Fantasy Premier League Wildcard GW18 tips from FPL Matthew, arguably the best FPL manager in the world with three top 500 finishes and a further six top 10k finishes. Every week Matthew writes his FPL Team Reveal article detailing his team, captain and plans for the coming Gameweek exclusively for Fantasy Football Hub members.
Gameweek 17 Review
After a great run of Gameweeks, I was brought back to Earth this week with a red arrow. Not totally unexpected given that I had three Leeds United players with a tough fixture against Tottenham but still, never welcome! It was another case of 'what might have been' though, with James Justin (£5.0m) and Joao Cancelo (£5.7m) both losing their clean sheets and bonus points agonisingly late and Tomas Soucek (£5.2m) 11 points stuck on my bench, whilst he seemed to emerge from many others'. But, at least I got my captain right this week. All of this suggests that there's still a good team in there, this week was just 'not to be' for me. In the end, 55 points cost me a red arrow from 657k to 788k overall rank, not a disaster I guess.
Here are my Gameweek 17 points in full:
Matthew's Gameweek 17 Points
Gameweek 18 Preview
Here are the fixtures for the next six Gameweeks, sorted best to worst, from the Hub's Fixture Ticker:
Fixture Ticker - next six Gameweeks
Obviously, the big headline here are the 'blanks' this week, with no fixture for a number of teams, followed by 'double Gameweeks' for certain teams the following Gameweek. The four teams with that perfect combination of no blank followed by a double are Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Burnley. In terms of overall fixture, the two Manchester clubs again stand out, together with West Ham (especially the double Gameweek itself) and Leeds United (after this blank week).
Most Wanted List
This is a bit of a strange week as there are players that I would like for this Gameweek but perhaps not so much after that, then there are also players that don't have a fixture this week but look good after that. I have just picked out the main players that I don't have but would like to get.
Goalkeepers
None
Out-list: none
Defenders
Ruben Dias (£5.8m) - one of the few nailed on assets in a resurgent Manchester City team
John Stones (£5.0m) - a viable cheaper alternative to Dias
Kieran Tierney (£5.4m) - a very good attacking defender option in an improving Arsenal outfit
Out-list: Andrew Robertson (£7.4m) - still has the attacking threat but a lack of clean sheets - is he still worth the outlay?; Ben Johnson (£3.9m) - was a risky enabler on my wildcard who promptly seemed to lose his place despite drawing praise from David Moyes!
Removed: none
Midfielders
Kevin De Bruyne (£11.6m) - announced his return to form, in an advanced role, with a 13 point haul against Chelsea
Jack Grealish (£7.7m) - no sooner did I lose him on wildcard than Villa's double Gameweek was announced
Out-list: Mohamed Salah (£12.6m) - similar to Robertson, proven quality but three consecutive blanks have me looking closely at his price tag
Removed: none
Forwards
Alexandre Lacazette (£8.2m) - seems to have his mojo back, with four goals in his last three and especially useful for Gameweek 18
Out-list: none
Removed: none
One of my favourite articles to date!
Really like the Option/outcome table – do you think you could give a bit more of your judgement on how you think each of the options would fare beyond GW20?
I know you’ve rated them all as similar but it would be great to see a bit more in-depth analysis of how genuinely useful, for example, the wildcard would be to use now vs later on in further double GWs.
Thanks! I think part of the problem is that we don’t yet know what the future will look like in terms of blanks and double gameweeks. From what I understand, the other big blank week will be GW29, where the FA Cup Quarter Finalists and their PL opponents that week will ‘blank’, but of course we don’t know who that will be yet. Those blanks will probably (but not definitely) be slotted into midweek of GW26. So we could have a DGW (unknown teams) in GW26 followed by blanks for the same team a few weeks later, GW29. Either Wildcard of Free Hit could be used to navigate those, in a similar way that they can be this week and next.
Wow. Great article Matthew. The research you must do is incredible.
Im 0.4m of achieving a similar FH. Any recommendations on who you would change to gain back 0.4m? Maybe take a chance on swapping Dubravka for Ryan? He has MCI but at least he plays?
when are you hitting the button?
let me know your thoughts.
Great article as always, Matt!
I’m down to my final pick for my Free Hit team and it is between Saiss and Wan Bisaka. Out of the two, whom would you rather pick?
Cheers Hank. I think Saiss, just about, but honestly that could go either way.
So, who is your final captain? KDB or Spurs dynamic duo?
KDB