All Out Attack / Bench Boost / Triple Captain : Description / Strategy / Guidance / Help

[TheoRiginal]

Did I read somewhere that the FA/PL had torn up the agreement that they would not schedule games at the same time as CL/Europa matches - which would obviously impact on the availability of weeks to reschedule postponed PL matches.

[MoSe]

They can do, at the cost of not receiving the youth development millions from uefa

[I Am Ville]

Overall Number 1 played his AOA this week, which given his team and fixtures seems questionable. He is carrying a very strong defence and no injuries and benched Walker and Baines who both scored 6 points playing Crouch and others ahead of them. Surprised he chose this week to play it.

Thoughts?

[Gambit]

seen a few people play it this week, it looked a good GW with lots of popular attacking players having very good fixtures.

I think AOA is really poor chip and it's just as likely to cost you defensive points, probably best if you have missing defenders and don't want to make a transfer as they will be back the next GW (minor injury, suspension).

never really seen anyone do well with AOA to be honest, and seen some people not even bother to use it (and be no worse off)

but yes, probably not the best GW for the overall leader.

[I Am Ville]

I am not going to use it this season unless i have short term defence issues as described above.

It is a distraction!

[Paulista]

I can possibly see a case for using AOA in GW38, downgrading Baines/Coleman if you own them ( who are away to Arsenal who of course will win to clinch 4th place) to a 3.9 and upgrading your 4.5 midfielder/striker to a 6.0 one week punt, but only if you have no other pressing issues or any other obvious transfers, and certainly not for a minus four. Of course a lot of if's.

[baganboy]

With my 4-3-3, AOA was never an option. Might try to do the GW 36-38 WC,BB,AOA triple. But otherwise, will just let go.

[Beerfuelledman]

AOA has one use, and onw use only. To cover for 3 injured defenders.

[Stemania]

If the 8th attacker has money invested in him for the BB (say around DGW time) then the week immediately after playing it may turn out to be a decent AOA opportunity, depending on fixtures/personnel.

[I Am Ville]

If the 8th attacker has money invested in him for the BB (say around DGW time) then the week immediately after playing it may turn out to be a decent AOA opportunity, depending on fixtures/personnel.

Tru dat

[Beerfuelledman]

If the 8th attacker has money invested in him for the BB (say around DGW time) then the week immediately after playing it may turn out to be a decent AOA opportunity, depending on fixtures/personnel.

When your D3, your Cedric, your Baines or whomever else you benched (just to play your M5/F3) posts a double figure score?

[Stemania]

That's the one.

[Ruth_NZ]

Last May I laid out my reasoning as to why 2nd Wildcard/BB as a combo is strategically wrong. It might be worth re-posting, not because I have an axe to grind about it but because conventional wisdom still says that combination is best and I think that is at least questionable. I have re-edited the post slightly.

1. Value of the BB

First we have to establish a base value for the BB. In my view many managers are over-optimistic about its worth. There are many "I did so well with the DGW BB last season" stories but they mostly don't take into account:

1. The score achieved the week or 2 weeks before (when the wildcard was played to set up the BB);
2. The fact that all scores were high in the DGW anyway; it was a DGW!
3. The hits that were needed taking afterwards in order to re-balance the squad.
4. The fact that they had a boost simply by playing the BB chip. They could have had at least some of that boost by playing it at any other time.

Taking a 3-4-3 structure as standard, your bench in any week consists of your 2 weakest defenders, your weakest midfielder and your weaker GK. Typically they are cheap players. So, assuming you choose a normal week where all (or most) have decent prospects what can you expect from them? I'd say 12-15 points would be a realistic par score (given that you'd pick your time and wouldn't play BB when you had injured or dropped players there).

2. Value of the BB in a DGW (standard structure)

By implication, therefore, what playing BB in a DGW achieves for you is an extra projected 12-15 points if all are DGW players. That's assuming you stick to your standard structure.

3. Value of the BB in a DGW (non-standard structure A)

This is where things become more difficult to define. For example, you may choose to keep some SGW players during the DGW. They may be higher value players. In which case your DGW bench isn't cheap players any more. But it is still your weakest players that week. A topical example last season were Arsenal players for the GW36/7 wildcard/BB combo (which proved best). Most managers wanted to keep, say, Bellerin, Koscielny and Sanchez (or at least two of them) in view of the games against Norwich (GW36) and Villa (GW38). But what did that mean? It meant Bellerin, Koscielny and Sanchez away at City (GW37) were 50% or 75% of their BB in GW37. They couldn't be expected to beat 4 points each in that one game (and they didn't as I recall). So the the BB projected value was even worse than in 2 above.

4. Value of the BB in a DGW (non-standard structure B)

Another alternative is to shed high-value players (last season Aguero, Kane, Özil for example) and spread the cash in order to have better players on the bench, diverging completely from the standard structure. This could certainly give a higher BB projection but it would come at the cost of weakening your squad in the GW before (when wildcarding) and for some time after (unless hits are taken to re-balance, in which case the cost must be deducted from the extra benefits achieved).

To extend the example above, last season you could have improved your BB in GW37 by dropping Bellerin and Sanchez when wildcarding in GW36. But then you'd have missed Bellerin and Sanchez against Norwich and have had to take at least one, probably two hits to get them back for the Villa game in GW38. In other words your GW36 team would be weaker and your GW38 team might well be too.

5. Summary 1.

So, one way or another, I can't see that a gain in excess of 12-15 points by playing the BB in a DGW can be realistically projected. Not if you take the surrounding factors into account. So the next question is whether that 12-15 point gain is worth pursuing.

6. Value of the 2nd Wildcard.

Traditionally this has been the most important tool in the FPL manager's arsenal (or in previous seasons the 'free' wildcard rather than the winter one). Many of the better managers used to deploy it early rather than save it for a late-season DGW. There was no conclusive evidence as to which course of action was better. But the consensus view (with which I would broadly agree) was that it was worth 24-36 points. Let's say 30. Now, if it is worth 30 points, why would we use it to prepare for another chip (BB) when the gain is a projected 12-15 points? We would be selling it cheap.

OK, maybe you can get a double benefit that way. Maybe you can get the 2nd wildcard benefit plus the upgraded BB benefit. That, I guess, would be the rationale behind combining them. So we need to assess whether that is possible.

7. Compromises to the 2nd Wildcard when used to prepare for a DGW BB.

a) You must wildcard a week before the DGW. That means making decisions with potential injuries to come and more than likely some players/teams involved in European football, so rotation risk as well (Liverpool were a prime example last season, most of their players figured only once in DGW34). This is risky, even assuming that you would want to wildcard in the DGW otherwise. A week of information at that stage of the season is valuable.
b) You must therefore compromise your team the week before the DGW because you are wildcarding with the DGW in mind. How much you choose to compromise it is up to you but almost inevitably you will lose some players a week before you would otherwise choose to. And those playing more cautiously will probably reduce the projected benefit of the DGW BB by keeping more SGW players. Swings and roundabouts here.
c) The fact of needing to focus on 15 players rather than 11 to play in the DGW will cause further compromises (as referred to above). You may well compromise your squad for the weeks after as a result. Many GW33 wildcarders (for a GW34 BB) claimed to do well in the management of this last season but many of them did so by taking multiple hits. The need for those hits may well have been reduced or eliminated had they only been focusing on 11 players for the DGW.
d) This is probably the most important one. You deny yourself the wildcard at another time because you are saving it for the DGW. Now, maybe you really don't need it before. But last season, for example, a lot of short teams were fielded in GW30 and a lot of hits were also taken that week (the counterpart this season will be GW28). The rough shape of the DGWs was clear by then. For some managers that would probably have been an ideal time to deploy the 2nd wildcard, just as GW28 may be this season. If you are too fixated on the 2nd Wildcard/BB combo then you'll not even consider that option. The 2nd wildcard has a very strong strategic potential if used wisely. To commit it to nothing more than setting up the BB can mean losing a lot of that.
e) And if you don't need it before then surely it is ideally used in the DGW itself. After all, that's what we'd all do if 2nd wildcard and BB could be played simultaneously, right?

8. Summary 2.

All of this is very difficult to quantify statistically so we must rely on rationality. For every manager that does well out of the 2nd Wildcard/BB combo (or says they have done) there will be others that will say the opposite. So anecdotal evidence won't help us much.

The crux of my argument is therefore very simple. The DGW BB (if set up by a wildcard just before) is worth around an expected 12-15 points more than a SGW BB. The compromises in how and when you use the 2nd wildcard and the negative effects before and after the DGW just aren't likely to be justified by that 12-15 point gain. If the constellation of fixtures around the DGW perfectly favour the combo you could come out ahead that way. But in all likelihood they won't - in fact this season they may well be even less helpful than they were last time. And if you wait to find out you are likely to have given yourself no other reasonable way to go anyway.

That's the point. By waiting to see you may corner yourself into what is very likely to be a sub-optimal position. Better to use the BB earlier in the season, take the 12-15 points and get that distraction out of the way. BB is not that big a deal and it's not worth basing your season strategy around.

9. Caveats and Options.

a) Some managers like to run with a cheap, non-playing defender and a cheap, non-playing GK as well as a cheap midfielder for most of the season. That's not my preferred tactic, I have a rule that all my defenders must be starters for their clubs and I rotate them. I also generally rotate GKs. But I appreciate that playing BB earlier in the season may be less inviting for those that like an ultra-cheap (essentially useless) bench.

b) In arguing that 2nd Wildcard/BB is a flawed combo I don't say that playing BB shortly after a wildcard is a bad idea. Playing BB in GW1 (the only week of the season when you can, in effect, wildcard and play BB in the same week) is possibly the best method if you can select sure starters. Given that many good managers use their 1st wildcard in GW3/4 anyway the cost to squad structure is very minimal that way. Alternatively, play it when an opportunity presents itself, maybe even in a DGW. The most important thing is not to compromise the 2nd wildcard. As long as you get the maximum benefit from that I don't think it matters all that much when you use the BB chip.

[Valeron]

Good post Ruth and can't wait for some strategy to enter the season.

I think that the WC -BB combo is potentially the most powerful weapon in the game but in any given season it's going to depend on circumstances. The chance of Liverpool getting past Dortmund was a very clear risk to those playing the combo in 33-34 last season and that's how it played out. Plus Sanchez had 2 plum ties in 34 for the TC to be played.
I'm aware that most of the elite players played 33-34 WC-BB but I still believe it was a tactical error. TC 34 and the combo in 36-37 was better all things considered.

Circumstances this season may well mean not using the combo is the best option and using the BB in a single gameweek. But I doubt it.

[Fuzzy]

Some good points made here.

Interestingly, a guy in one of my mini-leagues played his BB in GW19 (seemingly one of the worst / most questionable weeks to play it if you buy into the festive season rotation myth). It was worth 24 points, and a GW rank in the top 5,000 despite getting his captaincy pick horribly wrong.

By no means am I promoting his approach as a tactic, but locking onto a given gameweek and potentially compromising yourself along the way needs to be questioned.

[Stemania]

b) You must therefore compromise your team the week before the DGW because you are wildcarding with the DGW in mind. How much you choose to compromise it is up to you but almost inevitably you will lose some players a week before you would otherwise choose to.

I don't think it follows at all that your team will be worse than it would have been in the week before a DGW if the wildcard is played then instead. You'd have a brand new shiny squad all of fit, definitely playing, players from teams who have been playing well (otherwise you wouldn't wildcard them in in either week) and previously you'd have had basically whatever your team was at that point. Big hitters that you want to keep for the rest of the season you'd still keep anyway. Whether your team is better depends on so many factors. If for example you played it in GW33 this season you may still have a small hangover from not having enough players from the GW28 blankers for example (or poor cheap players because you've been using your frees to get those higher end blankers in). You could have injuries, suspensions, players who you've been wanting to sell for ages but haven't had the chance. You could have the 'wrong' Spurs or Liverpool midfielder. If you play the wildcard before/on the 2nd DGW in week 37 you may still have players from the first DGW that are far from ideal in GW36. There's so many variables that could easily make a wildcard team the week before a DGW better than it would have been under a whole host of reasonable circumstances, even if you were to make a compromise for the DGW (which is entirely up to the manager). For another thing, your bench will likely in far better shape, even if only in personnel rather than pricepoints, so you'd have a wider choice of fixtures/players to field etc and better cover should one of your first teamers miss out. If anything I would say you are more likely to have a better or equivalent team that week than a worse one.

It would be a very unfortunate set of circumstances if the fixture difficulty for the DGW big hitters happened to change dramatically from the gameweek before the DGW in question compared to during and after the DGW, meaning a wildcard a week early may struggle in terms of the bigger players compared to a team you might otherwise have had. This year, for example, we may turn out to be very unlucky in that regard for GW34 - United vs Chelsea happens to occur in GW33, which not good news because they are the two favourites to have a GW34 double. If on the other hand City and Liverpool are two of the big teams going through in the cup then wildcarding in GW33 would likely be advantageous in respect of those two teams - they have fairly tough runs of fixtures going into GW31/32 but very good fixtures from then on - so we may be lighter than we would otherwise ideally be with respect to their players going into GW33.

On the other hand (yes, I have three hands apparently), I notice that this season United have a horrendous (ars, tot) in GW36-37, so if they have a double in GW34 but not GW37 and we own their players then it would be a very good thing to have a chance to get rid of their players a week early with an earlier WC (if WC-ing on 2nd DGW). There's lots to consider, which will be fun.

Just as an example as a whole, last season was an extreme case of very good fixtures for a week-early WC - Everton and Palace had an extra double in GW33 I recall (and both teams also had a DGW34) and many big teams had just had blanks in GW30. So I would guess most WC33 BB34-ers would have had a better team than they would otherwise have had in GW33 because they could both get in more doublers than they otherwise would have had for GW33 and could also deal (a week early) with any lopsided nature of their squad due to the proximity of the recent blanks. I did WC33 BB34 last year and purely in terms of GW33 my lineup was certainly much better on paper than it would otherwise have been. Obviously the unprecedented Liverpool rotation (I can't remember anything quite of that scale before) hit the strategy fairly hard later to temper the success.

The crux of my argument is therefore very simple. The DGW BB (if set up by a wildcard just before) is worth around an expected 12-15 points more than a SGW BB. The compromises in how and when you use the 2nd wildcard and the negative effects before and after the DGW just aren't likely to be justified by that 12-15 point gain. If the constellation of fixtures around the DGW perfectly favour the combo you could come out ahead that way. But in all likelihood they won't - in fact this season they may well be even less helpful than they were last time. And if you wait to find out you are likely to have given yourself no other reasonable way to go anyway.

It seems to me the thing to do if following a WC(DGW-1) BB(DGW) strategy is to not be silly with it - don't ruin your squad structure - keep the bench relatively cheap as you would for the rest of the season. I imagine this would be a fairly standard manouvre anyway as to afford the best (expensive) DGW players you will likely need a cheap end bench. Have 4.5m DGW defenders on your bench not 5-5.5m ones for example. Then it doesn't compromise the cash on the pitch for the DGW team you would have had or your structure going forward.

If the crux of your argument is that the DGW BB (if set up by a wildcard just before) is worth around an expected 12-15 points more than a SGW BB then by keeping the bench at a similar squad price structure to normal maybe the hypothetical gain from your estimate is only 8-12 points. Well then your crux would be saying that to at worse break even between playing the wildcard one week early and the week after the DGW you have 3-4 'free' transfers (one extra free and say 2-3 costing four point hits) in the bank to spend to either 'fix' your DGW team to what it would have been or make a bench player more optimal for later fixtures. So in that case (and assuming the week before is a no-gain-no-loss from early WC), then your crux would imply that if you get unlucky and need to change more than 3-4 players you lose, if you change fewer you win or it's a dead heat, right?

That said, I don't think any precise points estimates are hugely useful as the potential gains/losses will be so dependent on how the fixtures fall before and after and in the DGW in question (and in the other DGW) and on personal team circumstances. Not that I think it's of huge importance either way as we're likely talking a single figure swing of points between an ideal 'good' use and a reasonably sensible 'bad' use, whatever those are, and I imagine that difference will be within the natural ballpark of how personal circumstances will influence what the best choices are.

That's the point. By waiting to see you may corner yourself into what is very likely to be a sub-optimal position. Better to use the BB earlier in the season, take the 12-15 points and get that distraction out of the way. BB is not that big a deal and it's not worth basing your season strategy around.

I also don't see how saving it to see how the ground lies involves 'cornering yourself'. We'll know the exact teams involved (if not the exact spread of over GW34/37) by just after GW28 so there's still 10 gameweeks to go. You say yourself that BBing after a wildcard is "not a bad idea" so worst case scenario you play BB in one of the weeks following the wildcard, where your bench is likely in a better state than it otherwise would be. To me it seems the risk of, say, a 1-3 loss by falling back and playing your BB 'sub-optimally' in terms of potential SGW uses (when the dust has settled) is a risk well worth taking to see if the DGW period offers a more favourable scenario. What seems strategically wrong to me is to intentionally rule out using the BB in/around a DGW without knowing how the fixtures will fall - I certainly don't see that waiting to see what the DGW landscape looks like is a less coherant strategy than using it early to "get that distraction out of the way".

So personally I'll be waiting until the precise DGW fixtures and the approximate state of my team are known before making any final decision with my chips, but I'll be leaving the BB chip untouched until then to wait and see what the actual situation is.

[jacksosi]

+1

[Mo Bot]

My strategy will depend on the fixtures but I fully intend to do the WC/BB for a DGW with TC for the other DGW assuming there are going to be some, you never know, it could be Rochdale's year. Looking at the draw, I wouldn't be shocked to see only 8 prem teams in the last 16 reducing the potential for missing fixtures potentially

One note of caution, last year Liverpool rotated the hell out of their squad with Europa League commitments and diluted the DGW effect I'm sure. If United for example go on some kind of Houllier-style Cup quadruple and sacrifice the Premier League, especially if they fall too far behind in the Champions League race then it might be slim pickings in terms of nailed on starters.

[Ruth_NZ]

I don't think it follows at all that your team will be worse than it would have been in the week before a DGW if the wildcard is played then instead. Big hitters that you want to keep for the rest of the season you'd still keep anyway. If anything I would say you are more likely to have a better or equivalent team that week than a worse one.

The logic is pretty simple. If you wildcard GW33 for a GW34 BB then you are selecting a squad for GW34 rather than GW33. Which means a weaker team in GW33. Or you are finding a compromise solution between the two. Which means a less strong BB in GW34. One or other must be the case.

For example, take Spurs last season. They were out of the FA Cup and had no late DGWs. OK, so many that wildcarded in GW33 took their Spurs players out, their fixture was United (h) and keeping expensive players like Kane and Alderweireld limited options for the DGW BB. What happened? Spurs beat United 3-0 with an Alderweireld goal (15 points) and another from Alli. I remember the laments even now, they were widespread. Even worse, Spurs won 4-0 in the DGW with a brace from Kane and another brace from Alli. Keeping Alli wasn't so difficult because he was cheap (although some sold him). Keeping Kane and Alderweireld was much less common for those using the wildcard/BB combo at that time.

Obviously the unprecedented Liverpool rotation (I can't remember anything quite of that scale before) hit the strategy fairly hard later to temper the success.

It might have been unprecedented but it wasn't unpredictable. Yet most GW33/34 combo managers were almost forced into taking Liverpool players because they didn't have a blank in GW35 as many other DGW teams did. GW33 wildcarders could count themselves very lucky indeed that most of the Liverpool players did well in the one game they played in the DGW. And I include myself as one of those lucky managers. By saving the BB for the DGW I had left myself nowhere else to go than to take a huge risk on those Liverpool players.

The point here is that there is much less stress on your squad selection if you are only fielding 11 in the DGW rather than 15.

It seems to me the thing to do if following a WC(DGW-1) BB(DGW) strategy is to not be silly with it - don't ruin your squad structure - keep the bench relatively cheap as you would for the rest of the season. I imagine this would be a fairly standard manoeuvre anyway as to afford the best (expensive) DGW players you will likely need a cheap end bench. Have 4.5m DGW defenders on your bench not 5-5.5m ones for example. Then it doesn't compromise the cash on the pitch for the DGW team you would have had or your structure going forward.

That assumes you aren't keeping any SGW defenders then, right? So no Alderweireld.

If the crux of your argument is that the DGW BB (if set up by a wildcard just before) is worth around an expected 12-15 points more than a SGW BB then by keeping the bench at a similar squad price structure to normal maybe the hypothetical gain from your estimate is only 8-12 points. Well then your crux would be saying that to at worse break even between playing the wildcard one week early and the week after the DGW you have 3-4 'free' transfers (one extra free and say 2-3 costing four point hits) in the bank to spend to either 'fix' your DGW team to what it would have been or make a bench player more optimal for later fixtures. So in that case (and assuming the week before is a no-gain-no-loss from early WC), then your crux would imply that if you get unlucky and need to change more than 3-4 players you lose, if you change fewer you win or it's a dead heat, right?

Wrong. I won't argue with what you have said where the BB is concerned (although I think you downplay the damage the week before the DGW). But you have also spent your 2nd wildcard in the process and achieved little or nothing more than you could have got from the BB by playing it at another time. That's the crux of my argument.

I also don't see how saving it to see how the ground lies involves 'cornering yourself'. We'll know the exact teams involved (if not the exact spread of over GW34/37) by just after GW28 so there's still 10 gameweeks to go. You say yourself that BBing after a wildcard is "not a bad idea" so worst case scenario you play BB in one of the weeks following the wildcard, where your bench is likely in a better state than it otherwise would be. What seems strategically wrong to me is to intentionally rule out using the BB in/around a DGW without knowing how the fixtures will fall - I certainly don't see that waiting to see what the DGW landscape looks like is a less coherant strategy than using it early to "get that distraction out of the way".

Whether you corner yourself depends on how long you wait. At least if you unfix the conventional assumption in your mind that the 2nd wildcard/BB is best used as a combo there's a better chance that you will use the 2nd wildcard to maximum effect in its own right. That's the key thing, as I said in the OP. When you choose to use the pretty insignificant BB chip is neither here nor there as long as it doesn't cause you to waste the 2nd wildcard in the process.

Anyway... I don't want to have an ongoing joust with you about this Stemania. So I won't say any more. My reasoning is there for those that may find some food for thought in it. Apart from that I don't have an axe to grind, nor do I wish to insist that approach A is better than approach B.

[The Dazzler]

If you wildcard GW33 for a GW34 BB then you are selecting a squad for GW34 rather than GW33.

This is incorrect. You are wildcarding for GW33-GW38 inclusive.

Which means a weaker team in GW33. Or you are finding a compromise solution between the two. Which means a less strong BB in GW34. One or other must be the case.

But even if we allow the above error to stand, the logic still does not follow. The 'perfect' team might be a wildcard in GW33 and (wildcard team + 1 transfer) for GW34 if the fixtures/players synchronize. We are yet to see.

For example, take Spurs last season. They were out of the FA Cup and had no late DGWs. OK, so many that wildcarded in GW33 took their Spurs players out, their fixture was United (h) and keeping expensive players like Kane and Alderweireld limited options for the DGW BB. What happened? Spurs beat United 3-0 with an Alderweireld goal (15 points) and another from Alli. I remember the laments even now, they were widespread. Even worse, Spurs won 4-0 in the DGW with a brace from Kane and another brace from Alli. Keeping Alli wasn't so difficult because he was cheap (although some sold him). Keeping Kane and Alderweireld was much less common for those using the wildcard/BB combo at that time.

Yes, Spurs assets scored higher than a reasonable points expectation and due to excessive rotation, DGW players scored less than a reasonable points expectation. The important point here is 'reasonable point expectation'. The actual result hugely skewed the results in this week to a reasonable points expectation gain for those that did BB to an unreasonable point realisation gain for those teams that did not.
A freak result, which happens but it does not undermine the clear logic of the reasonable points expectation superiority of the teams BBing that week.

Obviously the unprecedented Liverpool rotation (I can't remember anything quite of that scale before) hit the strategy fairly hard later to temper the success.

It might have been unprecedented but it wasn't unpredictable. Yet most GW33/34 combo managers were almost forced into taking Liverpool players because they didn't have a blank in GW35 as many other DGW teams did. GW33 wildcarders could count themselves very lucky indeed that most of the Liverpool players did well in the one game they played in the DGW. And I include myself as one of those lucky managers. By saving the BB for the DGW I had left myself nowhere else to go than to take a huge risk on those Liverpool players.

We were lucky that Pool players scored well in 1 game??? How about we were unlucky none of them played 2 games? It was unpredictable, hugely so.
As I knew there was a rotation risk, I bought 14 DGW players rather than 15. I also deliberately bought more expensive 'safer' options throughout my team like Migs/(can't remember the other keeper?) rather than the cheaper Darlow/Robles. Both of my keepers got rested for a game and I got heavily outscored. I think I had a reasonable points superiority expectation of +20pts that week over many rivals who I ended up losing +20pts to.
Of my 14 DGW players, 6 played x 2 games, 8 played x 1 game. If I posted my team up here, no one would have predicted that, ergo completely unpredictable.
To borrow a phrase from ex Irish Taoiseach Chalres Haughey, it was GUBU ("grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented")

The point here is that there is much less stress on your squad selection if you are only fielding 11 in the DGW rather than 15.

Yes, it does. It also reduces your reasonable points expectation.

It seems to me the thing to do if following a WC(DGW-1) BB(DGW) strategy is to not be silly with it - don't ruin your squad structure - keep the bench relatively cheap as you would for the rest of the season. I imagine this would be a fairly standard manoeuvre anyway as to afford the best (expensive) DGW players you will likely need a cheap end bench. Have 4.5m DGW defenders on your bench not 5-5.5m ones for example. Then it doesn't compromise the cash on the pitch for the DGW team you would have had or your structure going forward.

That assumes you aren't keeping any SGW defenders then, right? So no Alderweireld.

No, clearly he says £4.5m DGW defenders on your bench, therefore D4 + D5.

If the crux of your argument is that the DGW BB (if set up by a wildcard just before) is worth around an expected 12-15 points more than a SGW BB then by keeping the bench at a similar squad price structure to normal maybe the hypothetical gain from your estimate is only 8-12 points. Well then your crux would be saying that to at worse break even between playing the wildcard one week early and the week after the DGW you have 3-4 'free' transfers (one extra free and say 2-3 costing four point hits) in the bank to spend to either 'fix' your DGW team to what it would have been or make a bench player more optimal for later fixtures. So in that case (and assuming the week before is a no-gain-no-loss from early WC), then your crux would imply that if you get unlucky and need to change more than 3-4 players you lose, if you change fewer you win or it's a dead heat, right?

Wrong. I won't argue with what you have said where the BB is concerned (although I think you downplay the damage the week before the DGW). But you have also spent your 2nd wildcard in the process and achieved little or nothing more than you could have got from the BB by playing it at another time. That's the crux of my argument.

And if the BBing teams get luck in inverse proportion to the bad luck they received last season, it would be the greatest thing ever.

I also don't see how saving it to see how the ground lies involves 'cornering yourself'. We'll know the exact teams involved (if not the exact spread of over GW34/37) by just after GW28 so there's still 10 gameweeks to go. You say yourself that BBing after a wildcard is "not a bad idea" so worst case scenario you play BB in one of the weeks following the wildcard, where your bench is likely in a better state than it otherwise would be. What seems strategically wrong to me is to intentionally rule out using the BB in/around a DGW without knowing how the fixtures will fall - I certainly don't see that waiting to see what the DGW landscape looks like is a less coherant strategy than using it early to "get that distraction out of the way".

Whether you corner yourself depends on how long you wait. At least if you unfix the conventional assumption in your mind that the 2nd wildcard/BB is best used as a combo there's a better chance that you will use the 2nd wildcard to maximum effect in its own right. That's the key thing, as I said in the OP. When you choose to use the pretty insignificant BB chip is neither here nor there as long as it doesn't cause you to waste the 2nd wildcard in the process.

Anyway... I don't want to have an ongoing joust with you about this Stemania. So I won't say any more. My reasoning is there for those that may find some food for thought in it. Apart from that I don't have an axe to grind, nor do I wish to insist that approach A is better than approach B.

And when you 'unfix the conventional assumption' that the freak results of last season were somehow predictable and normal, perhaps you can open yourself up to the possibility that referring to the BB chip as a "pretty insignificant" might be dangerously wrong.
Everything conspired against the 'accepted wisdom' last season, Aguero getting 25pts in GW8 for the ultra casuals, both Sanchez & Aguero scoring 20pts+ in the DGW34 for TCers, the Spurs players scoring excessively compared to a reasonable expectation in GW34/35, the excessive rotation in DGW34, the popular captain choices scoring lowish in the DGW37 for TCers. And yet the vast majority of intelligent managers came to the conclusion that that path was the correct way to go. The results were hugely unkind but I'm convinced the logic was sound.

[Ruth_NZ]

Hmmm... well, I said I wouldn't be drawn into a continuing joust and I'll stick to that. Otherwise this will go on for ages and I'm not willing to be put on the defensive. People are welcome to consider my OP on its own merits (or not). That's all it was posted for.

But I will offer one adjacent observation. Often when I offer some original research or reasoning (especially when it runs counter to the prevailing wisdom) the 'usual suspects' appear to de-construct or pick at it (often while ignoring the central thrust of what it says). Yet seldom, if ever, do I see them offer any original product of their own.

Instead of trying to inveigh against my post, why not construct an argument about why coupling the 2nd wildcard and BB is optimal? Now that would be interesting to read. But maybe it would be too much work?

[Oxford NZ]

People are welcome to consider my OP on its own merits (or not). That's all it was posted for.

Many thanks for another interesting post.
As this is my first season in FPL I appreciate the time and effort that some of the FISO community like yourself put in to produce statistics and analysis.
Reading this post has given me a lot to think about and act on in future seasons. Many thanks again.

[Valeron]

If several good teams with strong fantasy picks have good fixtures from GW33 onwards including a good double in GW34 and have no Euuropean committments then I'd say those are near optimal conditions for the WC-BB combo, and one that trumps other use of the chips.

[Oxford NZ]

If several good teams with strong fantasy picks have good fixtures from GW33 onwards including a good double in GW34 and have no European comitments then I'd say those are near optimal conditions for the WC-BB combo, and one that trumps other use of the chips.

Chelsea have a good run after the Man U game at GW33 and could be doubled 34 as a real guess. Too hard for me to work out ATM. Next season I am going to save for DGW's but this season I am just team building and if I hit a blank (no play week) for multiple players the bench will have to take up the slack.
This season only starting from GW2 I am hoping for top 500k OR and all ready gone further in the cup than planned.

Next seasons my BB will be played after Christmas (GW20-24 ish)when I have more statistics available for my squad.
Double game weeks are not in the mix for me for BB as injuries, suspensions and rotations are not easy to predict, even one game away
This is harder work than work but more fun

[Mo Bot]

I think one factor in last years DGWs was the fact that it didn't feature the two dominant teams in the league (and in our teams) at the time. Major surgery was required to remove Spurs and Leicester assets and to get them back in (or not) which meant that you missed out on the standard Kane, Vardy, Mahrez, Alli, Alderweireld, Leicester defender points whilst they continued to kick ass and these were replaced with poorer standard City, United, Liverpool players. This season it might be different. If Arsenal, Chelsea and United have a DGW this year then I'm pretty sure everyone will load up (correctly )

I think it all depends on how the fixtures play out. It may be that coping with the blank game week becomes more of a strategy point.

[Oxford NZ]

BTW
Triple captain is a lotto win when it works. We have all picked captains over the last 22 weeks that have done B<gg3r all some weeks when we expected a haul.
If Uranus is in line with the pan handle it can all go to sh!t and in a double game week it would just make that moist warm feeling more "interesting".
My opinion (and that is not worth a lot) it would be as well to just pick a well performing captain in the run up to Christmas and take the points then, before they get injured, build up yellow cards, get cup tied and play too many matches in cr4p weather and get benched for their own good.
I have not seen too many postponed matches due to weather this season. WHY!?
I remember (pre alzheimer's) English winters being wet, frosty, snowy, WET, and foggy with a little wet thrown in! Rant over. Bring on the DGW and all who sail with her

[Ruth_NZ]

Hmmm again... I'm not entirely happy with my last post, maybe it was a bit reactive. So I'll make one last attempt to explain my OP.

The point of it was to question the general assumption that coupling the 2nd wildcard with the BB is the optimal route. I don't think it necessarily is. In fact I think it more likely isn't. That's the tl;dr version of the OP.

In order to reason this I tried to estimate a value for the 2 chips concerned. Points 1-5 in my OP were all about establishing a reasonable value for the DGW BB. I tried to cover all the bases but essentially what I was trying to demonstrate was that a 12-15 point gain was the best you could reasonably hope for from using the BB in a DGW rather than a SGW. And that's all that points 1-5 were about really.

Incidentally, if I understand Stemania right, he actually thought even that estimate might be too high:

...by keeping the bench at a similar squad price structure to normal maybe the hypothetical gain is only 8-12 points. So in that case (and assuming the week before is a no-gain-no-loss from early WC), then if you get unlucky and need to change more than 3-4 players you lose, if you change fewer you win or it's a dead heat, right? Not that I think it's of huge importance either way as we're likely talking a single figure swing of points between an ideal 'good' use and a reasonably sensible 'bad' use, whatever those are...

If I read that right it suggests a gain of between 0 and 12 points from playing the BB in a DGW. Either way, I don't mind. A single-figure swing from best to worst reasonable case is nothing I would argue with.

So... the next part of my OP was about the value of the 2nd wildcard in its own right. 30 points is a commonly accepted estimate. Does anyone radically disagree with that? That's point 6 of my OP.

Point 7 then addresses the question of whether it is worth utilising the valuable 2nd wildcard to support a not so valuable DGW BB. So I listed the possible ways in which the 2nd wildcard could be compromised (lessened in value) by coupling it. Dazzler's comment about Alderweireld and the Spurs players' eP is reasonable but misses the point, which is that if you weren't wildcarding a week early in order to play the BB in the DGW (if you were actually wildcarding in the DGW, for example) then you wouldn't be having to make that call (drop players a week early) at all.

Point 8 summarises the whole argument. And essentially what it is doing is to say "look, the 2nd wildcard is far more valuable than the BB. It makes no sense to couple them if you lose more potential benefit from the 2nd wildcard than you add to the BB". I did say "if the constellation of fixtures around the DGW perfectly favour the combo you could come out ahead that way." But I also showed that to be fairly unlikely (at least that's what I was trying to do) and opined that by linking the two or waiting to see you could easily end up painting yourself into a corner by default.

So that's what my OP was about. If anything I was trying to underline the value of the 2nd wildcard and to say that the BB (which is a much less valuable chip) shouldn't be allowed to degrade it. All of the additional detail in the post was only there to support that line of reasoning. And that's also why I don't want to get drawn into interminable argument about the fine detail. If that happens then I fear we'll end up discussing how many angels can stand on the end of a pin. Or, like the Oozelum bird, fly around in ever-decreasing circles until we disappear up our own rear ends.

[Vid]

Hmmm... well, I said I wouldn't be drawn into a continuing joust and I'll stick to that. Otherwise this will go on for ages and I'm not willing to be put on the defensive. People are welcome to consider my OP on its own merits (or not). That's all it was posted for.

But I will offer one adjacent observation. Often when I offer some original research or reasoning (especially when it runs counter to the prevailing wisdom) the 'usual suspects' appear to de-construct or pick at it (often while ignoring the central thrust of what it says). Yet seldom, if ever, do I see them offer any original product of their own.

Instead of trying to inveigh against my post, why not construct an argument about why coupling the 2nd wildcard and BB is optimal? Now that would be interesting to read. But maybe it would be too much work?

Just to side-track to this, if others wish to expand this to a discussion in its own right we can move a couple of posts to maybe the Forum News forum for it to develop.

It happens on forums, has done for years and will no doubt continue to happen into the future - the more you write in any post the more opportunity there is for nit-picking by others. Most will bypass a throw away one-liner and only deal with the meat of any given post, but there is always the chance that one or more posters will pick on anything that they can find to 'put you in your place', even when they have misread or misinterpreted the section they have decided to attack.

Unless there is abuse or clear attempts to disrupt the thread involved then there is little or nothing that the mod team can do.

You may choose to look at it a different way though. If only a small part of a post is picked at then those doing the picking must be agreeing with the meat of the post surely?

You are not compelled to answer/ defend yourself, this is a forum where you can post your thoughts for others to take or leave, (dis)agree with, dissect, refine, not a debating society. Only a very, very small minority believe that their 'having the last word' actually means anything to anyone beyond themselves.

[Stemania]

I don't think it follows at all that your team will be worse than it would have been in the week before a DGW if the wildcard is played then instead. Big hitters that you want to keep for the rest of the season you'd still keep anyway. If anything I would say you are more likely to have a better or equivalent team that week than a worse one.

The logic is pretty simple. If you wildcard GW33 for a GW34 BB then you are selecting a squad for GW34 rather than GW33. Which means a weaker team in GW33. Or you are finding a compromise solution between the two. Which means a less strong BB in GW34. One or other must be the case.

But that logic is far too simplistic. I think it's fairly evident that if you're wildcarding a week before a DGW, say GW33 or GW36, then your squad will not be optimised for that wildcard GW - you'll have your eye all of the remaining DGW period - I have no qualms with that. My point is that your non-wildard team (the team you would otherwise have had in that week 33/36) is very unlikely to be near optimised for that week anyway. Leading up to the week before you wildcard you will be doing what's best to have the best team you can for the whole period leading up, you're not concentrating on the week immediately before (GW33 or GW36).

Let's for example consider a WC36 DGWBB37 strategy. It seems incredibly unlikely that anyone's team will be in excellent shape for GW36 as we'd have just had a DGW34 and various blanks in GW35 that will likely have sucked up up most transfers - the main priority will have been getting through those two weeks. I think the likelihood is high that a WC36-ers team (even if geared towards DGW37) is an improvement over the previous DGW players plus rags and bones left after the specialised DGW34-blank35 double header.

So I would say I would say an advantage of a WC36 DGWBB37 strategy would be that your GW36 team will likely be better than it otherwise would be. (Edit: grammar correction). Maybe you could beef up the bench and play AOA in GW38 (where the folklaw is that CSs are less predictable) - so another advantage might be that you maximise your AOA without compromising your squad structure for any damaging length of time. Playing your WC in DGW37 gives you only two weeks to benefit, wheras in GW36 would hypothetically give you 3 weeks. I think this was one of the main reasons why so many chose that strategy last sesaon.

Here's another potential advantage of playing the WC a week early (presumably in combo). In the run up to a DGW the desirable players will likely start to rise in price and some players without doubles may start falling. If you play your wildcard one week early (and take the gamble that you won't fudge it and that the landscape will not change too significantly in one week) then you will almost certainly have slightly more buying power in terms of DGW players. You TV won't have suffered as much from SGW players you own falling in price, and the most desirable doublers (that you couldn't yet own without wildcarding) will be a week's worth of price changes cheaper. for you to buy.

It's the same as with the first wildcard - we all make a choice at some point that we feel we have enough information to make an informed guess of what the best team going forward is. If we wait too long we might be priced out, if we go to early we might risk being wrong. For playing the second WC a week early there would be an element of that - deciding you have enough information and choosing that as the point to use your diminishing buying power.

That assumes you aren't keeping any SGW defenders then, right? So no Alderweireld.

Obviously if you are playing the WC and BB together it seems to me that it's a good idea not to blindly shove in 15 DGW players and ignore aconsidering ll the best high-end SGW players. In terms of having SGW players kept for your BB, say Spurs, then I don't see the problem - that's a choice/compromise any manager is free to take. If you choose to keep the best SGW players as well as have the best doublers then your BB basically consists of some very good SGW players. Let's say you BB in a DGW and use it to play two Spurs players (Alder/Rose/Walker and or a mid, say). Then, great, the BB will consist of two Spurs players - that's still much better than it otherwise would likely have been in a regular SGW!

If you wildcard in the DGW and keep high end SGW players on your bench you are making the very same compromise - you are sacrificing DGW player buying power to keep some strong SGW players. Every strategy will involve a large dollop compromise.

Anyway... I don't want to have an ongoing joust with you about this Stemania. So I won't say any more. My reasoning is there for those that may find some food for thought in it. Apart from that I don't have an axe to grind, nor do I wish to insist that approach A is better than approach B.

Why does it have to be a 'joust' if there's a disagreement? One person posts something, someone else disagrees, it's just what discussion is and that's what we want right? You chose to repost/rekindle the discussion with a bold claim about this hot topic so it seems fair game to discuss whether or not that claim makes sense or not. Certainly at the time your assertion did not seem as neutral as the above and certainly did appear to insist one way is better than the other - you posted on "why 2nd Wildcard/BB as a combo is strategically wrong", not on why it's not clear what approach is correct or better.

My assertion is simply this - it's worth the risk of playing your BB slightly sub-optimally in a SGW to wait and see what the DGW landscape is. So for me the best strategy is to save your BB until the DGW at least approaches. Whether the best strategy turns out to be WC33 BB34, WC36 BB37, playing the TC with the wildcard, playing the BB in a SGW etc I don't think anyone can say with any real confidence because it's so dependent on precisely how it all ends up looking. I expect that I will likely end up playing BB in a DGW, but it would be ridiculous for me to suggest now that WC33 BB34 or WC36 BB37 is definitely better, or that coupling them at all will definitely be better - precise point-based arguments can't be made because the devil will the details and we don't yet have them.

[Ruth_NZ]

Why does it have to be a 'joust' if there's a disagreement? Certainly at the time your assertion did not seem as neutral as the above and certainly did appear to insist one way is better than the other - you posted on "why 2nd Wildcard/BB as a combo is strategically wrong", not on why it's not clear what approach is correct or better.

Because it goes on forever without getting anywhere at all. You and I have had that before, Stemania.

Please do me the courtesy of quoting the whole phrase by the way. "Last May I laid out my reasoning as to why 2nd Wildcard/BB as a combo is strategically wrong. It might be worth re-posting, not because I have an axe to grind about it but because conventional wisdom still says that combination is best and I think that is at least questionable."

Doesn't that simply say that I am making a case against something I believe to be questionable? I think it's neutral enough. But there we go - during the Aguero argument I was reprimanded for using the definite rather than the indefinite article. I'm not going there again.