To Free Hit, or not to Free Hit – BGW29

Welcome to To Free Hit, or not to Free Hit – BGW29

Carrying on with our recent theme of asking the writing team to simply stick their own teams up, and then talk us through their plans to negotiate things like DGW’s, here comes the real challenging one – a BGW, with… 4 fixtures! And not particularly great ones at that.

We have all heard the threats of Free Hit teams, and others saying they will simply live with whatever they can get from it, so now is ‘put up or shut up’ time. Show us your all singing, all dancing free hit wonders, or indeed the distinct lack of them. Oh, and give a brief explanation. Very brief.

To Free Hit…

GEAR

Brief you say?

Reason I’m on a Free Hit: See Jamie’s team below!

Captain pick: Ivan Toney, simply because Burnley have conceded the 2nd most goals in the league this season.

This enough?

LOUD ATLAS

£10.4m in my virtual piggy bank means it’s not going to be a gameweek to set pulses racing. Never has a blank gameweek looked so unappetising frankly, but it’s a chance to get more points on the board than managers who aren’t able to field a whole team. Maybe!

I’m going with the most attacking players I can think of for my outfield players. If the defence get a clean sheet, then that’s a bonus. And double defence against Burnley will turn out ok, surely?!

Captain: Son, the premium in-form midfielder for the week. VC on Toney, just in case.

DMC

FH in BGW29 for me was a given as I simply didn’t have enough players even if I built towards it when it became more clear who would have a game and who would not. For that reason, I committed myself to it and played the next few GW’s without even looking at BGW29 knowing that when the time would come I would FH. That time is here, and this is my current draft. Still debating a double up in attack with Wissa joining Toney instead of Fofana and the defender spots may also be subject to changes, namely Reguilón if we hear he’s indeed back, as may have transpired today.

Or not to Free Hit…

JAMIE MC

Sometimes a pic speaks a thousand words.

Especially when it’s a pic of words…

SMASH

One free transfer and two million in the bank.

So this is the week basically everyone is free hitting. Content creators on YouTube/Twitter were all against this as FH29 had a low ceiling. However they overly chased the Liverpool double and bought Hwang as he was essential at home to Sheffield United and soon realised they don’t have enough players, so do appear to have changed their minds. Honestly there are advantages as to using it this week, but most have strong teams and you ultimately get your team back if you use the FH chip. I do however think that you could easily get by if you have the core players as I would be surprised if there are many clean sheets.

I waffle, what am I doing? I have been building to saving the FH. I’ve not suffered in the lead up I have been buying players with good fixtures keeping the likes of Son and Palmer. I will go into the week with all the main assets I feel except Maddison who I’m just short of buying for Richarlison. I will have 10 players but my moves do hinge on Richarlison. Toney in for Solanke seems pretty easy. If Richarlison is out I might downgrade to Bailey and go for Muniz instead of Toney which gives me the cash to shift Bowen to Salah. If I go Toney it’s an extra -4. Reguilon looks likely to be fit so that is one less headache. I have Son, Watkins, and Bowen in place already and they are the high ceiling players I think. I don’t feel it will be a high scoring week and I would be surprised if my team is far off from a lot of the FH sides.

IVAN

0 FT- 14.1 ITB

Replaced Saka with Son on Sunday night to avoid the price increase. The obvious reason is that he has a blank in GW29 followed by an away game to Man City. That gives me 8 players and with a hit might stretch it to 9, which is plenty for such a poor GW. The transfer will be decided at the eleventh hour. As always!

My plan is to use the FH in GW 34 which is expected to be a mixture of blank and double teams. Which fixtures we will be facing should become clear before the GW 31 deadline.

STONE FROG

In contrast to the other writers, I played the WC in GW27 (Hwang, Richarlison and other fires) and plan to FH34 and BB37. I probably went 1 or 2 players too deep into DGW28, but I plan to bank the transfer this week (playing 10) with the aim to switch Bowen and Barkley to Salah and Palmer in GW30. I will have enough ITB for Watkins to Haaland in GW31 with ~0.7m left over.

The armband is on Son this week, as he is the most explosive option with 7 double-digit hauls already this season, closely followed by Watkins.

Thanks for reading To Free Hit, or not to Free Hit – BGW29. This article was written by Gear, Loud Atlas, DMC, Smash, Ivan, Stone Frog and Jamie Mc.

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