Choosing when to play the Free Hit FPL Chip

The ‘Free Hit’ chip was introduced at the start of the 2017/18 Fantasy Premier League season. It effectively allows managers to make unlimited transfers in any given gameweek so long as you stay within the stipulated budget. Your squad then reverts back to its original format in the subsequent gameweek.

Choosing when to play any chip is critical to your chances of long-term success so it should not be taken lightly and the ideal time is almost certainly when 4 or more teams are involved in double gameweek action. Opting to use it under such circumstances would allow you to stack your squad with at least 12 players that all have 2 fixtures each.

However, following a horror show in GW21 we’ve decided to activate ours in time for GW22, even though there are only 2 teams – Spurs and West Ham United in double gameweek action.

GW21 was one to forget. Lewis Dunk, Harry McGuire and Leroy Sané all found their way into the referees notebook, while Raheem Sterling and Andre Gray were subjected to limited game time with the latter missing a golden opportunity when introduced into the action late on. The misery was compounded further when the unfortunate Romelu Lukaku was forced off following an early clash of heads. The Belgian striker had been given another chance with that coveted armband.

We’re now very much playing catch-up and with our squad seemingly in disarray, we’ve decided to play the Free Hit Chip early.

Harry Kane obviously needs to come back in but with some doubts surrounding his participation in Tuesday’s clash with Swansea City due to a recent illness we’ve decided to pass him over for the armband in favour of Dele Alli.

Alli tends to come good at this time of year and he did outscore Kane over the course of the 2016/17 FPL season.

Mo Salah being ruled out of Liverpool’s trip to Burnley coupled with an early gameweek deadline could easily catch out a few managers nursing a New Year hangover but it wasn’t the easiest of fixtures anyway against a side that has tremendous defensive resolve.

The Clarets restricted Huddersfield Town to an xG of just 0.05 (Understat) in the goal-less draw over the weekend, so we’re happy to avoid Liverpool players altogether – this team just knows how to defend!

Owning Salah, having Burnley defensive coverage and making sound captaincy choices have been 3 of the key ingredients to Fantasy Premier League success this season – we’ve failed on all 3 counts so we’re going to have to get the most out of our chips if we are to have any chance of making up some of the leeway!

Let’s see if we can start the New Year in style!