where they're likely to beat certain teams and likely to lose to others. Moreover, the fixtures rarely or never line up obligingly - so that you have a run of three fixtures that all look like likely wins (and include a double gameweek, and a few likely opportunities to earn a 'table bonus') for the same club. Unlike our best players (most of the time!), the same manager can't be expected to have anything like the best chance of the best return in successive gameweeks. This is the reason why it is almost certainly going to be essential to change your 'assistant manager' every week in order to derive maximum value from the chip - or at least to be able to keep open your option to do so.

4)  There is also an 'opportunity cost' involved in choosing a manager from a top club. You might well be trebled up on players from that club. And whenever you choose to take three players from the same club (something better avoided, if possible, because it does expose you to a risk of very heavy impacts from occasional bad results or an unexpected postponement), it's because you regard all three of them as extremely valuable. If you're picking a manager who cannot earn a 'table bonus' in that gameweek, the most he can earn for you with this chip is 10-12 points (and, of course, it can be much less); that is likely to be not much better - and potentially rather worse - than you might hope to get from any of his players. At the very best, his advantage over one of those players is likely to be uncertain and only fairly marginal. Plus, of course, there's the possible inconvenience of having to sell a player from that club to make room for your manager, and/or the disadvantage of losing the opportunity to bring in a third player from that club while you have that manager; and the fact that this can cost you additional transfers (you'll probably want to get that third player straight back in when you finish using this manager....). By contrast, choosing a manager from a club from whom you'd never want more than 1 or 2 players - if any - represents a 'pure profit' on the use of this chip; there are no concerns about needing to use up extra transfers to make room, or worries about a player you've been forced to drop or go without potentially out-performing your manager. (Of course, you won't have lost all of the dropped player's points, because you will have brought someone in to replace him, who might have done very nearly as well; but having to drop a key squad player to accommodate your manager pick does undercut the manager's value to some extent - particularly in a double gameweek [when these players may be part only a small number having the advantage of playing twice, and are thus likely to outscore almost everyone else]. To correctly identify the true value of the 'Assistant Manager' chip's return, you should calculate if there's a surplus of points earned by the third player from the manager's club who you might have chosen over the points you got from the player you have instead of him.... and deduct that points difference from the AM score for the gameweek.)  For these reasons, managers from top clubs do not represent 'good value' for this chip.

5)  Because, like the other bonus chips - Triple Captain and Bench Boost - the 'Assistant Manager' chip can potentially gain a big points-lift from being played in a Double Gameweek, there is a further 'opportunity cost' to be evaluated when you decide on a DGW chip use. In the upcoming DGW24, for instance, many people are currently favouring playing their Triple Captain on Mo Salah; if this works out, it could well be worth 20-30 extra points for the gameweek. However, setting up a bench with doubling Everton players and playing Bench Boost could potentially bring you 30 or 40 extra points, or even more. It is very unlikely that either of this week's double-fixture managers, Arne Slot or David Moyes, can reach 20 points (though Moyes at least has the theoretical chance to pick up a 'table bonus' against Liverpool, which would boost his return substantially; and he may have the better prospect of a comfortable win against Leicester).

6)  Because the 'Assistant Manager' chip has an extended activation period of three gameweeks, rather than just the usual one gameweek, you need to be very wary of playing it at any period when you might potentially want to call on one of your other chips. This would certainly include any likely blank and double gameweeks (until you've finalised a desired 'chip strategy' for making the best use of all your bonus chips, in the light of the likely Double Gameweek opportunities), when you might need Free Hit or Wildcard in order to put out a full eleven for a week with a lot of postponements, or want to use the Triple Captain or Bench Boost to take advantage of extra fixtures in a gameweek. Arguably, you might also want to steer clear of using it in February, while there is still an elevated risk of sudden postponements due to bad weather.

In summary:

Focus on the possibility of extra points for the 'table bonus', not just secure wins; look for managers/teams and fixture runs that look like they could offer good opportunities to win some of these bonuses.

Consider fixture runs for multiple clubs, not just one, within the period of possible chip activation - and be prepared to change your manager selection every week, if necessary.

Be ready to take risks. You're going to have to bet on low-ranking clubs, clubs who've performed poorly and/or inconsistently for much of the season, to have the chance of getting these 'table bonuses'. There's a very good chance they'll often let you down. But if they don't, it will be worth it!

Beware the managers from the top teams. It might be easier to predict their results, but missing out on the 'table bonuses' is a massive disadvantage. And there are further risks involved in having to go without one of their players - who has the potential to score more points than the manager (and very probably will at least slightly outscore another player you have instead of them, especially in a Double Gameweek - which will detract from your 'Assistant Manager's contribution).

Carefully weigh up the merits of the Double Gameweek opportunities for each of your bonus chips: Triple Captain or Bench Boost will be better options for some of them.

Try to stock up as many Free Transfers as you can, to make activating and using the 'Assistant Manager' chip as painless as possible. (And try to avoid using the chip when you need to save up Free Transfers for other reasons, such as a big 'turn' in fixture difficulties for several teams, or a looming Blank Gameweek.)

Be careful about using the 'Assistant Manager' chip in a period when you might want to use one of the other chips instead - particularly around the Blank and Double Gameweeks. (You might have chosen to use it to take advantage of a Double Gameweek; but if you've played the chip a week or two ahead, you can't change your mind if circumstances relating to the attractiveness of that Double Gameweek change. And remember that using the chip may create an extra drain on your stock of saved transfers - something you'd like to avoid in the last few gameweeks before a Blank or a Double.)

This damned new chip is, of course, in play now. But, rather than playing it,.... I urge you all to quit the game in protest as soon as possible; or at least commit to refusing to use the chip. And please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible.

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

When to use the 2nd Wildcard?

 

Good grief - the FPL forums at the moment seem to be full of people proposing to play their 2nd Wildcard this week! Which, of course, prompts me to ask, "WHY?"

'Truisms' often irritate, because they are used over-frequently and often unthinkingly... But there are two truisms about the Wildcards that are in fact usefully TRUE.

1)  A Wildcard tends to become more valuable the longer you can hang on to it. (That's not to say the best time to use it is in the last possible week; but it certainly is worth resisting the impulse to use it early during its period of availability.)

2)  How early you use your Wildcards is usually a precise indicator how how badly you're doing in the game. (Again, that's not saying that it's always a bad decision in itself to use a Wildcard early; certainly, for the 1st one - as I've discussed before - there can be good reasons for using it early; but that does indicate that you've had a dreadful start to the season, and are needing to take drastic action to recover the situation. If you're using a Wildcard early because you absolutely have to, that's bad; if you don't absolutely have to, but you're using it early anyway, that's very, very bad.)

Using the 2nd Wildcard the instant it becomes available smacks of impatience, impulsivity, and just making changes out of boredom rather than any pressing need. Even if you don't accept the arguments in favour of keeping it for the last stages of the season (which I'll get to in a moment), there are rarely any good reasons for using it NOW. In fact, if the first half of the season has gone well for you, you might have been able to hold on to your 1st Wildcard until quite recently. I know some people who've only finally used it in GW18 or GW19. (I have much admiration and envy for them!!)

And even if you haven't Wildcarded just recently, you have had half a season to get your squad in shape. If you feel the need to make a bunch of changes now - and you really do need to - then you must have been making some terrible choices up until now.

At the beginning of the season, we're all just making blind guesses about which players and teams are going to be in the best form, and even perhaps about what team selections and tactics are going to be. It's almost inevitable that many of those guesses will turn out to be wrong, perhaps some of them disastrously wrong, and - if we avoided resorting to the remedial surgery of an early Wildcard - it may take some time to sort our squads out. But by GW19, that really should have happened. Unless we've had a lot of bad luck with injuries, we should really have had a fairly stable lineup for a month or so now (and have been giving our attention to hoarding up some spare Free Transfers!).

Occasionally, there may be a couple of factors that may prompt us to consider a very early 2nd Wildcard. These are: a rash of injuries to key players at the end of December; and/or a major 'turn' of fixtures (upcoming matches looking suddenly much harder) for a number of the big teams. Neither of those is the case this year. Saka and Bowen are the only big names to be ruled out in the last month. And only West Ham and Wolves (and, to a rather lesser extent, Bournemouth and Brentford) are facing an imminent bad fixture run; and they're not exactly major clubs.

So, what are the advantages of hanging on to the Wildcard for a later date?

i)  We're in a transfer window. Some exciting new players may enter the league; others may suddenly leave. (It's unlikely to be a particularly busy window, I think; although, you never know! Manchester City and Arsenal, and perhaps also Manchester United will probably be looking for one or two big purchases. And I really can't see the logic of getting Trent Alexander-Arnold in on a Wildcard now, when he might be leaving for Spain in a week or two...)  There really is not much point in using the Wildcard before or during this phase of transfer activity, when there are going to be a number of new options to consider in a month's time, and the possibility you might then want to make multiple changes at once. Transfer speculation also adds greatly to the uncertainty of match results in this period: players involved in negotiations may be removed from squads. Team dynamics and individuals' morale may be adversely affected by the introduction of new stars, or the loss of old ones - or merely the mooted possibility of such changes. Blowing the Wildcard now is like spending your life savings on a 'Mystery Box': you have no idea what you're getting - you just don't know how the EPL is going to play out this month, or what it's going to look like going into February.

ii)  We're still in the depths of 'the bleak midwinter'. Cold weather and insane fixture congestion at this time of year mean that there continues to be a greatly increased risk of injury over the coming month or more. And you don't really want to blow your Wildcard on bringing in a bunch of players who might become unavailable almost immediately. Of course, there is some risk of such ill fortune whenever you play it; but the risk is much higher from December through February.

iii)  The 2nd Wildcard can be very valuable in negotiating the selection challenges of the Blank Gameweeks (gameweeks with less than the full number of fixtures; some clubs not playing in that week) and Double Gameweeks (where clubs that missed out in a previous Blank Gameweek make up their postponed fixture by playing two games within one gameweek, offering you a chance of higher points from their players). Now, these are likely to be much less of a problem than they have been in the past, because we've lost two of the four regularly occurring occasions for them (the Club World Cup has been moved from December to June/July, and the FA Cup quarter-finals are now to be played on a weekend emptied of EPL fixtures); thus, we are left with only the League Cup Final (GW29; affected teams probably getting a DGW in GW33) and the FA Semis (GW34; follow-up DGW probably in GW36 or 37). Also, the new rule allowing us to hoard up to 5 Free Transfers - effectively a 'mini-Wildcard' (if we could ever manage to save that many transfers....) - could make it a lot easier to get through these bothersome chicanes this year.

However, even the relatively small interruption of the League Cup Final can be pretty devastating - if you happen to have 2 or 3 players from each of the 4 affected teams (not just the finalists themselves, but whoever they were drawn against in the League that weekend); so devastating that even if you have got 3, 4, or 5 Free Transfers in the bank, you might still not be able to get to a full eleven without taking a lot of 'hits' as well. And even if you can address this problem with Free Transfers and/or paid 'hits', you might want to use a 'makeover chip' to rebuild your squad to its regular shape immediately in the following gameweek. Alternatively, there may be circumstances where it seems better to use the Wildcard to create an 'ideal' squad for this eccentric gameweek, but structure it in such a way that you can quickly restore it to is more normal shape with transfers over the next two or three gameweeks.

The Free Hit is, naturally, the best chip to use for sorting out a one-off problem like this. But you only have one of those, and this challenge is going to present itself at least twice in the second half of our season. (Just be grateful that it's no longer four or more times in a season! The FA Quarter-Finals used to be a colossal clusterfuck....)  It might yet arise more than twice; we've already seen one fixture postponed because of high winds, and more recently several others came close to being called off because of severe fog. As I pointed out in this post on the main hazard of The New Chip, there are all kinds of things that might lead to multiple postponements on one weekend. If that should happen, it's nice - very, very, very comforting! - to have the option of using either the Wildcard or the Free Hit to deal with the gaping holes it could leave in your squad.  

The common expectation of 'chip strategy' this year is that it will probably be best to hold on to your Free Hit to get around the FA Semis in Gameweek 34. But it would be very valuable to hang on to your Wildcard at least until Gameweek 29 as a back-up option for coping with this kind of last-minute emergency.

And it is also possible - though a much rarer eventuality - that teams with a Double Gameweek also have favourable fixtures following, and thus (especially if you're also developing a high level of dissatisfaction with some members of your current squad...) it may be appropriate to drop the Wildcard in that Double Gameweek to load up on more players from these teams that are playing twice, and that you're happy to keep on afterwards.

iv)  The other prime candidate for an especially valuable use of the Wildcard late in the season has traditionally been to 'set up' optimally to exploit your Bench Boost chip in a Double Gameweek. If you play your Wildcard the week before the DGW, you can be reasonably confident of having every member of your squad being a starter, and as many of them as possible having double-fixtures (and good fixtures). It is difficult to do this just with transfers, because you don't know until a few weeks ahead who the teams involved will be. (And even if you could do it that way, it tends to be non-ideal, because you're probably moving some players out of your team much earlier than you'd like to, just to optimise for the coming double-fixture week. Again, this might be more possible this year to do in one go, through having saved up 5 Free Transfers; but it would be very tricky to pull that off.) There were only two scheduled Double Gameweeks this year (we now have a third one, thanks to the Everton v Liverpool postponement a few weeks back), rather than four, which was the common minimum until now (we'd also grown rather used to having even more additional ones occur in recent years due to things like Covid outbreaks and the death of the Queen); and only one 'big' one, the rearranged fixtures from the FA Semi-Final weekend being crammed in right before the end of the season. While I always counsel that it is very risky - for all sorts of reasons - to wait until then to play a chip,.... most experienced FPL managers will probably be planning to play their Bench Boost in that last Double Gameweek.... and their 2nd Wildcard in the week before (judging that the potentially substantial benefits of this strategy outweigh the risks).

v)  While there are very strong arguments for saving the Wildcard as a contingency for addressing possible Blank Gameweeks, or for setting up for a Bench Boost attempt in a 'big' Double Gameweek,... as I've said in regard to the 1st Wildcard, there can be no hard-and-fast rules: we always need to stay flexible in deciding how we can best use our chips. It can occasionally happen that we're clobbered with multiple injuries, suspensions, and sudden and catastrophic dips in form for key teams or players in quick succession - perhaps even in the space of just one week. And if we've also been taking a chance on carrying one or two people on the bench who we thought might be short-term injuries but turn out to be rather longer-term, and perhaps we haven't been paying enough attention to a looming turn in fixtures for two or three of the sides that we've taken the most players from... then we are indeed most royally screwed. If you suddenly find yourself with 6, 7, 8 gaps in your line-up you urgently need to fill - and you don't have many saved Free Transfers to help you out - that's when you need to consider playing your Wildcard.

vi)  So, I've outlined two reasons why it's just A BAD IDEA to play the Wildcard at the start of January, and given three more why there are likely going to be occasions later in the season when it will be far more valuable. But I'd also suggest simply considering THE ODDS: there are 19 occasions during the rest of the season when you could play this chip. You need to be really, really sure that the week you choose to play it is almost certainly going to be the best possible one. It's really hard to be that confident when there are 18 other opportunities to play it still ahead of you. It becomes a little easier, a little less stressful and uncertain with each passing week; once you get to GW28 or GW29, and there are almost as many gameweeks in which to use the chip behind you as there are still to come, it becomes more possible to make a confident determination - rather than just a wild guess. I think it is very likely that almost all of the remaining weeks of the season will offer a better opportunity to get the best out of the 2nd Wildcard than Gameweek 20 - for absolutely everyone. I am also quite certain that probably about half of them will be much better; and at least 3 or 4 of them will be much, much, much better.

vii)  And finally.... if you have - by some great good fortune - managed to sail through the second half of the season without encountering any huge injury crises or unexpected mass postponements, and if you've been able to safely navigate the expected Blank and Double Gameweeks, and even get the best out of your Bench Boost, just by using regular transfers (and perhaps the occasional 'hit').... well, good for you, you are truly blessed. Such things are very possible, from time to time; but you won't know until the end of the season.

And let me assure you, on the rare, blessed occasions when this may happen, there is no greater pleasure in Fantasy Premier League than being able to drop an unexpected Wildcard as a late-season 'smart-bomb' to get you through a tricky final (or perhaps even the semi-, or quarter- ) against a bitter rival in the 'Cup' competition of one of your mini-leagues. Honestly, that possibility alone always makes it worth thinking twice - and thrice, and four times! - about using the 2nd Wildcard for anything else earlier on!

So, in summary, if you are thinking of playing your 2nd Wildcard in Gameweek 20 - What is wrong with you, are you completely BATSHIT INSANE??  PLEASE, DON'T DO IT!!!

And DON'T FORGET The Boycott:

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

The biggest PROBLEM with the 'Assistant Manager' chip

 

I've already explained why I so dislike this vile novelty chip the FPL powers-that-be are foisting on us this year - briefly here, and in elaborate detail here.

There are a number of irksome obstacles to deploying the damn thing at all (which may perhaps be enough to dissuade some people from bothering to use it). 

Many on the online forums have been bitching most about the 'transfer charge' for your selected manager for the chip, complaining that it overstrains an already inadequate player budget. I think that's a greatly overstated complaint: the sums are relatively trivial, and shouldn't have much of an impact on your squad strength. But the initial purchase of your manager is likely to necessitate you having to sell at least 1,... maybe 2 or 3, or even 4 players in order to free up the necessary cash; and that is a substantial irritation.

A rather greater irritation, to my mind, is the restriction of your per-club player quota - meaning that you will be denied the opportunity to bring in a third player from the same club as your selected manager.

However, both of these annoyances pale into insignificance beside the three-week duration of the chip - coupled with the prohibition of using more than one chip at a time (it was not originally specified that the new chip would be bound by this old rule; but that point has now been clarified - to everyone's disadvantage). Being blocked from the possibility of using any other chip for three whole gameweeks is a HUGE handicap - one that should perhaps make all of us question whether we want to use this chip at all. Its potential rewards are indeed enormous (game-distorting, unfair), but the risks attendant upon it could also prove to be quite disastrous.

There are TWO 'blank gameweeks' in the latter part of the season (when some teams will miss their scheduled league fixtures because of the League Cup Final or the FA Cup Semi-Finals), followed by a pair of Double Gameweeks, in which the clubs who had games postponed will make them up by playing twice in a few days, within the same gameweek. There will now be an additional Double Gameweek, just for Liverpool and Everton (replacing the fixture cancelled a couple of weeks ago because of Storm Darragh). There may yet be others added to the schedule, because of more severe weather or other unexpected events.

Blank Gameweeks can affect multiple teams, and can easily wipe out half or more of your squad. And so, you really want to try to keep your Free Hit available to help protect you from the potentially devastating consequences of a big - and perhaps quite unexpected - Blank Gameweek.

Double Gameweeks are prized as particularly good occasions to try to take advantage of the game's regular bonus chips, the Triple Captain and Bench Boost. And it is often desirable to 'set up' for the Bench Boost by playing the second Wildcard a week or so before the target Double Gameweek, to optimise the squad (getting in as many players with double-fixtures as possible, and as many players as possible with the best fixtures) and to try to ensure that you will have a full bench for that week (which is the first essential for a successful Bench Boost).

Rescheduled fixtures typically only have their dates confirmed a fairly short time ahead. At the moment, there is still no date fixed for the postponed Everton v Liverpool match. It seems likeliest that it can be slotted into Gameweek 25 or Gameweek 28, or perhaps even as late as Gameweek 33.  But it is very possible that we still won't know when it is to be played when the 'Assistant Manager' chip first becomes available (after the deadline of Gameweek 23). Since almost everyone who hasn't yet used their Triple Captain chip is now hoping to play it on Mo Salah in that unique Double Gameweek for Liverpool, those people will probably feel precluded from trying to use the new chip until a new date for that missed Merseyside derby is announced.

Having the Free Hit available to help negotiate the Blank Gameweeks in GW29 (League Cup Final) or GW34 (FA  Cup Semi-Finals) is probably even more valuable - if not essential. 

And the 'BIG' Double Gameweek following the postponements for the FA Semis (probably in GW36 or 37, but possibly earlier; GW33 also looks like an 'available slot') is the prime opportunity this season - the only obviously good one - to use the Bench Boost chip.

Because we don't know exactly when these Double Gameweeks will be - and we might not know for sure until just a week or two beforehand! - it's pretty much impossible to plan how to use the 'Assistant Manager' chip..... either to take advantage of them with that chip, or to avoid them so that we can use other chips instead. The bloated three-week duration of the chip makes it completely unmanageable.

So, many managers would probably have preferred to use a multi-week chip straight away in January. After that, there are few if any convenient gaps in the schedule that would allow you to play it without messing up your plans for your other chips. But the churlish FPL gnomes have strangely decided to delay the launch of the new 'Assistant Manager' chip until the beginning of February - so, it is now really difficult to identify good opportunities to use it without compromising, or completely abandoning, your original chip strategy. Most of us are looking at trying fit 7 weeks of chip play into just 15 gameweeks - and that's a huge headache.

Now, as I mentioned the other day, the 'Assistant Manager' chip is going to be worth far more than either of the two existing bonus chips - and probably far more than both of them combined - so it might be worth sacrificing your previous plans for these other chips in order to try to maximise your return from the new chip. Some folks have conjectured that it could be worth more to play the 'Assistant Manager' chip in a Double Gameweek (although I think it would probably not yield as much as a good Bench Boost return from a DGW; and perhaps not even quite as much as a really good Triple Captain return, unless you manage to successfully exploit the bonus for a result against a much higher-placed team in at least one of the two fixtures).

But this all becomes insanely complex to try to calculate. Because.... there are very limited opportunities to get a good return from any of the bonus chips; and so, where it seems that the 'best' week for two (or now, all three) of them might be the same, you have to try to estimate whether 'Chip A in Best Week' + 'Chip B in Second Best Week' is likely to be worth more or less than 'Chip B in Best Week' + 'Chip A in Second Best Week'. That's plenty hard enough with just two bonus chips that both benefit from Double Gameweeks; adding in a third - which has a longer duration, and might conceivably wipe out two opportunities (two Double Gameweek opportunities!) to play the other chips - makes it close-to-uncomputable.

Moreover, it can be really valuable to stay flexible - and opportunistic - in your approach to the bonus chips. It may be that at a certain point in the season, you find yourself with an unexpectedly strong bench, and suddenly - for the first time in ages -  everyone appears to be fit and likely to start.... in a week (though only a regular Single Gameweek) where almost everyone has a really good fixture. When circumstances come together for you like that, it's probably going to be your best chance to use the Bench Boost chip - much better than gambling on getting good fixtures in a Double Gameweek (because you don't know for sure who's going to be playing who until very shortly beforehand) and that you're going to have everyone still be fit for it (even if you 'set up' with a Wildcard in the week before, you can still be hit by a rash of last-minute injuries); this is particularly so when, this year, there's seemingly only going to be ONE 'big' Double Gameweek, and it doesn't fall until the very end of the season.

Something similar might happen with a Triple Captain opportunity. Although it's obviously much more difficult to get 15 fit players in your squad in a week when nearly all of them have good fixtures than it is to ensure that one of your handful of star players is fit to play in one of his most promising fixtures, and there are thus usually several tempting opportunities to risk the TC chip in a season,.... nevertheless, unexpected shifts in team form can suddenly make it appear that your best player's best chance of a big haul is in a different game to any of the ones most anticipated in the early part of the season.... perhaps it may even be in the next game.

Thus, I would argue, ruling yourself out of being able to play either of your bonus chips for three weeks at a time may have an enormous - and perhaps quite unforeseen - opportunity cost.

But ruling yourself out of being able to play the Free Hit could be.... absolutely catastrophic. More widespread and serious 'extreme weather' events than Storm Darragh could very conceivably wipe out most or a weekend's fixtures (or, occasionally, even all of them; but at least that's the same for everyone; and we'll all later enjoy an extra - HUGE - Double Gameweek!). So could other forms of disruption, such as a major terrorist incident or widespread industrial action or another pandemic scare, or.... well, King Charles is 76 years old, and hasn't been in the best of health; as we saw with his mother's death two years ago, the passing of a monarch could lead to major fixture rearrangements over two or three gameweeks across a season. 

Such eventualities might be relatively remote, but they're extremely possible. And if such a thing were to occur in a gameweek where someone has their 'Assistant Manager' chip in play..... they are terminally screwed. Small though the risk may appear to be, it's not one I'm sure I'd be willing to take.

But I really don't want to spend any time even attempting to address these endless conundrums. For me, the 'Assistant Manager' chip is a game-ruining abomination - and, in order to make sure that FPL does not try to make it (or, god help us, perhaps some other innovation that's even worse...) a recurring feature of the game, we really need to protest against the idea as strongly as possible, in as many different ways as possible.

I like the idea of simply refusing to use the chip. But I fear it will not be an emphatic enough gesture to have much impact on the FPL hierarchy. (Many FPL managers might simply forget to use the chip, or be too daunted by its complexity; and more and more managers get disillusioned with their progress and drop out of the game during the later stages of the season. So - a mass refusal to use the chip would not become apparent until the last opportunity to deploy it [GW36] has passed; and it might be largely masked by all these other reasons why the chip might have gone unused by many people.)

No, if we are to make the FPL 'bosses' take notice, I think we need to encourage as many people as possible to drop out of the game at the moment that this horrendously gimmicky new chip comes into force - immediately after Gameweek 23. [I did so, quitting after GW23 in hopes of setting an example for others.]

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

What's DIFFERENT this year...?

 

Well, it often feels like.... EVERYTHING.

This year is certainly very different to previous years in FPL in several important ways:

1)  The tweaks to the BPS scoring.  Quite a subtle thing, and something most FPL managers are likely to miss, or simply ignore. But it is likely to have quite a significant impact: something like 15-20% of your points come from bonuses - i.e., equivalent to ALL of the points-spread you'll typically see across a good quality mini-league! While it's difficult to project exactly how much effect the various little modifications to the scoring scale that decide bonus point allocation will have, it seems likely that the most important change will be the significantly bigger penalty now applied to defenders or keepers conceding a goal. The BPS is already somewhat stacked against defences, and this further disadvantage imposed on them is likely to mean that it's going to be very difficult for a keeper or a defender now to score any bonus points in a match in which they haven't kept a clean sheet. That will reduce returns from defenders quite a bit. (At least keepers can still pick up points, and BPS credit, for 'saves' - and that's usually what earns them bonus points. They'll probably earn slightly fewer bonus points this year too, because of the new change; but they won't be as hard hit as defenders.)

2)  Lower returns for defenders in general.  There are two factors here: the demise of the attacking full-back (mainly Pep's fault??), and generally lower prospects of clean sheets this year. Arsenal's defensive performance last year was a real freak: what was it, 18 clean sheets? They are very unlikely to get anywhere near that this time. Nor, by the look of the opening two months, is anyone else. Arne Slot has quickly made Liverpool a bit less gung-ho in attack and a bit less leaky in the middle of the park, so they're looking favourites to take the clean-sheet crown this year - but I doubt they'll get far into double-figures (they've been flattered so far by a bit of good luck with the refereeing decisions, and a very soft opening run of fixtures); and I'm not sure anyone else, apart from Arsenal, will get anywhere close to them. City have looked leaky; and could be in big trouble now that they've lost Rodri for the season. I think Forest, Bournemouth, and Palace show some promise, though they've not had the best of luck so far. Really, you can't fancy many teams to reach 10 clean sheets for the season this year.

And in the past we've almost always had a few points-monsters in defence: usually a progressive full-back who'd bombard the box with crosses, occasionally threaten a goal of their own, and perhaps provide additional points potential through taking corners, free-kicks, or even long-throws. Where are the Ashley Cole, Rory Delap, Leighton Baines, Aaron Cresswell de nos jours? Well, Cresswell, of course, is still around; though he's been phased out of the first team over the last two or three years. Trent provided a lot of assists in the past, but his numbers fell off a cliff last season, and aren't looking likely to rebound that strongly this year (yes, he was very unlucky to have that goal disallowed early in the season; but Slot's playing him much deeper, and he's not looking likely to play balls into the box any more - being on corners should be a plus, but Liverpool aren't nearly so focused on them as a main source of goals as Arsenal are; I fear his only likely assists will come this year from long balls over the top to Salah - useful to have, but perhaps not reaching more than 5 or 6 over the season). And there was that one magnificent season from Joao Cancelo a few years back, before he fell out with Pep. And Ben White did pretty well last year, linking with Saka down the Arsenal right. But the old-style attacking full-back who regularly pushed forward to make overlapping runs beyond the wide attacker, and was playing balls into the box all the time - we don't really have that any more. Porro is an occasional goal-threat, but is now tending to invert into deep midfield rather than pushing down the flank, so won't offer that many assists; Gvardiol is a hell of a finisher, but not a crosser, and doesn't seem likely to keep many clean sheets with City this year; White looks a bit out-of-sorts, is said to be carrying an injury. I would have said Henry and Hickey at Brentford looked our best prospects for this sort of defender; but they're still injured; and - if they ever come back - they might find that Thomas Frank has permanently changed the team's style of play to omit the use of advanced wing-backs any more. I like Robinson (and Tete), Aina (and Moreno), Kerkez, Dalot, and Munoz and Mitchell; but I'm not sure any of these will produce the really regular attacking returns we used to enjoy from top full-backs in the good old days.

3)  Fewer penalties.  A modification of the interpretation guidelines for the Handball Law seems likely to greatly reduce the number of penalties awarded for the ball hitting a defender's arm; and that's surely a good thing. Alas, the revisions have been drafted in an inept way which renders them ridiculously over-complex - and hence their application is going to be even more subjective and riddled with controversy than it has been in the past. But at least the overall number of penalty awards will be down. A modification in the VAR protocols also seems likely to have a HUGE impact: there now seems to be such a hesitancy to embarrass the on-pitch referee by suggesting he's been in error that VAR is constantly hiding behind the 'clear and obvious error' threshold for intervention, and is sitting on its hands - even when the referee has committed an obvious goof. We've seen good penalty shouts unaccountably waved away in every single gameweek so far. (And it's hitting some teams far more than others. City seem to be magically immune to conceding penalties this year; while poor Chelsea are just not being  awarded any.) And of course, players who derived an especially large number of their overall points return from converting penalties - like Cole Palmer and Bruno Fernandes - could take a pretty serious hit from this.

4)  Being able to save Free Transfers.  This is the most massive (and surprisingly positive) change in the rules of the FPL game that has ever been made. In the past, with it only being possible to save a measly 2 Free Transfers at a time, you were constantly under pressure to 'use it or lose it' - to make a transfer even when there was no particularly urgent need, just because you would miss out on receiving an extra transfer from the following gameweek if you didn't. That was an irritation - and could lead to some rash, unnecessary, self-damaging squad changes. Ah, but now - with the option introduced this year to store up to 5 FTs at one time, the tactical landscape of the game is dramatically changed: we have far more flexibility to negotiate fixture speed-bumps like blank and double gameweeks, or one-week batches of awkward fixtures. Of course, it remains to be seen how easy it will be to store up transfers; in the last two seasons, injuries seemed to come so thick-and-fast that I was only able to consider rolling a transfer half a dozen times during the year. While we can hope that this year won't see quite such an avalanche of injuries... I think it's likely to be near-impossible to store up the full quota of 5 transfers, and it will probably be misguided - self-damaging - to try (just for the bragging rights!!). But it might be possible to stock up 3 or 4 occasionally; and there will be a strong incentive to try to do so. Being able to use 4 transfers at once is effectively an extra mini-Wildcard, and could make it possible to completely revise traditional chip strategy (which is focused on using Wildcard and/or Free Hit to get around the late-season blank and double gameweeks). Moreover, for any challenging gameweek where you may need to make multiple changes - or, for instance, when offloading Asian and African players just ahead of their regional nations cup competitions, which take place in December/January every other year - in the past you'd have to do that over a number of weeks; now you can save up the necessary transfers and use them all at once, only at the moment they actually become necessary (when you'll know which of the replacement players you're contemplating are fit and in good form; if you make a choice a week or three earlier than you really need to, you can often be caught out - find yourself with a wasted pick that needs to be replaced with another transfer); that too can be a massive help to us this season.

5)  No more 'early' Double Gameweek. For the last several years, we often had one of our top sides getting an extra double-fixture, rather earlier than any of the others, in February or March... as a result of the club having had to miss a gameweek in mid-December to participate in the Club World Cup. This could be - depending on the fixtures, of course - a very tempting option for the Triple Captain chip, with top players like Haaland or Salah enjoying a unique DGW.... in mid-season, before they get knackered. But with the expansion of the Club World Cup format this year, and the tournament being moved to the summer, that nice little Spring Treat is now denied us. [Oh, I hadn't realised the winter tournament is continuing after all, in a very slightly revised format; it's now rebranded as The Intercontinental Cup. So, we might still sometimes see that additional small Double Gameweek in the Spring. But not this year... because Real Madrid won the Champions League again.]

6)  No more 'big' Blank/Double Gameweeks. As I just mentioned above, chip strategy traditionally revolved around negotiating the blank and double gameweeks that pepper the last two months of the season. But the biggest of these, by far, was the Blank Gameweek caused by the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend (usually around GW29 or 30), and the huge Double Gameweek that followed it, usually with most or all of the rescheduled fixtures being made up at the same time. Now, it was perilous to hang on that long, waiting so late in the season for a Double Gameweek to drop a bonus chip; but it was undoubtedly a very tempting option for the Bench Boost - because with so many teams playing twice in the same week, it was usually quite easy to find 15 players with two good fixtures (or at least one good fixture! [It's really not worth loading up on players who have two tough fixtures - particularly defenders - but many people do!])  This year.... (drum roll)..... it has been decided to suspend the League programme on Quarter-Final weekend - so there will be no Blank Gameweek then, and no following BIG Double. This will give us a lot more flexibility in how to use our Free Hit and 2nd Wildcard. (Indeed, with the new facility to bank up to 5 Free Transfers at a time, these chips may sometimes be somewhat superfluous! Certainly, they're not going to be so life-savingly essential as they have been in the past.)  The focus of chip strategy will shift to the blank FA Semis weekend (this year, Gameweek 34) and the double (or doubles; the rearranged fixtures might be split over different gameweeks, further diluting their value for FPL) ensuing from that; but that is much less of a big deal. Such small double-fixture weeks are not that compelling as a Bench Boost opportunity; and even the Blank Gameweek might be possible to address adequately with saved transfers. Oh, brave new world!

7)  A plethora of decent forwwards.  Also, damn - for the first time in quite a few seasons we have a good number of forward options to choose between. For a few years now, we've had so many forwards injured for most of the season, or chronically out of form, or just nowhere near the level of the obvious top one or two picks, that.... well, you didn't usually start more than two of them... and quite often only one! And there was very little FPL differentiation going on in the forward area. But this year, we have Chris Wood and Danny Welbeck having the best season of their careers, and appearing newly immune to injury worries! Raul Jimenez, too, finally seems to be recapturing the early promise he showed with Wolves, before that horrific head injury. Haaland started incredibly hot, but has faded a little; while Isak and Watkins look to be potential challengers for the top forward honours this year. A lot of people are optimistic for Solanke's prospects now at Spurs too; and indeed Havertz's at Arsenal (he's started really well; but I'm still not convinced he's always going to play at No. 9, or be their primary goal outlet). And there are tempting options for third seat in the ultra-budget category too - such as Liam Delap at Ipswich. Not only do we suddenly have a lot of decent attacking options to choose from, but - with a lot of the usual high-scoring midfielders misfiring so far, or suffering injuries - it's actually becoming legitimate to prefer the 3-4-3 formation, sometimes, at least... and that's something I've very rarely used in the past.

And then.... there's the new 'Mystery Chip' FPL is springing on us this year. For me, this is just a further irritation, an unwelcome additional uncertainty in a season which has already got too much going on! If they'd tell us what the damn chip is a bit earlier in the season, launch it a bit earlier in the season, it wouldn't be so bad. But making us wait until January to even find out what it is; and leaving us to figure out how to accommodate it in the closing months of the season, which is when most people play all of their other chips as well,.... that's just going to get very complicated, the schedule is going to be too crowded with chip options to evaluate.

And it wouldn't be so bad if it were just a simple bonus chip - perhaps just a second Bench Boost or Triple Captain, as has been mooted by some; or a Double Bench Boost, perhaps, where you get twice the points earned by your subs for a week; but I rather fear it is going to be something much more arcane and convoluted - something that may really throw a spanner in the works. [And, oh boy, was I proved right in my misgivings about that damned new chip - and then some!!]

There are quite enough 'new challenges' in this season already. We don't want or need a stupid new Novelty Chip thrown into the mix as well!