The Bench Boost remains active..

A quick update on the wildcard. Overall it went quite well. However, there was a touch of bad luck with Rodri getting sent off. That messed up my longer term plans a little. Though, saying that, I did get a bit of good luck too, as I took the red-carded Gusto out of my side. Not to mention Chilwell and Wan-Bissaka, who are now both injured. So, all in all, more good luck than bad in truth.

(75 points - the average was 68,

Rodri the main downside)

So, the planned Bench Boost.

Common sense says that it should have been cancelled. It was somewhat unwise to begin with, given the players that have doubles. With Newcastle looking imperious (it's not hard to imagine they'll do similar to Burnley), and flags all over the place, it should now most certainly be cancelled.

That's not what I'm doing though. The fun of playing it has overruled any fears and caution 😬

I've actually taken a minus 4.

(Hopefully Trafford and Al-Dakhil don't

end up in negative territory against Newcastle)

I've removed Rodri and Saka, to bring in Ward-Prowse and Gordon.

I switched Rodri to Ward-Prowse at the end of GW6 - I had just enough to make the move. The Rodri to Saka switch was literally made about half an hour ago. My original plan was to bring in Son for Saka in GW8, but the Rodri red card really messed up those plans, eating up both my free transfer and the 0.5m I hoped to reserve to make the move.

However, the option of bringing in Gordon for Saka, to then move Mbeumo to Son next week, really appealed to me (bringing in Mbeumo is the one wildcard choice I do regret a bit - I should've done a bit more homework). Either way the two moves would've meant a minus 4, either this week or next. So going early gets me ahead of the curve and also allows me to re-activate the bench boost.

It's a very risky bench boost, especially with players in the first eleven at risk of missing out, but I want to take the gamble. I'll enjoy my weekend more with the added chips on the table. Especially if Burnley don't do too badly against Newcastle. (I would've hated going into that midweek game with the players on the bench, knowing I could've went for it.)

And if it all backfires at least I'll go into GW8 with the players I want (assuming Son remains fit and so forth).

My current rank is 1,962,710, so I got a tiny uptick. It's not a great position to be in, but I'm feeling optimistic. Foolishly.

Wildcard Time

Great week to wildcard. I think I've picked a good opportunity.

My GW5, like many people's, was pretty woeful. 36 points in the end, with the average being 44.

With that luxury transfer I brought in Jimenez for Wissa. It seemed like a fun one week punt, what with Fulham being home to Luton. It didn't come good, however, I got one more point than I would've got with Wissa, so it didn't hurt me.

Wildcard

 

My plan is to bench boost in GW7. The bench I'll have for that isn't very exciting. I currently don't even have an attacker from Burnley or Luton. I don't want to sacrifice my main team for the bench boost though, so I'm just going sheer numbers.

Three 4.0m defenders.

Both keepers.

So I'll have five players with two games, though all with low potential.

Obviously, the three cheap defenders will mean one has to be in my starting eleven. I have 0.5m in the bank though. Plus, once the double is out the way I'll be able to downgrade both keepers to free up cash. One to Areola, one to a 4.0m. So I should be able to upgrade that position in time.

My plan is to roll the transfer in GW7 and then bring in Son for Saka in GW8. I'll downgrade a keeper then with the other transfer if I need an extra 0.1m to do that. These plans rarely come to fruition how you hope though, so that's pencilled in rather than inked in.

As for the team..

I really felt like I needed Salah. The expense is annoying, but he's so consistent, and there's always that likelihood that he will go big. I'd like to have players like Chilwell and Fernandes in there for the potential, but in the end I can't sacrifice certainty for potential. So it's one less expensive midfielder and defender to get Salah.

I want to keep Estupinan. Potentially he could change before the deadline, but he's so attacking I just instinctively feel I need to have him in there.

I think Maddison and Mbeumo explain themselves. (Mbeumo could easily become Diaby if Brentford look like they're dropping off.)

The issue of Champions League worries me a little with Trippier, but other than that he seems like the obvious Newcastle pick. The wider question for me is do I double up in defence on Newcastle. It feels foolish chasing clean sheets this season, however with Newcastle I get the sense that they can keep teams out.

Then finally we get to the three Manchester City options. Or rather two, ignoring Haaland.

I think if you're wildcarding you have to go with Alvarez. Sure, there's always that rotation concern, but he's flying, as are City. (Any thoughts of getting Clinton Morris in for my bench boost have completely gone out the window. The two City, plus the cheap playing Archer as a bench option, is just too simple and sensible to ignore.)

The more interesting pick is Rodri. Originally I had Ward-Prowse in there as my cheaper fifth mid - who I think is a great price and pick. When I watched City in the Champions League last night though it just reanimated my interest in Rodri. He seems to have picked up the Gundogan role. The way City play, with so much of the ball, knocking it around on the edge of the box, means it's going to fall to him at times. As it did last night.

It would be stupid to expect big, or even consistent returns from him, but with City being the best team by a good yard it's hard not to like the idea of having a full compliment. Especially at these prices.

I'm happy to accept the rotation risk in general. It could ruin my bench boost though, which is the big fear. However, I'm really just seeing that bench boost as a bonus opportunity. Having five double gameweek players, when most people have one or none, *could* give me a nice advantage - if I'm lucky.

Either way, with the wildcard, I'm finally getting a team I feel instinctively good about.

Double Gameweek: Bench Boost Time

So, surprisingly, that Luton vs Burnley game has now been penned in for GW7 - meaning a double gameweek.

Burnley play Newcastle (A) and Luton (A)

Luton play Everton (A) and Burnley (H)

I haven't thought about things a great deal since the announcement, but still, I'm almost certain to now wildcard GW6 and bench boost in GW7. This doesn't seem especially popular, no doubt for very sensible reasons, however, the idea has appealed to me since the fixture was originally cancelled at the start of the season.

There are a few reasons why I like the idea..

Firstly, it gets it out of the way.

That doesn't sound like a compelling reason, but I always find the bench boost annoying as we move into the second half of the season. It completely ruins the natural flow for me. Uprooting your team just to bench boost in that one week - usually for sub par results. On top of that the need to have fifteen nailed on players that week to make sure it doesn't go to waste. It turns the sprint to the finish into the hundred meter hurdles.

In fact, this is one of my theories about fpl (I may have mentioned this on here before). I think the first half of the season favours people with more of a herd mentality, whereas the second half favours those that go it alone. I'm definitely the latter, so I tend to start badly (getting hammered by the template), then recover ground in the second half as the template dissolves.

It's a bit silly (from a logic point of view) to go against the template early on. After all, it's the sum total knowledge of the whole fpl community, including the very, very good managers with great track records (who naturally have a disproportionate, but deserved influence). Plus, these days: AI.

So, if you're someone that tends to follow the crowd, you can follow that template - effectively copy the general team the big fpl faces are going with - and get a fairly decent start relative to casual players that have no idea what the template is, and idiots like me, that see it, know it well, but still choose to avoid it.

Over time however the template breaks down. There'll still be a weekly template in essence, but it becomes impossible for everyone to follow it, as all those little differences over the course of the season accumulate. The different bench picks, the different team values, etc. So you can see the template (or other people's teams), but it's a struggle to get there. Plus, by this point all the really, really good managers - the big faces and talking heads - will also have teams that have diverged from each other, so if you are just copying other people you're faced with the dilemma of who to copy.

So at this point some people get lost in the sea of opinion. Perhaps taking hits, etc, just to get the player everyone's going for this particular week, instead of doing what's best for their own particular team, which by this point is naturally unique.

Contrariwise, if you're happy doing your own thing, it now gets easier, as you're just solely focused on piloting your own course. The template becomes irrelevant, as you can't reach it anyway.

I should really do a season where I follow the template for the first half, then use my own judgement from Christmas onwards, to see if I improve. Perhaps that can be my experiment for next year.

Secondly, and back to the point at hand..

..I can bench boost with a normal bench if I take this opportunity. It's not often we have so many cheap playing defenders. The fact that these defenders also have a double making it even more of a novelty. So potentially I can just have a bench of two 4.0m defenders, a cheapish attacker (probably Morris) and a cheap goalkeeper.

Meaning when I wildcard I can still have my choice first eleven, with Morris being a handy first-off-my-bench player going forward.

That I can have a cheap playing bench that's boostable is essentially something of a bonus. Born of circumstance.

The downsides..

The major obvious downside is that it's not a great week to wildcard. Son and Maddison in particular are players I want to bring in, however, they face Arsenal and Liverpool in GW6 & 7. I could bring them in and ride those weeks out, or I could just hope that I don't need the free transfer to fix anything in GW7, and then use the two frees to bring them in for GW8. It's always a bit risky planning transfers though.

One of the benefits of the wildcard is that you get a chance to fix minor problems, so I don't like the idea of wildcarding to then just allow new issues to go unsolved because of planned moves. So I imagine I'll bring at least one of those two players in for GW6. Again though, as at the start, I really haven't thought about the actual team all that much yet.

Wildcarding in GW6 will also mean I have a luxury transfer in GW5, and I don't even know what I'm doing with that yet either. It's fun though. At the moment I really don't feel like too many players are essential, so the entire wildcard feels like a luxury.

I'll end it there.

My current rank after GW4 is 1,364,935. Not brilliant, but I don't feel it's too bad as a starting point. It feels like the season's starting now.

The Rescue Blues

I feel I need to round off that last post by making note of Liverpool's late goal against Newcastle, with it finishing 2-1 to Liverpool's ten men. This week there's been some late drama as well, though more in regard my own team. Yesterday I didn't do particularly well, and aside from having Haaland captain (thank God) I didn't pick up too many points. Leaving me well below average. However, today things picked up a little, and my all Arsenal/Man Utd midfield bumped me up a bit.

So, still a poor-ish week, but potentially it could've been worse.

(75 points in all)

Last week I brought in Gusto and Wissa with my two free transfers. They didn't do much, but I was a point better off for the moves in the end, so I can't complain. Likewise I somehow managed to sneak a save point from Ederson. I lost the clean sheet again, but somehow that one point makes it feel like a minor win.

I still feel that we don't quite have the full picture on how the Premier League is shaping up just yet. Chelsea looked good last week (albeit against Luton), but poor this time out. My views on Newcastle have changed a little with another defeat on the bounce. Obviously Son and Maddison stand out massively now, but there are a few tricky fixtures on the horizon. A third City player would be handy too.

It's annoying we now have the international break. It seems a waste of time putting too much thought into things when so much can change in a few weeks. I'm set up fairly solidly for GW5, so I'm planning on a transfer roll.

I need to remind myself of last season's gamemonth management - relax, don't change things needlessly, have a little faith.