FPL Gameweek 8: Chip usage + Wildcard template

We’re always happy to promote Ragabolly‘s LiveFPL site here at Fantasy Football Scout, with its excellent array of tools and visual summaries of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) chip usage and player ownership.

A regular look at the FPL managers out in front in the top 10,000 and those with strong track records has found a home on this site in recent years.

With the international break upon us and eight (or should that be seven) Gameweeks-worth of data and ranks under our belt, it’s time to once again assess how the front-runners, the historic high achievers and managers overall are set up.

CHIP USAGE

It seemed like every man and his dog was playing their Wildcard last week but in reality, less than 10% of the top 10k – and fewer than 7% of managers overall – hit ‘activate’ for Gameweek 8.

A lot of those currently in the top 10,000 won’t finish in such high positions, of course: while many FPL managers are yet to even burn a single chip, some of the front-runners have already cashed in their Wildcard, Triple Captain, Bench Boost and/or the Free Hit.

In fact, only 41.1% of the current top 10k have kept their powder completely dry.

Over 20% of the top 10,000 have already used two or more of their chips.

TEMPLATE WILDCARD SQUAD

There was most definitely a ‘template’ Wildcard that existed in Gameweek 8, with managers in the top 10k and the overall FPL user base sharing 13 of the most-selected players.

‘Big at the back’ hasn’t completely gone but Liverpool representation has evaporated in the above squads, while there’s a return to the good old days of a three-man forward line.

Reece James (£6.0m), James Maddison (£7.9m) and Wilfried Zaha (£7.2m) were clearly investments for the medium-term and the favourable fixtures from Gameweeks 9-16 but there is still heavy reliance on Arsenal and Manchester City assets, despite their upcoming Gameweek 12 blank.

THE ‘LEGENDARY 1,000’

As for the managers with the best track records, there was considerable more Wildcard movement: a whopping 44% of these 1,000 historic greats activated it, scoring around seven more points in Gameweek 8 than the chip-less 55.6%.

A template ‘Wildcard’ squad isn’t available for these all-time high achievers but we can see who they’re favouring in general from the ownership list above.

15.7% have still hung on to Mohamed Salah (£12.9m), who is not listed above as his ‘effective ownership’ didn’t top 10% in Gameweek 8.

Just 5.2% had a tidy differential in Son Heung-min (£11.4m), meanwhile.