Gameweek 6 was a tough gameweek for many Fantasy Premier League managers.
A huge 663,489 of them used their wildcard and for plenty of them (myself included), it was a bit of a disaster. According to Livefpl.net, the average score for those who wildcarded in Gameweek 6 was 48 points, one point fewer than the average of those who didn’t play any chips.
If you also had a bad gameweek or are even having a poor start to the season, don’t panic. There are plenty of gameweeks left and variance (and luck) is part and parcel of FPL. We cannot let things beyond our control affect our decision-making.
In this article, we will go over how best to handle a bad gameweek in FPL.
Best practice after a bad gameweek
My first rule would be to avoid impulsive or emotional transfers, especially for those who used their wildcard. A wildcard isn’t just for one week — you probably have a good team that just didn’t perform.
Only Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur kept a clean sheet in Gameweek 6 but popular options Erling Haaland (£15.3m), Bukayo Saka (£10.1m) and the Arsenal defence all blanked. You probably had a good gameweek if you owned Cole Palmer (£10.6m), Ollie Watkins (£9.1m) or Mohamed Salah (£12.8m), but very few would have owned even two of them.
When a player scores four goals, it’s hard not to get drawn in, even more so when it’s an elite asset, but we still have to ask ourselves whether signing Palmer would be chasing points that have already gone. In this case, it probably isn’t but even then, you should only look to get Palmer, and similar players, if there is a sensible route. Let’s not start chucking out Saka to make room for Palmer.
I only scored 38 points in Gameweek 6 — I wildcarded and I don’t own Palmer. My team for next week still looks great so, despite the disastrous score, I plan to save my transfer and just hope my players turn up this time (prices are correct at the time of writing).
I did briefly look at removing Luis Diaz (£8.0m) and Trent Alexander Arnold (£7.1m) for Palmer and a cheap £4.5m defender, but decided it wasn’t worth it. I would be getting rid of two good assets with a decent fixture for one premium who I won’t even captain in the next gameweek.
Weighing things up and looking at different options with a cool head helps. Chelsea have Nottingham Forest (H), Liverpool (A), Newcastle United (H), Manchester United (A) and Arsenal (H) in their next five games — tough fixtures. Instead, I will look to get Palmer in Gameweek 12 when they play Leicester City (A) and the appeal of Chelsea’s fixtures pick up.
Accepting that variance is a part of FPL
We have very little control in this game. You can’t make in-game substitutions. Once the gameweek deadline passes, we are locked in and it’s in the hands of fate.
In football, there aren’t nearly as many point-scoring actions as most other sports, including basketball, baseball and American football. They all have more ‘goals’ and an increased chance of points, which means you can exert more skill in their popular fantasy games.
FPL is very simple in its scoring — outside of bonus points, you only get points for appearances, goals, assists, clean sheets and saves.
As hard as it can be to stomach, hours of research don’t necessarily mean better results.
However, if you make sound decisions over a long period, you succeed. We can reduce the negative variance by watching matches, looking at stats, learning from FPL content and talking to like-minded friends — but this will not eliminate it completely. The margins are fine.
I find it quite handy to make a note of my good fortune. In life, we tend to dwell on the bad moments rather than the good, and this is the same in FPL.
Noting down those times when you got lucky will help you stay grounded when it does inevitably go pear-shaped. This has really helped me deal with bad gameweeks and in making more optimal decisions.
Don’t worry too much about your rank
Looking at your overall rank this early is largely meaningless. So many managers have used multiple chips and the points are so bunched together.
There are only 35 points between rank 1,000,000 and 100,000, so it’s not a real indicator of how well you are doing.
If you have started well, that’s great and it’s a good foundation to build on, but your season can still go awry quickly. The opposite can happen if you have experienced a rough start. I haven’t made a great start and am ranked at 4.5million but I am not panicking (yet!). Last season, I was ranked at 2.1million going into Gameweek 8 and still finished a respectable 48,000th.
We shouldn’t even be thinking about ‘chasing’ right now, whether you are ranked in the millions or lagging behind a mini-league rival.
Just keep making good decisions and focus on a sound process rather than the outcome.
(Top photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
