Martin Odegaard’s injury over the international break will have Fantasy Premier League managers leaning towards their Wildcard chip.
The news of Arsenal’s captain twisting his ankle while playing for Norway would have had sweat forming on thousands of FPL bosses’ foreheads across the country.
And with his Gunners teammate Riccardo Calafiori and Manchester City’s Nathan Ake also picking up knocks, many will be considering shaking their side up ahead of Gameweek 4.
Of the numerous chips supplied to FPL managers, each season’s two Wildcards are arguably the most coveted. Instead of the usual weekly free transfer that can boost your 15-man squad, activation allows an unlimited number of Gameweek changes without any kind of points deduction.
Managers can use their first one anytime until late December – but over 580,000 have already made the decision to do it during this international break.
There’s still other opportunities to play that golden chip, though, and Fantasy Football Scout has three perfect times for you to use your Wildcard this season. Ahead of each Gameweek, the Scout will be using their expertise to provide talkSPORT readers with useful tips that could improve rankings and eventually win mini-leagues.
Gameweek 4
Activating now unlocks a fortnight of thinking, with the ability to react to national team injuries like Martin Odegaard’s (£8.4m).
If any of his owners also need to fix their early Christopher Nkunku (£6.2m), Jarell Quansah (£4.3m) and Valentin Barco (£4.0m) mistakes, wildcarding lets them immediately stop the rot.
Additionally, eight teams are about to have consecutive home matches – which look particularly tasty for Liverpool, Brighton and Aston Villa.
There’s also the added benefit of enhancing squad value. In FPL, player prices increase and decrease by £0.1m once a certain threshold of buys and sales are reached. Recent weeks have seen plenty of both and wildcarders can take advantage by quickly jumping onto new bandwagons.
However, the drawback is that we’re still very early into the campaign. Perhaps more information is needed before committing to big decisions.
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Gameweek 6
Would a further two weeks be enough? The expected popularity of a Gameweek 6 Wildcard will be based on fixture swings.
At the same time that things get tougher for Liverpool, Brighton and Newcastle, schedules improve massively for Arsenal, Brentford, Everton and West Ham.
This season, player pricing makes it hard to own all the best individuals like Mohamed Salah (£12.7m), Bukayo Saka (£10.1m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.0m) and Alexander Isak (£8.5m). So activating a Wildcard here is a fluid way to move from expensive Liverpool to Arsenal stars.
By this point, we’ll have seen which players are vulnerable to Champions League line-up rotation but those managers with several current fires to put out might not have time to fall further behind.
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Gameweek 12
Then again, some may be lucky enough to hold off on chip usage for a bit longer. If you’ve successfully avoided problematic players and are set up well for upcoming fixtures, these regular free transfers should get you by until Gameweek 12.
It coincides with November’s international break, providing two weeks of tinkering around before positive fixture swings for Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brighton, Chelsea and Man United.
Although other managers may envy your ability to still use it, waiting until this point could conversely be seen as a lack of pro-activity that also missed out on team value growth.
Visit FantasyFootballScout.co.uk to find out more.
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