Our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers are offering regular contributions throughout the 2023/24 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) campaign. Here, former champion Simon March discusses his Gameweek 35 Wildcard dilemmas and early draft.

At the time of writing, midway through Gameweek 34, I’m currently sat at a season-high rank of around 5k overall. While I fully expect this to regress before the Gameweek finally concludes, with a Wildcard and a Bench Boost chip yet to play, a top 10k finish is beginning to look like a realistic possibility.

The plan to Free Hit in Gameweek 34, Wildcard in Gameweek 35 and Bench Boost in Gameweek 37 has never really wavered. Yet, for reasons I’ll get into, the Wildcard button currently remains conspicuously un-pressed, albeit likely only temporarily.

In this article, I will share with you my Wildcard draft.

However, given that it resembles many of the other Wildcard drafts you will have already seen shared this Gameweek, and because my rationale for selecting the players I have will inevitably largely echo those of other FPL pundits, I’ll save you the potential repetition.

Instead, I will focus primarily on some of the key strategic dilemmas I am currently facing with respect to my Wildcard and chip strategy in the hope that this might also help you as you formulate your own.

Whether to Wildcard in Gameweek 35 or Gameweek 36

Given that I am only one free transfer away from having five Gameweek 35 ‘doublers’ and a decent enough squad otherwise, there is a part of me that would like to hold fire on the Wildcard until Gameweek 36.

The benefits of delaying until Gameweek 36 are largely information-oriented. As we know, a week can be a long time in FPL and that extra amount of information could prove invaluable when it comes to predicting minutes and assessing player prospects. 

Were I to do this, I would also probably go for a second Spurs attacking player, rather than the goalkeeper/defender combination that I have in my current Wildcard draft. That would potentially add a bit of extra upside to my Gameweek 36 score.

The trade-off is that I would be going into Gameweek 37 with one free transfer instead of two which, bearing in mind I am planning to Bench Boost in Gameweek 37, is a fairly substantial risk.

It may sound counter-intuitive but I can certainly see the argument for a strategic benefit in not having the Bench Boost chip available at this point. You can essentially Wildcard whenever you like in the next few Gameweeks, thus obtaining all of the information ahead of Double Gameweek 37 and, when you do Wildcard you can focus your budget largely on the first XI and not have to worry about maintaining a strong bench. While I’m not sure I would give up my Bench Boost chip at this point, I also would not exactly be despairing if I didn’t have one available to me.

As it stands, I’m leaning toward the original plan of Wildcard in Gameweek 35/Bench Boost in Gameweek 37, but the button remains un-pressed for now.

Building Now for Double Gameweek 37

The second major strategic consideration I’m facing is whether to build my intended Double Gameweek 37 Bench Boost squad now or seek to build towards it in the interim using my free transfers. 

The latter method would mean I could hold the likes of Bournemouth’s in-form striker Dominic Solanke (£7.3m) for his home fixture against Brighton and Hove Albion in Gameweek 35 and, potentially, some of my Liverpool and Arsenal assets ahead of what look like profitable fixtures in Gameweeks 35 and 36.

I’d also consider trying to engineer an extra Spurs attacker, perhaps James Maddison (£7.8m), in ahead of their Double Gameweek in 35. That might leave me with more than I ideally want to do transfer-wise from Gameweek 36 onwards.

At the moment, I’ve built my Gameweek 35 team for Gameweek 37. If a week is a long time in FPL, then two weeks is, well, double that and history has shown us many times how valuable two free transfers can be going into a Double Gameweek, especially if you intend to Bench Boost.

The decision is made a bit easier by the fact that likes of City, Chelsea, Man Utd and Newcastle, who are currently popular teams for Wildcarders, all have decent fixtures in Gameweeks 35, 36 and 37. Even Spurs, who have the toughest fixture in Gameweek 36 away to Liverpool, could still realistically get an attacking return there, albeit a defensive return probably seems unlikely.

Having said all this, I am aiming to keep at least £1.5m in the bank to allow for some budget flexibility going into the Bench Boost. That explains the current selection of Dan Burn (£4.5m) as my Newcastle defender of choice over teammate Fabian Schär (£5.6m), despite the latter appearing to offer a higher points ceiling.

Liverpool and Arsenal

As you can see, my current Wildcard squad is that it is built entirely around the five teams who I believe have the highest potential across the Double Gameweeks 35 and 37. These are: Spurs and Chelsea, who have doubles in both Gameweeks 35 and 37, and Man City, Man Utd and Newcastle, who double in Gameweek 37.

Consequently, I currently have no coverage of any other team, with Arsenal and Liverpool players being perhaps the most obvious omissions.

Broadly speaking, my strategy this season has been to try and combine a core of consistent performers who, for various reasons, were not as highly-owned at various points as they might have been (e.g. Bournemouth’s Dominic Solanke, Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins (£8.9m), Chelsea’s Cole Palmer (£6.2m)) with a spine of the most highly-owned and typically high-performing players (e.g. Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (£13.6m), Man City’s Erling Haaland (£14.2m), Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka (£9.0m), plus coverage of the Arsenal defence). The idea being that, if I can get enough value out of the former group, I can use the latter group largely as a hedge against any big rank drops.

It’s been a long grind up through the ranks, but it has worked out so far and, fortunately, I haven’t had to deviate from this strategy much at all this season. Heading into the Wildcard however, I have some decisions to make about whether to go for the maximum points possible, or to continue to try and manage the risk as I have been doing.

Given their current ownership and consistency when it comes to keeping clean sheets, eschewing the Arsenal defence altogether is a risk. Luckily, the inclusion of a Gunners defender would be a fairly painless compromise. Including Salah, on the other hand, would have far greater implications given his premium price tag.

As it stands, I’m 50:50 on whether to included an Arsenal defender but am likely to risk going without Salah. I’ll simply have to hope that he doesn’t do too much damage during this rare sabbatical from my squad. 

The biggest concern when it comes to Salah is his potential effective ownership if heavily captained against Spurs in Gameweek 36 and, if I don’t buy him back by then, Gameweek 38 when Liverpool face Wolves at Anfield in Jurgen Klopp’s final game as Liverpool manager. If I wanted a route to potentially outmanoeuvre Gameweek 35 Wildcarders such as myself, backing Salah in these fixtures would be something I’d be looking closely at.

That said, given the number of Wildcards that are likely being played right now, the risk equation when it comes to going without Liverpool and Arsenal players could change considerably by the end of the week, particularly if managers move away from them en masse in favour of Double Gameweek assets. Were this to occur, it would make a few tough Wildcard decisions that little bit easier.

GAMEWEEK 35 WILDCARD DRAFT