FPL managers get two wildcards a season in Fantasy Premier League.
A wildcard allows you to make as many changes as you want to a team without suffering a points hit. This means you can make more than the standard one free transfer or two rollover transfers in a gameweek.
The decisions of when to play them are arguably your most important calls of the season, as they can really propel you up the rankings and position you well for the long term.
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The first wildcard has to be used before the Gameweek 20 deadline, and the second one is available from after that same deadline until the end of the season.
It can be a huge advantage to use a wildcard at the right point in the season, and one of the best times to play that first one is during a fixture swing for several clubs. These can be identified by looking at an online fixture ticker.
The second one is typically best used around double gameweeks, as it can position you nicely to then deploy the bench boost and free hit chips.
Below is a full-season fixture ticker from the mighty Ben Crellin which you can refer back to throughout this article.
Here are the fixtures.
teams ordered by fixture difficulty rating,
fixtures formatted by difference between teams' ratings— Ben Crellin (@BenCrellin) July 5, 2023
Here, we will focus on a few optimal windows where you might want to play that first wildcard.
Gameweek 5
The first wildcard window which immediately sticks out is in Gameweek 5. The first international break comes after Gameweek 4 and this is typically a popular time to use wildcard number one as the season template starts to emerge a bit — players who we thought were good, or nailed to start, begin to look like they aren’t. The Premier League’s two-week window also allows us time to tinker with our squads and react to any injuries players pick up on international duty.
Newcastle United have a tough start to the season, playing Manchester City (A), Liverpool (H) and Brighton (A) in their four matches before the September internationals, but their fixtures then pick up massively from Gameweek 5. This would be a good time to bring in the likes of Kieran Trippier (£6.5m), Alexander Isak (£7.5m) and Callum Wilson (£8.0m). It would also give us that opening month to evaluate how Eddie Howe intends to set up this season with those two quality forwards and which of them is the better FPL asset.
Fixture Ticker from Fantasy Football Hub
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Liverpool also begin with a decent run of games, so if you want to hold off on their assets from Gameweek 1, also to assess how they will set up and are going to fare this season after some pretty major ins and outs in the transfer market, this also allows you that opportunity. If you start without Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.0m) in your squad, for example, it will be really tough to get to them without either major surgery elsewhere or a wildcard.
Using a wildcard in Gameweek 5 also allows you to gamble on Chelsea assets. The likes of Raheem Sterling (£7.0m), the currently injured Christopher Nkunku (£7.5m) and Ben Chilwell (£5.5m) — to name a few — look great value. They have Liverpool to kick off but then face West Ham (A), Luton (H), Nottingham Forest (H) and Bournemouth (A) in the next four fixtures. Committing to a Gameweek 5 wildcard lets you jump off their assets if they don’t hit the ground running. And if they do start well then they have good fixtures until Gameweek 9 anyway, so the wildcard can be kept in your back pocket for a bit longer.
Another advantage of a Gameweek 5 wildcard is that it allows you to change up your Arsenal and Manchester City assets if you wish. It’s going to be a bit of pot luck picking the best ones from the off from those two clubs due to the number of good options.
On the flip side, the disadvantage of a Gameweek 5 wildcard is that it can be argued we won’t have gained enough information by then to make proper informed decisions as teams and players will still bedding in, with the transfer window not closing until after Gameweek 4 begins. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
Gameweek 9
The season’s next international break comes after Gameweek 8 and will also be a popular time for FPL managers to overhaul their squads. This is a much safer time to use that first wildcard as we are going to have another month of information to work with and will be when the template really starts to emerge.
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Liverpool, Aston Villa and West Ham notably have a very favourable fixture swing from Gameweek 9.
Jurgen Klopp and company have a tremendous set of games, sandwiching Everton (H), Forest (H), Luton (A), Brentford (H), Fulham (H), Sheffield United (A) and Crystal Palace (A) around a Gameweek 13 trip to Manchester City. West Ham and Villa don’t have the best starts but, as you can see from the fixture ticker below, things pick up massively for both from Gameweek 9.
This would be a good time to jump on Salah and/or Alexander-Arnold in our teams and to decide which of David Moyes’ and Unai Emery’s players we want. Jarrod Bowen (£7.0m), Said Benrahma (£6.0m), Ollie Watkins (£8.0m) and even the Villa defence could turn out to be the options to go for.
Fixtures GW9-GW20 – Fantasy Football Hub Ticker
The schedules of Chelsea and Manchester City take a turn for the worse from Gameweek 9 also. With a trip to Manchester United and some other pretty tough games for Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions, you might want to shift their defenders or even midfielders. Erling Haaland (£14.0m) should, of course, stay rooted in our teams.
City play Chelsea (A), Liverpool (H), Spurs (H) and Villa (A) in Gameweeks 12 to 15, so clean sheets might not be so easy to come by during that run.
Brighton embark on a fantastic run of fixtures from Gameweek 10 but do host Liverpool in Gameweek 8 and then go to the Etihad in Gameweek 9. This makes it a bit tricky to overcommit on Roberto De Zerbi’s boys but with their style of football, I wouldn’t be too worried about their attacking players as that game is more likely to be high-scoring.
From Gameweek 10, Brighton play Fulham (H), Everton (A), Sheffield United (H), Forest (A), Brentford (H) and Burnley (H) in their next seven matches.
Gameweek 19
Gameweek 19 is an interesting time to play this chip. It’s the last gameweek where we can use our first wildcard of the season and is the right window to do so for the patient managers.
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Using it here lets us not only set up our team for the second half of the season but also to dead-end into Gameweek 19 by offloading our Manchester City assets – even Haaland.
City will blank in Gameweek 18 as they will be playing in the Club World Cup semi-finals, which means the scheduled Premier League game at home to Brentford will have to be moved to another date.
When City have that blank Spurs play Everton at home, so moving from Haaland to Harry Kane (£12.5m) — assuming he isn’t sold this summer — looks like an ideal transfer. It would give an extra fixture and the best captain for Gameweek 18 also. This move gives you two games for one — Kane against Everton while Haaland blanks, and you can then get the Norwegian back in for City’s Gameweek 19 trip to face the same team when you wildcard.
You can also transfer out any other City or Brentford players you have to get two games for one.
Conclusion
The earlier you use the wildcard the riskier it is, but it can also reap the most rewards. There really isn’t a right or wrong answer as to when to play your first wildcard and it will be team-dependent. But the windows listed here definitely are good opportunities to deploy yours to take advantage of the fixture swings.
If your team is crying out for a wildcard, whether due to injuries or if it’s in bad shape generally — and you’re not able to sort it out with a few points hits — it doesn’t make it a wrong decision to go early.
Ultimately, use the wildcard when your team really need it.
(Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images for Premier League)
