Learn to 'make do'

I blame The Scout (in particular; there are many other sources of this psychopathy...). FPL's own anonymous 'pundit' regularly puts out a 'team of the week' set of recommendations - which is effectively a 'Wildcard' every time: unlimited transfers, taking no heed of what lineup he'd selected the week before, or of what he might want for the weeks immediately following.

Seeing so many FPL 'content creators' follow this pattern - maybe not producing a completely new team every week, but making multiple player suggestions every week.... as if anyone might be able to bring them all in - encourages many of the more naive and impulsive FPL managers to believe that they could and should do likewise, that multiple changes at any time are always acceptable and even necessary, a correct and proper way to play the game.

Of course, that is not a good way to play the game at all.

Transfers have an absolute points value. (FPL's own game designers, in setting the cost of an additional transfer, have rated it as 4 points. It might in practice be a little more or less, depending on the circumstances; but that's a good guideline figure. And that applies to 'Free Transfers' as well as to 'hits': if you're not making an immediate 4-point profit from a transfer,... you probably shouldn't be making it.)

Transfers can also have a more nebulous 'tactical value', encompassing all the more remote benefits of making one change rather than another, or making a change now rather than later.  (The 'tactical value' of deferred transfers is now hugely enhanced - and complicated - by last year's rule innovation allowing us to 'roll over' Free Transfers until we have a maximum stock of 5 at our disposal, effectively giving us the possibility of a number of additional 'mini-Wildcards' each season.)

Hence, every time we make a transfer, we should not only be considering how much value we may get from it immediately in the current gameweek, but how much more value we might possibly get from it by waiting to use it until a later gameweek.

Unless we have a really pressing reason to make an immediate change to our lineup, it is, these days, usually better to roll a transfer than to use one.

No squad, no starting eleven is ever likely to be completely satisfactory. We'll almost always have some players we're developing doubts about, some we're trying to 'rest' through a short injury or dip in form, or a little run of tough fixtures, some players we don't have yet but are starting to covet...  If we thought like The Scout,... yes, we'd make 4, 5, 6 changes almost every single week. But we CAN'T do that. This is not the game we play. 

FPL gives us only limited transfers, and we must be very careful how we use them. We have to learn to accept our inevitable dissatisfactions with our squad, and - most of the time - make do with what we have. We should strive to make as few transfers as possible; not to make any at all unless we feel we really have to. (Which is not at all to say that we should be afraid of making transfers, or should try to avoid ever taking 'hits' - spending the additional points for extra ones. Sometimes we do have to. Just not nearly as often as most people in this game seem to think!)

Too much of a 'good thing'??

I mentioned last week that there was probably an 'expanded' version of the FPL rules hidden away somewhere, because.... there are certain lacunae, certain points not covered in the rather brief rules published on the main FPL webpages. 

One such area of mystery is the issue of what happens if you inadvertently exceed the normal club quota of three players from any one Premier League side - through having someone transfer in to a club you already hold three players from.

That's happening to quite a lot of people at the moment, with the very popular Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi both accepting January moves to Manchester City - from whom, in addition to the inescapable Erling Haaland, Nunes, O'Reilly, Doku, Cherki, Foden, Reijnders, and Donnarumma are all fairly common selections.

I don't think this has ever happened to me, but it's not such an uncommon phenomenon. What appears to happen is that you're allowed your suddenly over-quota line-up of 4 (or even 5 or 6 or whatever...) players until you next make a transfer; but as soon as you want to make any changes to your squad, you have to begin by reducing your holding from that club back to the regular maximum of 3 players.

Straightforward enough, really; except that I have no idea if this rule is actually stated in print anywhere. It seems to be something you just have to learn through experience.

And because of that lack of clarity on the issue in the 'basic rules', all sorts of bizarre notions start to circulate online about this situation. I saw a chap on a forum the other day insisting that you're allowed to have more than 3 players in your squad in these circumstances, but not allowed to put more than 3 in your starting eleven.... NOT SO!

Of course, the real mystery here is WHY anyone would already have 3 City players. Donnarumma is nowhere near the best keeper pick for FPL (and is prohibitively expensive), Foden has become unproductive again after his insane two-week points splurge at the start of December, and the other midfielders - including Semenyo, for now, at least - and probably O'Reilly too, are all minutes risks.

Guehi is likely to be an immediate and regular starter, at least while Dias and Gvardiol are injured; but I would rather have waited a week or two to see if that really would be the case, and to see how well he'd settle in at the new club, before making a decision about retaining or acquiring him.

If I'd suddenly found myself with 5 Manchester City players, I'd probably take this odd stroke of Fate as a prompting to get rid of 3 or 4 of them as soon as possible. But, of course, it is unfortunate to have to make even 2 'forced' transfers as a result of this obscure little rules glitch.

Live and learn... (Or not!)

Someone on the FPL forums last week was interested in whether a player could play twice in the same gameweek for different clubs - effectively getting a unique, one-person double gameweek by virtue of having completed a transfer mid-gameweek and immediately turning out for his new club in their later fixture within the same batch of games. 

Now, I can't ever recall such a thing happening in the 33 previous seasons of the English Premier League; but it does seem as if it should be theoretically possible.

In practice, though, it seems as if it would be extraordinarily unlikely. These days, clubs typically drop a player - even from training, let alone competitive matches - once they're the subject of a transfer negotiation. This is because, if they've accepted that they're almost certainly going to lose the player, they're now more focused on what they can do with the money they can make from selling him, and will be reluctant to jeopardise a move through the risk of a last-minute injury. There may, of course, also often be doubts about a player's level of motivation or general focus on his game if he's determined to move on. And the buying club may reasonably expect, if not insist that the player is not risked in a match while the transfer deal is being finalised.

So, it's very, very, very rare for a player to play for his old club shortly before signing for a new one. But.... it just happened with Antoine Semenyo - who scored an injury-time winner for Bournemouth against Spurs last Wednesday evening, and was then announced as a Manchester City player barely 12 hours later on Thursday morning.

Ah, but it's also very, very, very rare for a player to play immediately for his new club, particularly within a matter of a day or two; there hasn't been time to get up to speed with the new team's tactics, or to build any rapport with teammates; they might only have been able to participate in one or two full training sessions - just not enough time to bed them in. And you might think that this would be especially the case at a club like City, where Pep sometimes takes weeks inculcating 'his way' of playing in a new signing before he'll consider giving him a regular start.

But again, Antoine Semenyo just played immediately for City, only two days after his transfer to them was confirmed. Of course, that wasn't a League game. But this instance again suggests that playing for two teams in the same gameweek could conceivably occur... once in a blue moon.

However, I believe players have to be registered with the League by noon on the day before their first eligible match for a new club - which adds a further layer of impracticality. Moreover, the League's offices don't usually 'work' on the weekends (this is why this year's transfer window is extended to Monday 2nd February), making it even more difficult to 'complete' a transfer and have a player eligible to play for a new club within the tight timeline of a single gameweek - although we do occasionally get a gameweek with a game scheduled on a Tuesday, after a roster of games mostly played over the preceding weekend, so it could still be possible. 

Of course, we also have occasional double gameweeks where some clubs are playing twice within a few days; this would extend the narrow window of opportunity for a player to complete a mid-gameweek transfer - well, except that such double gameweeks never occur during the early-season or mid-season transfer windows!

Not many regular gameweeks are spread over more than 3 or 4 days (although we did have one last season stretched over nearly 2 weeks due to a winter 'mini-break'). But, in this recent case, if Bournemouth's match had been on the Tuesday evening, and City's on the Thursday, Semenyo's registration could have been completed in time for him to play for both clubs.

It seems like this is the only way that this eventuality could come about: a slightly extended and/or midweek gameweek, at least one weekday between the two different clubs' fixtures in that gameweek, and a player confirming a transfer and getting it registered with the League the morning after the first of those two games. That is a very unlikely combination of circumstances, and I rather doubt if it will ever happen.

But.... if it should, there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why FPL would refuse to acknowledge a transfer that the League has accepted as valid, and refuse to record the points the player scores in his first game for the new club.

And yet, I have seen it suggested by a couple of people on those forums that there is supposedly an obscure 'rule' denying a player the right to score points for different clubs in a single gameweek. 

I say 'obscure' because I have never even come across a reference to or discussion of this supposed rule; and it certainly isn't included in the main 'Rules' of the game displayed on the FPL website, which I've screenshotted above. (Although these rules are excessively concise, and in some respects just very badly written - unclear, potentially ambiguous on a few points. And I wouldn't be surprised if there is an 'expanded version' of the rules hidden away online somewhere...)  [An aside: Why, oh why is something as important as the Rules of the Game hidden under the 'Help' tab rather than being given a tab of its own??]

And of course, these two bods on the forums, having no idea of how sourcing accurate information from the Internet actually works, omitted to provide a URL link to where they had found this information (one of them at least screenshotted the article in question; but with no indication of where it had come from, and it appeared to be only a paraphrase/illustrative example rather than a direct citation of the original text of the supposed rule).

I've had a bit of a rummage around online myself, but still haven't been able to come up with any definitive answer to this conundrum. It would seem curmudgeonly, unreasonable, nonsensical of FPL to craft a special rule to deal with such a wildly unlikely circumstance - but some folks out there are convinced that they have done so. I will try to investigate the issue further.

FOUR types of selection decision in FPL

 

It occurred to me the other day, when I was writing about Phil Foden's recent improbably hot run of form, that we may discern 4 main types of selection decision in FPL, differentiated by their timing.

Timing of a transfer: the FOUR TYPES

1)  Anticipatory/Speculative/Precognitive

If you go in for a player before he's started to show any clear signs of form - just following a 'hunch', or because you have some sentimental attachment to him, or because he's a big-name player who's often done well in the past (ahem, Mo Salah...) - you may sometimes get lucky with that. But you have to appreciate that it's a very risky play. Going in so early for someone is inevitably a big gamble, even if you may have some good reasons - though very subtle and uncertain ones - for the choice. Those reasons might be founded on past history (e.g., the player usually recovers strongly from a brief injury absence, regularly displays a particularly keen hunger to return to the fray after missing a few games for any reason, always bounces back strongly after just a few poor performances, often has a great game against this particular opponent...), a positive shift in team form or lineup or tactics, a favourable run of upcoming fixtures, some background information which may suggest a likely psychological lift (a spat with the manager or a legal problem resolved, a family problem improving, a bereavement receding into the past), or subtle indications on the pitch of a possible turnaround in fitness or confidence that might herald a sudden, imminent uptick in points-scoring form. If you weighed up such factors, and subsequent performances by the player seemed to vindicate your assessment, you may congratulate yourself on a perceptive early transfer decision. But more often, FPL managers who go in early for someone are just taking a wild punt, based on no substantive rationale at all; and if that player suddenly hits a hot streak of form out of nowhere, they've just been incredibly LUCKY - but they'll never admit that. [Disgruntled rivals may complain of them relying on a crystal ball or a time-machine, because there really seems to be no other way to explain how such a bizarre decision worked out so well for them....]

2)  Hasty/Hopeful/The Calculated Gamble

If you go in for a player after 1 or 2 good hauls, that will sometimes pay off for you. But again, it's very risky - you might be falling victim to the classically over-optimistic vice of chasing last week's points. 'Form' is not always accurately reflected by points returns; 'form' is often transient or inconsistent. You need to look for evidence of a general upturn in form that is likely to persist - and improve further - over a number of games. You can only find that kind of evidence by watching full games with close attention; stats are no substitute for that; and a highlights roundup is not good enough either - you need to have seen the whole game. 

3)  The 'Goldilocks Zone'

This is the 'ideal' time to make a transfer, the time when most 'smart' managers recognise that a player is probably now worth having. Now, as I just said above, because 'form' is not always reflected fully - or, sometimes, at all - in the FPL points returns, this 'sweet spot' might come when a player has started playing better, but has not yet produced any worthwhile points; or perhaps, they've only produced a few modest hauls, but (not yet) a really big one. And, although it might sometimes be possible to discern indications of a decisive upturn in performance from just one game, usually it takes a little longer to be confident of that. As I wrote in this essay at the end of last season attempting to define the concept of 'form': One good game might be a freak; two on the bounce is very encouraging, but it still might mean nothing; three.... is form.  Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, you can pinpoint the individual gameweek in which a player first began a streak of good points-scoring - even if those returns were at first quite modest and/or quite intermittent (and perhaps not really reflective of any strong positive shift in the player's or his team's performance at that point!). But as the season is unfolding, it is almost always impossible to recognise the exact moment of such a shift: it doesn't generally become visible until a little later - one, or two, or three gameweeks further on. And that is when you should be jumping on the player. Don't beat yourself up that you might have missed a few good hauls from him; be satisfied that you're getting good points from him now, points that a lot of rival managers are still missing out on.

4)  'Late to the party'

Often, you'll miss these 'early signs' that a player may be about to go on a tear. And that's forgivable - especially if, like me, you don't have good access to live TV coverage of the games. And the 'Goldilocks Zone' is very unforgiving, usually an extremely narrow window of opportunity: it's often just a single gameweek, and, even with the most generous dispensation, it can rarely be extended to more than two or three. However, after that point, it should be fairly obvious that this player is now a top pick, and if you continue to ignore him - well, then you're really not paying attention; or, worse, you're being stubborn (sticking to a previous selection in defiance of mounting evidence against it), or unreasonably prejudiced against this new option (perhaps he hurt you in the past: the old 'He always starts blanking as soon as I buy him' superstition - we've all fallen victim to that at one time or another). Often, such stubbornness grows out of being in thrall to the ideal of self-consistency, or what is sometimes called a 'committment bias'  - one of the most deep-rooted and damaging of our cognitive biases: we may have convinced ourselves that a player we'd picked ahead of the newly in-form player was always going to remain the superior prospect, or we may have convinced ourselves early on in this emerging trend of form that it was going to prove ephemeral - and nothing will now change our minds about this choice, no matter how much evidence is stacking up that it has now become wrong. But.... better LATE than NEVER. If you can overcome your pride, your stubbornness, your prejudice, and accept that a player is now so hot that you must have him - you might still be able to catch one or two more decent hauls from him before the streak dries up (as they all do, eventually).

In summary, then:...

The first type of transfer is very early: made before there has yet been any evidence of an improvement in a player's performance (or at least, not in his FPL points returns); it is hence a big, and probably unjustified, risk. Such transfers can occasionally pay off very well; but you should ensure that such a pick is based on definite evidence - if only in the form of positive background factors, rather than anything yet in the on-field displays - and sound reasoning.

The second type is also early, and possibly over-hasty: it is made on the basis of an improvement in performance, but perhaps only scant evidence of such, perhaps from just one or two games - which is rarely enough to make you fully confident of a sustained upturn in form. If you're allowing yourself to get over-excited about one or two good returns, you're most often not shrewdly anticipating the next big thing, but simply falling prey to a fatuous 'sheep pick'.

The third type is based on an astute assessment of early evidence of an upturn in performance: not just the FPL points returns, but the overall contribution of the player and the way he and his team are functioning together. Such evidence may occasionally be visible in a single game; but usually it takes two or three games to become persuasive.

The fourth type is at least slightly late - or maybe very late! - only recognising the turn in form some time after it has become evident, at least to the smarter and more perceptive FPL managers. (As a general rule-of-thumb, if The Scout - FPL's vapid, anonymous, in-house pundit - has just recommended a player,... you probably should have bought him at least one or two gameweeks back.)

To apply this template to the recent example of Phil Foden's extraordinary streak of goalscoring form....

If you'd gone in for him in Gameweek 13, that was definitely a Type 1 decision. And it must have been based on having a crystal ball, because there really was no indication that he was suddenly about to come good so strongly, after a long run of 'blanks', and often pretty anonymous performances (he'd only produced 20 points from the previous 8 games, with just a solitary assist!). A fixture against Leeds was not sufficient reason to start fancying a player who'd shown almost no indication of suddenly becoming a major FPL points contributor again over the previous two months. (Neither was a moderately promising fixture-run immediately thereafter. And it was only moderately promising: Fulham away is not a particularly 'easy' fixture; Palace away certainly isn't.)

If you'd bought him for Gameweek 14, that would have been a Type 2 decision. Was there really any evidence in the Leeds game of a decisive change in mentality, confidence, style of play (or in team tactics, that might give him more scoring opportunities...)? Not really. And that good performance was only against Leeds, who are struggling at the bottom of the table. Moreover, there were two further Premier League games within the coming week, and we might reasonably have expected that Foden would get short minutes in these games - or perhaps be rested completely for one of them - and/or might have been inhibited a little by fatigue. I would say, getting Foden in GW14 was essentially just chasing last week's points; there was not yet any convincing rationale for buying him.

The interesting question is whether, after two outstanding displays in quick succession, it would have a Type 3 decision to get Foden in Gameweek 15. I would say NO. Foden had just played twice within a few days; and there was a crucial Champions League tie away to Real Madrid coming up the following midweek - and he did indeed get short minutes in this next match. Also, Sunderland were much the best of the three EPL teams he'd faced in this remarkable week - although they produced an uncommonly poor performance on this occasion, and, despite playing only just over an hour, Foden again managed to come up with a goal.

Acquiring him didn't really become a Type 3 decision rather than Type 2 until Gameweek 16; and arguably perhaps not even then. In the wake of the Real Madrid game, there was again a risk that Foden might be rested or subbed off early. And Crystal Palace are one of the best teams City have faced this season, the strongest defence in the league (after Arsenal's); especially away from home, a City win could not have been confidently predicted. Moreover, it is statistically extremely improbable that any player will achieve 4 double-digit hauls in a row (has it ever been done before??) - and while that wouldn't argue against acquiring Foden for this game, it should counsel that it was unreasonable to expect another very big points return from him. And yet - astoundingly - he did produce yet another haul! But that was a once-in-a-blue-moon freak; and if you bet on that, you were lucky rather than brilliant.

This might be a rare case where there was in fact no 'Goldilocks Zone' for acquiring Foden. There have been good reasons to doubt if he would be able to extend this scoring streak in each gameweek that it has continued; and the calculus on this was greatly complicated by the December fixture congestion and the huge importance of City's looming Champions League clash. In each of those four - closely packed-together - gameweeks, there were reasonable arguments for remaining hesitant about acquiring Foden: It was becoming increasingly unlikely in each match that he would produce another successive big haul, and increasingly likely that Pep might rest him. 

Moreover, Doku had been a very attractive pick from City for a while, and Cherki was just becoming so - before Foden suddenly caught fire. And if you already had one of these (or perhaps Nico O'Reilly; albeit that he's in a different position category, that pick would still be eating into your club quota from City), it would not have been unreasonable to hang on to them, in preference to Foden - whose newfound burst of form might well have quickly fizzled out again. And even if you had fancied bringing Foden it, it was still a somewhat speculative pick - so early in the emerging hot spell, after such a long barren streak, after such a disappointing season last year - and it might not have been a leading transfer priority; especially as the mounting toll of injuries and suspensions in the bleak midwinter was using up most of the available stock of Free Transfers for the majority of FPL managers (even with the bonanza of extra transfers we were just given in in GW16).

Perhaps, perhaps... transferring in Foden has jumped straight from a Type 2 to a Type 4 decision!

However, I would suggest that acquiring Foden now, for Gameweek 17, is probably the Type 3, 'Goldilocks Zone' moment. 

Yes, paradoxical as it may seem, I think he's only become a really unassailably strong pick now - when his super-hot streak is (almost certainly?) over. You will have missed 55 points from 4 games in the last fortnight; but a fortnight ago, that was completely unforeseeable; and even as the fortnight played out, it remained hugely improbable. You shouldn't suffer any self-recrimination for missing out on the benefits of such a bizarre freak performance.

But now, we have seen clear evidence that Foden - and his team - are playing extraordinarily well; and this does seem to be a sustained shift in performance. Moreover, they're in a pretty soft run of fixtures still, with only the New Year game against Chelsea offering a significantly formidable opponent in the next month or so (and at least that one's at home). At this point, it is definitely looking foolhardy to resist buying him any longer.

With the benefit of hindsight, we would all realise that Gameweek 13 was the ideal time to have brought him in. With the benefit of a crystal ball, we could have realised that he would become 'essential' in Gameweek 14.... or 15,... or 16. But we do not enjoy those two benefits. And without them, it was reasonable enough to hold off buying Foden until now. Most of the FPL managers I consider 'smart' have not bought him yet (the few that do have him, I think had punted on him earlier in the season - and had probably only stuck with him thus far because they'd had other higher-priority problems to address with their transfers); but I anticpate that the majority of them will be going in for him now.

Alas, it is now statistically very unlikely that Foden will achieve yet another massive points-haul in the next game - even against defensively flakey West Ham. And you can be pretty damn sure that he won't rack up another 50-odd points over the next 4 or 5 games. But he is in sensational form, and has some inviting fixtures coming up.

If you already got him in the last few gameweeks, good for you; but you were taking a gamble on him, and were fortunate that it paid off so extraordinarily well. Now, though, it really is looking as if all of us should join you.

Nobody gets a double-digit haul FOUR times in a row!!

Well, OK, Phil Foden just did! But it almost never happens.

Even really exceptional players won't often manage a double-digit return more than 4 or 5 times a season. To get even 2 such big hauls back-to-back is fairly uncommon; a string of 3 is very rare; 4 or 5 in a row is possible, it will happen occasionally, but... it's a real 'Black Swan Event', incredibly unlikely. [Actually, I'm not sure it has ever happened before. FPL put up a post on their Facebook page on Monday suggesting that Foden's 4-in-a-row was a "first time in history" feat; but they neglected to specify if this was a first just for him, or for anyone.]

Basically,... the longer a sequence of big hauls extends, the less likely it is to continue. You could, with relative safety, bet a large amount of money that Foden will get a more modest return in Gameweek 17 (even though he's at home, against West Ham!); and if, by some freak of nature, he does manage another 10+ points haul in that game, you can bet your house that he won't do it again in Gameweek 18.

That's not at all to say that Phil Foden (or Harry Wilson, who's also just racked up 4 good hauls back-to-back - although the 2nd and 3rd were only 8-pointers; or Bruno Fernandes, who's posted 3 double-digit returns in his last 4 games) would be a bad pick at the moment; far from it. [I considered the Foden case in a lot more detail a couple of days later.]

But you should be realistic in your expectations. When you buy in a player because he's just had 1 or 2 (or 3, or 4....) really good hauls in a short space of time, you shouldn't be counting on him doing it again immediately, this week. That is statistically very unlikely. You should accept that he's probably 'due' a blank or two now; and you shouldn't quickly get impatient with your new purchase if that happens. You should be buying players for a run of games - at least the next 3 or 4 fixtures, hopefully more like twice that many - not just the next game. And you should be happy if he averages a decent points-return over that run.

Being unreasonably greedy in your points-expectations of a player is a recipe for disappointment, frustration,.... and further rash, impulsive transfers to try to 'put things right' (when there's probably nothing actually wrong - apart from the fact you were hoping for something absurd).

If a player can bring you, say, 3 returns of 6-8 points over the next 5 games, that's a very good result. You should be more than satisfied with that - not fretting that his little sequence of 12 or 15-pointers suddenly dried up as soon as you bought him.

The Palmer Conundrum

Now that Cole Palmer seems finally ready to return to regular action, after missing pretty much the whole season so far with a succession of niggling injuries, FPL managers are being confronted with the difficult decision of when - or whether - to transfer him into their squads.

With Mo Salah having proved to be worthless this season, and - so far - Isak and Watkins having failed to stake any claim on our attention either, there really hasn't been much pressure on budget in the 2025/26 FPL season; but there is always some budget-pinch. (Player spending always expands to consume whatever funds you have available...)  With Haaland still being, for now, that great rarity, a true FPL 'essential', and fiendishly expensive (especially if you didn't have him from the start of the season, but only acquired him after his price had begun to shoot up further!), and other moderately expensive players like Thiago and Woltemade and the top Arsenal or Palace defenders also having become 'must-haves' for most FPL managers, there isn't that much spare cash knocking around for anyone.

Hence, this really becomes a Saka/Palmer Conundrum: Bukayo Saka is the only similarly priced player, and one of the only midfielders at any price-point who's currently playing well and producing points; so, if you fancy acquiring Palmer, the only convenient pathway to him is to swap out Saka. There doesn't seem to be any reasonable way to afford both of them. And if you don't have Saka (rather surprisingly, only 21.5% of FPL managers do at the moment), it's still going to be awkward to juggle your budget around to accommodate such an expensive new acquisition as Palmer - probably requiring the use of multiple transfers (unless you had a lot of unspent money somehow swilling around in the kitty...).

Now, I am a huge fan of Palmer. And I do believe that he is a slightly 'better' player than Saka, both in real-world terms and for FPL purposes (though it's a foolhardy and unnecessary comparison - they are different types of player, with different strengths and weaknesses): Palmer has more variety in his game (though that's very largely down to how their managers make use of the two players), is more the principal playmaker (where Saka is merely a primus inter pares amongst many strong attacking options, and largely plays second-fiddle to Odegaard as the main creative force in the team), and - when really on song - is an even more prolific provider of both goals and assists.

But there's the crux of the matter. Palmer went through a long spell last year - most of the second-half of the season - where his FPL productivity fell off a cliff. It wasn't really his fault; the rest of the team had stopped performing around him. But that continues to be a problem with Chelsea: they can be astoundingly brilliant in individual games or short runs of games, but Enzo Maresca still doesn't seem to have been able to build any lasting consistency or resilience into their play. And that has continued to be the case this season, with embarrassing losses to the likes of Brighton, Manchester United, Sunderland and Leeds interspersed among some much more impressive performances. 

So, even 'peak' Palmer might fail to produce very much if the rest of his team is misfiring. And after such an extended lay-off, it will surely take him a little while to get back to his best. He was pulled after less than an hour against Bournemouth last week, and was immediately given a precautionary rest again, rather than being brought along as a bench option for the Champions League game against Atalanta on Tuesday. He's not physically anywhere near 100% yet; and recovering full mental sharpness might take a bit longer still. 

Furthermore, Chelsea's upcoming fixtures aren't the best from now through till the beginning of January: Newcastle and City away, and defensively solid Everton, Villa and Bournemouth at home.

For me, this is clearly a wait-and-see decision. In present circumstances, it would be far too much of a risk to go in for Palmer straight away, before he's shown that he's recovered his best form; and also far too disruptive of your existing squad, if you had to sacrifice Saka (or one or more of your other more expensive players) for him, and/or make multiple other changes to rebalance your budget. [Well, damn, he did immediately come up with a very nice goal against Everton in Gameweek 16. But he said afterwards that he's still recovering from the groin problem, and he was again withdrawn a few minutes shy of the hour-mark. So, I stand by my assessment here that he's probably still some weeks away from being anywhere near his best again.]

Saka might prove to be expendable - though largely because there are so many rival claimants to a squad place from the limited club quota at Arsenal. Their defence is so superior to every other team's that we'll probably all want Gabriel again as soon as he's back, while also hanging on to another of their defenders (most probably Timber or Calafiori). Rice is looking like he could be a more consistent midfield points-producer than Saka this year. And there will probably be other attacking options - Trossard, particularly, but also perhaps Havertz or Merino or Martinelli on occasion - who merit consideration for short spells when they hit a scoring streak.

Saka, although he's been playing very well, hasn't yet produced the big points that we've often seen from him in the past (especially in the opening third of last season). And maybe he won't - as Arteta usually imposes a very limited and disciplined role on him, out wide on the right; and, as opponents get more used to these patterns of attack, they defend against them better, often double-teaming the tricky Saka when he gets near the box. 

I have a feeling that Saka is on the brink of exploding again in FPL: and today's game against Wolves would be a prime opportunity for him to do so! But I suspect that, this season, he will probably only contribute big FPL points in short 'hot streaks' - and we might find ourselves looking to move him in and out of FPL squads to take advantage of these, rather than relying on him as a long-term hold. Indeed, even when on such a hot streak - even when he's producing better than Palmer - we might still find ourselves able to do without him, because there are three or more Arsenal players who are even more worth having in those games. (YES - because of the way FPL works, requiring you to balance so many factors of available budget, points-per-pound value, differential scoring and points spreads across position categories, and restricted club quota, Palmer [or anyone else] can be the best midfield pick without being the highest midfield points-producer.)

I also think that Palmer will recapture his best form again at some point this season, possibly quite soon. And when he does, he'll probably be more worth having than Saka - or anybody else. But..... NOT YET. Wait and see.

It's NEVER a binary

 

Well, almost never.

Any time you think a selection decision comes down to a straight EITHER/OR choice - you're almost certainly being naive, superficial, way oversimplifying things.

You're probably missing something important - and perhaps relatively obvious; but you've somehow developed a blind spot for it!

Even if you think you've narrowed down the final decision to a choice between two alternatives, starting from a larger pool of options, there's a danger that you've dismissed some of those other options too easily, without giving them full consideration. And you've very likely to have overlooked some possibilities altogether.

We see this most commonly with the captaincy pick: people very often ask on online forums, "Should I give the armband to x or y this week?" And it should never be that simple. Even over the past few years, when Salah and Haaland have been so dominant, and mostly so consistent, that they have offered a strong captaincy option in almost every gameweek,.... they've actually fairly seldom been the best one. If you have a decent squad, there should almost always be at least 4 or 5 possibilities for your captaincy, often more; don't narrow your focus down to the 'big names' too quickly!

The field is usually even broader with transfers: there are almost always several members of your squad you might consider swapping out, and several new players you might consider to replace any of them. By all means, winnow these options down to a more manageable number; but don't be in a mad rush to do so. Keep your mind as open as possible, for as long as possible.

[Now, at the start of this season, we did seem to be faced with one clear binary choice: Haaland and Salah were the only two super-premium players in the game this year, but priced way too high for us to reasonably afford both of them (at least, at the very start of the season, when budget is a bit tight - and we all thought we'd want Saka, Palmer, Cunha as well,... and maybe even Watkins or Gyokeres,... and perhaps Isak too, before long....). But, given their propensity to both start the season really hot, we probably did regard having one of them as essential; and we had to choose between them.

That was a very rare example of a selection decision being a genuine binary. But..... even there, perhaps there were other possibilities we should have given some more thought to: maybe we could have tried to do without either of them??  Maybe we should have done without Saka, Palmer etc. instead, and beggared the squad to squeeze in both of them?? I thought not; but I did give it careful consideration.]

A little bit of Zen (60)

 

"Sometimes, impatience is also a virtue."

GW

I usually stress the importance of patience in dealing with the challenges of FPL, but.... sometimes there is a case for moving swiftly to take advantage of an opportunity - being bold, decisive, trusting your gut.... (Thinking mainly about transfers here, though; and maybe even occasionally taking a 'hit' for one; not about chip play!!)

A little bit of Zen (59)

 

"All problems are important; but some are urgent, and some can wait."

Anonymous spokesman for the Vietnamese Communist government, shortly after Reunification in 1975

This is a somewhat ominous line, since it appears that the official here might have been intending to refer, at least partly, to the problem of internal dissent, and the Party's evolving plans for mass internment in 're-education through labour' camps. (In the first weeks after the fall of Saigon, the feared backlash against anyone associated with the government, military, or civil service of the former South Vietnam seemed not to be materialising, or at least not at anything like the rate or scale that had been widely anticipated. They took a couple of months on their planning before getting around to it....)

The general idea, though, has a broad applicability. A lot of FPL managers rush into drastic remedial action after only two or three 'bad' weeks, or even just one such week. They don't seem to realise how valuable that Wildcard will probably be a little later in the season, how wasteful is its early use (especially right at the start of the season!). They don't realise that it's very common to have a bad start to the season, when there are so many additional unpredictabilities about form and line-ups and results. They don't realise that two or three poor gameweeks back-to-back scarcely even counts as a disappointing 'run' - and that you can have several genuinely disappointing runs in a season, and will in fact be very lucky to get away with having fewer than 3 or 4 such spells. As I said at the end of that earlier post I just linked to: "A Wildcard is for emergencies; a bad Gameweek 1 (or even a bad opening three Gameweeks) is NOT an emergency."

Unless you find yourself in the rare, horrible condition of having made several obviously bad choices in your initial squad, already have several key players who are injured, or not getting the minutes you expected, or are just playing really, really badly (or are stuck in teams which are playing really badly, which is even more frustrating...),... then you should restrict yourself to isolated, 'essential' changes for now, trying to make do with your meagre ration of Free Transfers. And if you feel you really must make more changes than that, try to limit them to one or two, and bite the bullet on accepting the 'hit' - paying the points for the additional transfer(s).  Using the first Wildcard before the end of September (which is still early; only a few weeks after the end of the transfer window and the jarring interruption of the first international break: form and line-ups still haven't fully settled down....) is a sign of desperation, and almost always self-harming. DON'T DO IT - UNLESS YOU ABOLUTELY HAVE TO!!!

[I came across the above quotation last week in Andrea Pitzer's excellent book on the history of concentration camps, One Long Night - a grim read, but an informative and thought-provoking one.]

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!!

Always worth it to fill a points-hole

 

Many FPL managers seem to have a rigid superstition against taking 'hits' (paying points for an additional transfer), EVER. That is ridiculous and self-harming.

The architects of the game have shrewdly priced a 'hit' at 4 points (in some other Fantasy games, it's only 3 points!) - just enough to dissuade you from using them frivolously!

But you should expect to make on average at least 5 points per match from each member of your starting eleven. Of course, you may sometimes come up shy of that. And the returns are never evenly distributed: your keeper and defenders rarely get much more than 3 or 4 points, but you're hoping a few of your star midfielders or forwards might often chip in 8 or 10 points.

Nevertheless, it is a very modest gamble to spend 4 points filling a gap in your starting eleven. You should have a very good chance of making that back, even with a defensive player [UPDATE: that chance has probably been significantly improved in the 25/26 season with the introduction of additional 'defensive points']; you're risking usually no more than a 1 or 2 point loss, against the chance that they might show a 'profit' if they manage to keep a clean sheet or produce an attacking return. For an attacking player, the odds in your favour are much stronger - or a least, the 'upside', the points 'profit' you could make from a good return is likely to be far higher.

If the player you're replacing is likely to be out for a while, you'll get further value from your new transfer across subsequent weeks, which is a small further offset to the initial points-spend on him.

And if you defer making this needful change until the following week, you could just be storing up further trouble for yourself: you might get hit with another injury, and still have to spend the points to get back up to full strength.

Moreover, it you have a hole in your starting eleven, this implies that you've already emptied your bench; so, you're really in a major crisis - sooner or later, you're going to have to take the 'hits' to get things back on track: it might as well be sooner.

Purely elective transfers, swapping out a starter just because you fancy another player more - that's a whole different story. They are ALMOST NEVER worth spending a 'hit' on.

I honestly don't think I've ever found myself in the situation of even being tempted by it - because I don't hang on to players that I'm starting to hate, or fail to bring in players who are starting to show hot form. I can't see how someone finds themselves in a situation where they have a player who is so bad, and they covet a transfer who is so good, that that they can be really confident that the coveted transfer will outscore the despised incumbent by MORE THAN 4 POINTS. I mean, HOW is that possible???

An incumbent player in your team who is at least a starter is almost guaranteed to get a minimum of 2 points, and might well get more. So, the proposed transfer has to score at least 7 points to be worthwhile. That is very, very unlikely. There may be extreme cases - really hot player, really good fixture; and you see further value from him (over the guy you're desperate to dump) in the following run of games too - but that's going to be a rare, rare event; and even then, it's a risk.

To sum up, spending points to plug a hole in your starting eleven is ALWAYS worth the gamble.

Spending points just because the grass looks greener is ALMOST NEVER worth it.

Timing of transfers

 

It's one of the perennial controversies in FPL-land: should you make transfers early, to dodge possible price changes, or make them late, to avoid risk of a new signing immediately getting injured before he plays a game for you?

I veer very decidedly towards the former view. Price changes are indeed worth avoiding; but unlike injuries, they're fairly readily predictable (and also rather more common).

If the risk of an imminent price-rise on the player you covet (and/or of a fall on the one you're looking to offload) is not an issue, then, yes, of course you wait until shortly before the deadline, to be on the safe side. But the danger is not that the player you bring in will immediately get injured in training before he even plays for you (yes, that has happened to me; but not often - and I'm extremely unlucky; that kind of misfortune is super-rare); it's that another member of your squad may get injured, whose replacement becomes a higher priority. (But hey, that's what 'hits' are for.)

If, however, your desired change is price-sensitive, and a price change seems likely, then you should move fast to secure the deal.

Similarly, you have to avoid losing squad value on injured players. (Although FPL allegedly tweaks its algorithm to slow down the rate of price decrease on injured players, they do still drop value - often quite fast.) When I see a player of mine get badly injured in a game, I usually transfer him out immediately (before I forget!); I mean, really, while the match is still in progress.

The risk of injury during a single week - such that it could impact on a new transfer - is greatly overrated by most people. Curiously, even the European competitions (where you'd think that the additional stresses of air travel, and unfamiliar playing times, and often drastic changes of climate might add significantly to the injury risk) seem to produce a far lower rate of injuries than our own Premier League. And in international matches (which, even when 'competitive', are often against relatively weak opposition, and always far less intense than domestic league games; moreover, the training for them is also far less intense, and top players tend to get limited minutes), it's fairly negligible. 

Actually, in my experience, injuries in domestic training are far more common than in any matches outside the Premier League programme. So, I never have major worries about transferring in a player ahead of an international or a European game. (I'll avoid it if I can, but it's nothing to get your knickers in a knot over.)

Just as I said about the Wildcard last week, the mantra should be: Make your transfers as late as you can, but as early as you need to.