Fantasy Football Tips Game-week 31

Fantasy Football Tips Game-week 31 – Fantasy Premier League 2015/16

And so like the proverbial bus… We waited and waited for weeks and then suddenly at 3pm on Tuesday afternoon the Premier League piped up with no less than 19 fixture rearrangements, all of which are now part of either DGW34 or DGW37. There’s still one to be decided but we shall come to that later. And so ensued panic and excitement in equal measure. There are a few camps on this, those with a WC to burn and some chips to throw on that fire, those with chips but no WC fire to burn them on and those poor souls with neither who are currently just staring at a pile of wood, with damp matches. We shall come to those losers later as well!

Much of the discussion since the announcements has centred largely around which is the best strategy to use ahead of the DGW’s, which week is more favourable to play the WC in and how to utilise the remaining chips accordingly. To that end we have asked a couple of site members, both of whom are well known for their meticulous planning and preparation (and both of whom crucially have their WC, Bench Boost and Triple Captain chips to play), to give us their views on the best strategy ahead and let us know their feelings on a key question – WC to prepare for DGW34 or DGW37? Over to Inittowinit and DMC…

Just before we get to the lads though here is a re-cap on the state of play.

The DGW’s on our fixture tracker look like this –

That means it’s a DGW34 for –
Arsenal
Crystal Palace
Everton
Liverpool
Man City
Man United
Newcastle
Watford
West Brom
West Ham

That’s 10 teams, 5 of those then miss GW35! –
Crystal Palace
Everton
Man United
Watford
West Ham

Norwich are the outlier here with no DGW34 but it’s worth noting that they also miss GW35.

Onto GW37 and there are 8 involved, 4 of whom blanked in GW35 –
Chelsea
Everton (blank GW35)
Liverpool
Man United (blank GW35)
Norwich
Sunderland
Watford (blank GW35)
West Ham (blank GW35)

The elephant in the corner – Crystal Palace v Everton
This is the one fixture which is yet to be rearranged. It could however play a big part in our planning. The likelihood of it being in either of the other DGW’s and therefore producing a ‘Treble GW’ are slim. The most likely scenario is that it will be slotted into GW35. This is subject to UEFA approval as it would be on a Champions League week and they will of course look for compensation and fines, such is their want. For us though it would make a GW34 wildcard much more attractive as two of the teams featuring in 34 would then NOT also face a blank in 35.

A note on the wildcard and chip usage in general…
This has been widely discussed but may just be worth reiterating – your wildcard is classed as a chip, you cannot therefore deploy it on the same week as say your bench boost or triple captain. Please do not fall into this trap! You will need to play it the week preceding the DGW itself. So a live example would be that you have decided to play your bench boost for DGW34 and want to wildcard so as to fill your squad up with 15 DGW players – you would therefore need to play your wildcard in GW33 and then your bench boost in GW34 itself.

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And so over to the lads and their opening statements…

The case for Wildcarding in GW37 – DMC…
Wildcard, BB, AOA and TC! All four chips to play and only eight rounds to go! Well make that ten given that in between there are two massive DGW in 34 and of course 37 (plus a blank for 6 teams in 35…).

The much awaited DGW 34 offers 15 matches, meaning half the EPL teams essentially play twice. Surely we must use our patiently saved wildcard (not you Cookie!) on GW 33 to stack our teams with all those double gangers and activate the famous bench boost on GW34 itself giving us an all but guaranteed 60 points(!) to start before a ball is even kicked! And then, of course, while our ML rivals are still trying to understand what happened we strike them down with triple captain on GW37.

However, the coin always has two sides and that strategy definitely offers some unpleasant surprises around the corner. In fact, there’s a case to be made about actually saving your wildcard now and only using it on DGW37. It’s not that we don’t want 15 players playing twice; it’s what we are jeopardizing to be able to do so. Bear with me:
Firstly, if you do want XV doublers on GW34, you’ll need to ditch the likes of Mahrez, Vardy, Kane, Arnie, Aldo and Alli, just to name a few, who don’t play twice! And there simply aren’t enough GW’s left to ease them back into your team. Also, given that these players also top the charts for the Price Rise Table (season), including a massive +1.9 for the Leicester boys, there’s every chance that you simply won’t have the dosh to buy them back. Not without another wild card anyway… Let’s face it, if you sell these guys now – all of whom are in the top 10 for points – you probably won’t get them back. That’s 6 of the best players in the FPL.

Secondly, if you do part company with them while activating your WC on GW33 this means that you will be without them for 6 rounds! Yeah, good luck with that. Imagine life without Mahrez for the first 6 rounds…
You’ll be told that Leicester and Spurs have tough fixtures after GW34 – and they are not easy, indeed, especially for the latter, that there’s a risk of rotation for the last few games of the season or even that lots of managers would have parted company with them anyway, meaning “no one” relevant will be buying them back. Well, those are all bold statements, to say he least, and it will require a very brave or very dumb manager to attack the run in without the best players of the top 2 teams in the league. Not for me, no.

And lastly, but surely not least, there’s absolutely no point on stacking up our teams with doublers for GW34 that don’t have a game on GW35. Such is the case for 5 out of those 10 teams with a double on GW34, including Everton, Man Utd and West Ham (who quite amusingly offer some of the best DGW34 combos).

So, depending on your current situation regarding i) How many doublers you already have, ii) How many free transfers you have between GW31 and DGW34 (either 4 or 5) and of course iii) Whether you are defending or chasing a ML or a specific #rank, there’s a case to be made about mixing it up a bit.

It does indeed seem sensible – and, yes, it is still time for that – to actually stack in as many doublers as you can with free transfers until DGW34 (Pool and Arsenal, surely) and then hit the BB chip while keeping 3/4 of those above mentioned must-haves and of course your wildcard, which you’ll then be able to use on GW37.
In between or indeed on GW38 you can still deploy your TC and or AOA if you still have them, which will surely get you a long way in those final moments of the game.

With this strategy, you will not have 15 doublers in any of these DGW’s, but you’ll have between 8-10 now and surely 11 on that almost final DGW37. Otherwise, that is, if you go the WC on 33 + BB on 34 route you will surely have 15 on DGW34 but you don’t know how many you’ll be able to play in DGW37 AND you’ll probably lose important players in the process.

So, rather than deplete your entire squad just now with a wildcard on GW33, I suggest you get 8-10 doublers for DGW34 without hits (if you can), keep at least 2-3 of those must haves you already have and hit BB on DGW34. You’ll then have Mahrez, Vardy, Kane, Alli as actual differentials between 33 and 36 and you may ruthlessly apply your secretly hidden wildcard to stack 11 doublers (44-ish ‘guaranteed’ points) on that last gasp DGW37 and know your players actually have a game rather than a blank in GW38.

Think about it. But don’t over think it! Best of luck everyone.

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A case for Wildcarding ahead of GW34 – Inittowinit…
Wow! What a powerful and persuasive opening statement from my learned friend. It’s all lies though I tell you! It’s predicated on half-truths, wrong assumptions, the defendant is corrupt and the witnesses lied under oath…

Well, ok, none of that’s true either but allow me to rebut and tell you why I believe the best strategy here is to WC in GW33 and Bench Boost in DGW34, whilst avoiding the pitfalls of GW35 and planning again for GW37 and using your Triple Captain in that one.

To begin with it’s worth pointing out my own situation here. I’m chasing down a lead in my ML and the three rivals above me have just 1x Triple Captain chip left. And that’s between the lot of them. They’re basically coming to a gun fight armed with a daffodil. And I fully intend to unleash merry hell upon them. Beginning with DGW34. And here’s how…

Fundamentally I agree with DMC above on his DGW37 strategy but that also feels risky leaving my own charge so late. I’m going to attack 34 and see where that leaves me. Hopefully it leaves me in a healthy position in my ML but it also allows me some breathing space afterwards if I still need to pull something out of the hat. Leaving it until 37 may be too late with just the one week left to do something special. As it stands now I will WC in 33, stacking up with 15 players playing in 34 and hit my bench boost in 34 itself. Looking at my rivals teams they will be going into 34 with about 8 or 9 DGW’ers only. If they have more it’s because they’ve taken a ton of hits to get them there, which is even better! So let’s say they have 9, that’s effectively 18 double players and 2 singles, so 20 playing in total. I’ll have 30. So that’s a 10 man advantage. My average score so far this season, per week, is 53 and so I can reasonably expect on average to be seeing a return of a 48 point advantage. In theory.

But what about GW35 I hear you ask! Well, this is the one that will take either a small bit of smart planning or a huge slice of luck! The plan is to save my GW34 transfer and therefore have two ahead of GW35. That should easily see me be able to field a full 11 in GW35. The luck part would be that the Palace v Everton fixture is scheduled for 35 in the meantime in which case happy days!

But what about losing your Leicester and Spurs cover I hear you ask! Well, this is an issue too I must admit but I feel that Leicester have toned it down a lot in recent weeks, they have their game faces on and the earlier season devil may care attitude has been replaced with a more cautious approach. I submit their recent narrow 1-0 victories against Norwich, Watford and Newcastle as evidence. They are the sort of games in which they were previously blowing the opposition out of the water. I feel Ranieri has come over all Italian in his approach to getting this one over the line. As for Spurs, other than West Brom at home in 35 their other games aren’t jumping out at me as being goal fests. I shall probably bring Kane back in 35 and leave it at that.

In the interests of fairness & honesty I should at this stage point out that I am a little wary of attacking 34 and not 37 with the WC and BB due to rotation and the small matter of the FA Cup semi-finals. Yes, Everton, Man United, Watford and West Ham may all have an attractive looking DGW34 but they all also have an FA Cup semi-final only a few small days after their second game that week. Bearing in mind that the FA Cup represents the only real chance of silverware for all of these teams I’d expect a certain degree of rest and rotation for that second game. Would Everton dare send a scratch team to Anfield though? You betcha and they have history in this respect. Back in 2012 the same scenario presented itself (a trip to Anfield followed by an all important FA Cup quarter-final just days later) and they did indeed rotate massively. They got hammered by Liverpool but ultimately progressed to Wembley. Granted, this was under Moyes but that’s even worse as he barely, if ever, rotated, Martinez has no such qualms in that respect! If you know your history and all that… #COYB Despite these fears I’ll still be wildcarding in GW33!
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The Verdict
Thanks for your opinions boys. We hope all of that helps some decide one way or the other but most likely it will just confuse many others further! As for ‘the verdict’, well as they say, the proof will be in the pudding on that one and clearly there is more than one way to skin a cat. We are sure the site community will have their say as always and we look forward to seeing which way everybody decides to swing.

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The twitter poll
We decided to ask the twitter masses which GW they were planning to use the WC as preparation for. At the time of writing we had 1165 votes cast. The results showed that 47% favoured DGW34 to just 18% for DGW37. 35% of those were in the ‘losers’ tent. Excluding the latter then this means that 548 or 72% of those, WITH a WC, said they are going for it early doors and just 209 or 28% are favouring the 37 strategy.

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A note on the ‘losers’!
We jest of course, but if you do find yourself in the camp that saw the second wildcard emerge in January and reacted like a dog with two dicks then you may be regretting whipping that bad boy out so soon, just about now! Fear not though. You have at least 4 transfers, maybe 5, to gather up some DGW coverage. The downside is that you will basically be using every transfer from here until there to do so, whilst your more patient rivals maybe won’t give a toss about that until nearer the time and be buying in the likes of Siggy (v Villa) in the meantime with not a DGW care in the world. Don’t feel bad, put it down to experience. And hope it’s DGW rotation central for those involved! On the plus side you’ll probably opt to keep the likes of Spurs and Leicester coverage whereas the WC’ers and Bench Boosters may not. Only time will tell which one is the correct course of action…

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Game-week 31. This article was written by Inittowinit and DMC

Follow @AdamalcockFF247

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