In this weeks series, I explore how best to approach the upcoming blank and double gameweeks if you’ve used your free hit chip and whether 3-4-3 is the way forward, with the introduction of Aubameyang at Arsenal and with Callum Wilson and Bournemouth in great form

First of all, let me extend my thanks to all of the people who responded to my tweet asking for your questions, unfortunately, I will only be picking 2/3 from the bunch each week, unless I feel the article needs a bit more substance.

So, this week’s winners are:

Death Star FPL FPL Felz

Best approach for the double and blank GWs with no free hit chip

A great question and convenient, given that I used my free hit earlier in the season too.

I think for me, after using the free hit chip early, the priority was then on making sure I held onto that second wildcard to clean up the potential mess that a blank gameweek can cause.

I think the double gameweeks are fairly easy to navigate once you know the majority or all of the teams involved – it just needs a bit of planning and a bit of Ben Crellin.

So, the optimum strategy without a free hit has to be to start making transfers now with that blank gameweek in mind, like Theo Walcott for example at Everton, who we know will have a fixture 100% in BGW31.

Pickford is another good option with Everton having decent fixtures after the Arsenal game until the end of the campaign.

Liverpool don’t blank in GW31 either, so doubling or even tripling on their assets at some point might be worth it, considering they play Watford at home in BGW31.

Bauer or Butland could be worth consideration as well, given that Stoke have fairly decent fixtures and don’t blank either.

Overall though, I’d look at aiming to field 9/10 players for the BGW31 and using the 6 transfers available, to bring in some players you definitely know won’t blank now and ensure you hold that second wildcard so you can tidy it all up afterwards, as well as using it to form a team based on what DGW fixtures we know are likely to occur.

Just do the obvious things and keep an eye on the FA Cup results and then base your transfers on the results using Ben Crellin’s spreadsheets, but mainly, I’d heavily advise holding the second wildcard for GW32.

3-4-3 back on the table?

Another cracking question given the form of Callum Wilson as well as the introduction of Aubameyang at Arsenal.

This season has gone in stages, with each category having it’s moment of optimal performance with Alonso, the early form of Kolasinac and Davies from the defence, the premium strikers in Lukaku, Morata and Agüero and then the midfield coming to the fore with value assets such as Groß and Richarlison and the incredible form of Salah and Sterling.

We haven’t really had a moment throughout the season, where a cheap striker has done the business for us consistently, but Callum Wilson is currently bucking that trend, with 4 goals and 2 assists in his last 6 games, ahead of good fixtures.

We also now have a new premium striker in Aubameyang, who comes to the Premier League off the back of an extremely impressive goal-scoring record in the Bundesliga for Dortmund, with 141 goals in 213 appearances.

Aubameyang had scored 13 goals and assisted 3 in 16 appearances for Dortmund this season before making the switch, so if we take the excellent mathematical and deductive skills of the boys from Who Got The Assist, who have converted his performance to FPL points, it’s been worked out that he was averaging 6.3 points per game (estimated calculation) and if you multiply that by 26 (the number of gameweeks we’ve had this season), that puts him on 164 points (if we round up) which is only beaten by Mohamed Salah.

So the difference between a 3-4-3 and a 3-5-2 formation say, is going to come down to who has the potential to score more between a midfielder priced similarly to Aubameyang like KDB for example, who is currently priced at £10.2m and has 159pts and Aubameyang who, based on his performance at Dortmund, could match KDB’s output if we take the working’s of the lads from WGTA – the only available stats we have to compare to.

Given that City are still in all competitions and have difficult fixtures in the Premier League and Arsenal are out of the FA Cup and have good fixtures, as well as the fact that Aubameyang was Dortmund’s chief penalty-taker, with 20 converted out of a possible 26, which KDB is definitely not for City, then I think Aubameyang could feasibly out score him.

Add the fact that the midfielders priced similarly to Wilson, like Groß, Shaqiri, Choupo-Moting, Mooy, Albrighton aren’t preforming that well recently and are in no way matching Wilson for FPL returns over the last 6 gameweeks and you get a clearer picture.

This is the reason I’ve chosen to go back to 3-4-3 from 3-5-2 this week, as I believe Aubameyang has the potential to outscore KDB over the remaining games this year.

So in answer to your question, I believe it is back on table, yes.