Editor Yiannis Kotoulas whinges about his poor performance in the previous gameweek and provides some – most likely rubbish – advice
Did you take the bait last gameweek? I did.
GW26 saw the first double gameweek of the season, with league leaders Arsenal drawn against Brentford and a struggling Wolves side. This presented a tempting opportunity to maximise what looked like nailed on Arsenal returns by utilising one of the game’s most useful chips – the triple captain.
The temptation proved too strong for me, but two poor performances from Arsenal – which may, or may not, have reversed the momentum in the Premier League title race – led to a pitful 21 points from central defender Gabriel.
As a result, my standings in the Insurance Times Fantasy Football League have slipped to 114th, meaning my dreams of the top 10 are looking less and less likely.
Many other managers also triple captained Arsenal players in the double gameweek, including Allianz Commercial’s Darragh Kennedy, who remains in second place.
Those that have kept their powder dry in terms of chips now go into the business end of the season with an advantage, especially since rule changes this year mean that all chips were refreshed for the second half of the season.
So, when should you be looking to deploy them?
Bragging rights
GW31, which takes place on the same weekend as the EFL Cup final on 22 March, will be the first blank gameweek of the season, with players from Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Manchester City and Wolves not playing Premier League fixtures.
This presents a strong opportunity to deploy your wildcard chip, especially seeing as players from EFL Cup finalists Manchester City and Arsenal are mainstays in most teams.
Because of their involvement in the EFL Cup Final, Manchester City’s game against Crystal Palace needs to be rescheduled and will most likely lead to a double gameweek for mercurial striker Erling Haaland – presenting an excellent opportunity to utilise the triple captain chip.
The wildcard and bench boost chips are less fixture dependent, but extracting maximum value from them means using one to set up the other with long term fixtures in mind.
One option, for example, could be to target the week prior to Manchester City’s likely double gameweek and fill your team with a squad of 15 players likely to score points, before then activating the bench boost in the double gameweek.
Of course, I would prefer if the 113 managers above me didn’t take this advice but, now that I’ve said that, it’ll probably turn out to be a load of rubbish anyway.
As always, please do get in contact with me if you’d like to speak to Insurance Times about your peformance in this season’s Insurance Times Fantasy Football League, unless you’re going to gloat about Arsenal.
With a particular interest in regulation, technology, innovation and political stories, he has covered issues from the multioccupancy buildings scandal to the insurance implications of quantum computing and the growth of new markets.View full Profile
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