Thread by @FplEye

🎗️First Wildcard Strategy | Thread (1/2)📝| Fixture Guide✅

Here I'll talk about

• When to play your Wildcard
• Benefits of playing WC in GW7/GW8/GW12
• Fixtures to target
• Fixture guide for Wildcarding in GW7 or GW8
• Fixture guide for Wildcarding in GW12

I wrote this article for @allaboutfpl which was published yesterday. If you prefer to read a well-structured version of it, please check out the link below!

There, you'll get much more info and an in-depth analysis of my reasoning with extra tips.

allaboutfpl.com/2021/09/when-t…

Q: When to play your first wildcard?

Actually, there’s no specific time to play your WC. Especially, the first one at least. Before starting the season, it’s hard to predict how different teams will play and who’s going to perform or not.

A lot of changes take place even after the season gets started. People start to get more information about the starting lineups and can assess the teams even more deeply. Sometimes, you’d want to take in the players who are in great form or good budget enablers ASAP.

You should play your first wildcard whenever you feel you are missing out on all the big point hauls continuously and it doesn’t seem to be improved any time soon. Normally, I think if you get below weekly average points for consecutive 3-4 weeks, your team probably doesn’t...

look good to go for a longer period of time. Another popular way is, when you need/want to take hits more than 12 points (-12) to shape up, that’s when you should activate your WC. But you never should be reactionary and play the wildcard out of anger after one bad GW.

However, the Wildcard Strategy that I'll be focusing on here is ‘Fixture Swings + International Break’.

The best two options are GW8 (perhaps GW7?) or GW12. Let’s get into details and see how to make this plan a successful one.

Benefits of GW7:

• Getting into the CHE fixture swing right away
• Better for team value as CHE players will rise and MUN players will fall
• Lukaku, arguably the best captaincy option
• Spurs has AVL(GW7) and NEW(GW8) if you want to take Spurs players early

Benefits of GW8:

• Wildcarding during the International break is safe for potential injury problems
• Chance of taking one or two week punt and transfer out MCI & LIV players before getting them back
• Holding MUN assets against EVE(H) GW7 which isn’t a bad fixture at all

• Can hold onto Sarr & Antonio for GW7 who's got good fixtures in GW7 and poor afterward

Benefits of GW12:

• More data to assess
• MUN, MCI, Spurs, LIV fixture swing
• Longer easy fixture runs than GW8
• More predictable lineups and form
• Another International break

𝐅𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭

Teams to avoid:

Clearly, NEW, NOR, LEE & BUR are the teams to target as they’ve got the worst defensive performance so far this season. Early in the season, ARS also struggled defensively but they’re turning things around recently.

Teams to consider:

One thing for sure, newly promoted Brentford has been surprisingly good defensively. Moreover, all the big names like MCI, CHE, and LIV have all been good at defending as expected.

𝐅𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐖𝟕/𝐆𝐖𝟖

🔘Chelsea

I think at least one of the CHE defensive assets is a ‘must have’ for the GW8 WC teams given their outstanding defensive records since the start of Tuchel era.

A good run of fixtures GW7-GW12:

Though they have good fixture in GW7 against SOU, I suggest playing the WC in GW8 because of the international break. Also, SOU have been pretty good defensively against big teams this season. For one GW, the managers would have to sacrifice an asset or two from Chelsea and hope

..they don’t punish them badly. In this case, managers can use their FT (Free Transfer) to take at least one of their players to cover for the GW if possible.

Odds of keeping Clean Sheets via @drafthound

👿Manchester United

Another reason to play your WC in GW8 could be the bad run of fixtures for MUN. To get CHE players, managers will have to let go of some big names from their team and MUN players could be the ones to avoid.

Bad run of fixtures GW9-GW13 via @PremierFPLTools

🐺WOLVES

Apart from GW5, WOL have been defensively very solid. I suggest the managers to assess GW6 and GW7 to decide whether to invest in Wolves defense or not. For now, they’re not performing to the expectations yet.

A moderately good run of fixtures GW7-GW14

🟦Manchester City

MCI have been the best defensive side so far in the season which was seen clearly in the earlier stats. Many say, they’re one of the teams who are fixture proof. The problem is the infamous “Pep Roulette”.

A good run of fixtures GW8-GW10

🔴Arsenal

Improvement in xG Conceded:
GW1-GW4 xGC per 90 mins 2.00
GW5-GW6 xGC per 90 mins 0.95

After a bad start in this season, Arsenal are slowly turning things around. They’ve now kept two back to back Clean Sheets (CS).

A good run of fixtures GW8-GW13 [apart from GW12]

📍Southampton

SOU have defended against the good attacking sides very well this season. They’ve kept two clean sheets in their last two games against mighty MCI and in form WHU.

Good run of fixtures GW8-GW12

⚪️LEEDS

Bielsa’s side is in very bad shape because of several injuries to their important players. I suggest keeping up with the news and then to take the final decision regarding the availability of the players.

A good run of fixtures GW7-GW11

𝐅𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐖𝟏𝟐

✅Good Fixtures:
LIV: Long run GW12-GW26
MUN: Long run GW12-GW22
MCI: Medium run GW12-GW18
TOT: Small run GW12-GW15
LEI :Small run GW13-GW16

❌Bad Fixtures:
ARS: Bad run of fixtures GW12-GW17

💡Verdict:
The decision will depend on the current structure of your team. If your team is in a good shape and you can manage to get CHE assets with your FTs, I think you should hold onto your WC until GW12. There are more teams who have longer easy fixture runs from GW12 than..

..in GW8. Also, by then, you’ll get a bigger dataset to work on. But don’t push it, if you think you’re team needs fixing then it’s absolutely fine to play your wildcard in GW8. Also, GW12 might be too late for you to bounce back in the ranks if you’re struggling now.

Thanks for reading! 🙏

Next week, I will continue this thread and write "Wildcard Strategy Part 2 -The Players to Target".

FDR from premierfantasytools.com
Data from fbref.com, drafthound.com

Likes and RTs are appreciated. ♥️
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