Last week’s Weekly Review told readers the Wildcard window was open, and by one count about 760,000 managers agreed and played it in Gameweek 6. For everyone else, Gameweek 7 brings a different problem. The best Triple Captain fixture of the first half arrives at 15:00 BST on Saturday: Erling Haaland at home to Ipswich Town. The chip question this week is mostly a Haaland question, with a Wildcard question attached for squads that the international break and a run of injuries have left in poor shape.
Waiting nine weeks for a marginally kinder Triple Captain fixture is a bet on Haaland’s availability, not on the fixture.
CHIPS REMAINING, SET ONE
Wildcard: available until the Gameweek 19 deadline
Free Hit: available until the Gameweek 19 deadline
Bench Boost: available until the Gameweek 19 deadline
Triple Captain: available until the Gameweek 19 deadline
Gameweek 19 locks at 13:30 GMT on Saturday, 2 January. Unused first-half chips do not roll over. Only one chip can be played per gameweek.
Triple Captain: Play It on Haaland
In September this column called the Sunderland fixture a marginal case and told managers they lost nothing by waiting. Haaland scored against Sunderland. The wait was free, as promised, and this week it ends. Haaland leads the league with six goals and has scored in five consecutive gameweeks. Ipswich have conceded 12 in six matches, have not kept a clean sheet, and have allowed 20 big chances. Full reasoning is in this week’s Captain Recommendations. The chip logic is simpler.
The first Triple Captain must be played before the Gameweek 19 deadline or it disappears, and a second one arrives in the second half of the season either way. Haaland’s remaining home fixture against a promoted side in that window is Hull City in Gameweek 16, nine weeks away. Hull have conceded six in six matches, half of Ipswich’s total, so the later fixture is not obviously kinder today, and nine weeks is a long time to hold a chip that depends on one player staying fit and starting. There are no blanks or doubles expected before Gameweek 19 to change that picture.
The Honest Caveat
The chip is a multiplier, not a guarantee. More than 1.7 million managers spent theirs on Haaland in Gameweek 3, a record for a single player, against a newly promoted Coventry side. The reward was one goal in a 1-0 win. A single fixture can do that to a Triple Captain, and the chip magnifies the ordinary variance as well as the good days.
Chips can be cancelled any time before the deadline, so activate it tentatively and check the press conferences before Saturday morning.
Wildcard: Hold Unless the Squad Is Broken
Gameweek 6 was the obvious window, and Gameweek 7 remains a respectable second. Playing it now lets a manager use everything the break and the weekend revealed, and the injury list is long enough to matter. Liverpool are without Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo, with Hugo Ekitike already out. Arsenal lost their starting striker and a left winger to hamstrings. Alex Scott is out until November, and Sunderland are still waiting on Brian Brobbey. Squads built around those names have real work to do.
There is also a fixture case. Manchester City face Ipswich, then Aston Villa away, Brighton, Nottingham Forest away and Fulham, a run that rewards owning City attackers. Gameweek 8 sends all three promoted sides, Ipswich, Coventry and Hull, to their own grounds, which suits a Wildcard built to feed a Bench Boost. The case against is that most squads do not need a rebuild. A couple of free transfers fix an ordinary problem, and the chip has until Gameweek 19 to be used.
The Wildcard Test
Play it now: four or more starters are injured, suspended or simply not worth their price, and fixing them with free transfers would cost points.
Hold it: you like 11 or 12 of your players, and two transfers cover the rest.
Already used it in Gameweek 6? Then this section is someone else’s problem, and the next one is yours.
Bench Boost: Only After a Wildcard
The Bench Boost needs four bench players who start and have a fixture, and a squad that has not been rebuilt rarely clears that bar. Managers who Wildcarded in Gameweek 6 to assemble a deep 15 can use it in Gameweek 7 or, with all three promoted sides at home, Gameweek 8. Anyone Wildcarding now cannot boost in the same gameweek, so Gameweek 8 is the earliest sensible pairing. Everyone else should keep waiting. Analysts looking further out point to Gameweek 14, when Leeds host Ipswich and Manchester United host Coventry, and to Gameweek 16, when Manchester City face Hull.
Free Hit: Save It, but Not Forever
Gameweek 7 is a normal ten-fixture round, with nothing to rescue. The complication is that the first Free Hit expires with the rest of the set at the Gameweek 19 deadline, and no blank or double gameweek is expected before then to justify it. That leaves two uses: a week when injuries or suspensions wreck an otherwise sound squad, or a late spend on a one-week fixture swing. Keep it for either, and put a reminder somewhere before the new year.
The Call
Play: Triple Captain on Haaland vs Ipswich Town
Conditional: Wildcard, only if four or more starters need replacing
Conditional: Bench Boost, only after a Gameweek 6 Wildcard, with Gameweek 8 the next target if you Wildcard now
Don’t touch: Free Hit, save for a wrecked squad before the Gameweek 19 deadline
Deadline is 11:00 BST on Saturday, 17 October, ninety minutes before Everton host Chelsea. The Triple Captain is activated on the Pick Team page and can be cancelled right up to the deadline, while the Wildcard is played when confirming transfers. Make the chip call after Friday’s press conferences, not before them.
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