The 2020/21 FPL season started with a blank game week with Man City, Man United, Burnley, and Aston Villa who didn’t play in the opening GW. Fast forward to December we have got another Blank game week approaching us not just a blank game week there’s a double game week that follows the blank making it exciting and interesting for us FPL managers. After all, FPL isn’t fun without double and Blank game weeks. There’s a lot of possible strategy and chip combination that could be used by FPL managers. In this blog, we’ll cover every possible strategy that you can use to navigate FPL BGW18 and DGW19.
How many Double and Blank game weeks do we have left this year and when will they played?
Let’s start planning for FPL Blank game week 18 and Double game week 19
Few things to keep in mind before jumping into planning:
- If you still have a wildcard you need to use it before the GW16 Deadline on Monday, 28th December.
- You’ll be able to use the Second Wildcard as well for BGW18/DGW19.
- At the moment, three games need to be rescheduled. Burnley vs Manchester United, Man City vs Aston Villa, and Aston Villa vs Newcastle United. There isn’t clarity on when the games will be rescheduled.
- The Villa vs Newcastle game could be slotted in easily as both teams are not playing in European competition. It gets tricky for the other two games as both Man Utd and Man City both having European commitments. Especially for Manchester United who are in Europa and have to play two round of 32 fixtures.
Which teams are playing in the FPL BGW18 and FPL DGW19?
Yellow ~ GW19, GW26 Indicating Double game weeks
Sheet by @Bencrellin Get your’s now
FPL BGW18 Fixtures:
Only 10 teams and five games will be played in FPL BGW18 with Sheffield United, Newcastle, Wolves, Everton, Man City, Brighton, Aston Villa, Spurs, Arsenal, and Palace playing. What makes it tough is that there aren’t many good teams to build a team around for BGW18.
FPL DGW19 Fixtures:
Double gameweek 19 although seem to be the action packed with 10 teams have two games including Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Leicester.
Chip strategy for FPL BGW18 & DGW19
To keep it simple I’m dividing it into two parts for managers having their first wildcard left. If you don’t have your first wildcard left skip to the without wildcard part below.
FPL Managers who still have their First Wildcard, Free hit/Bench Boost left:
If you have still got your first wildcard then you have little to worry about. Use your wildcard for GW16 to build a solid squad that has DGW19 players loaded. Ignore the BGW18 and use your FPL Free hit chip for BGW18 to navigate the blank game week and then use your FPL Bench Boost chip for DGW19. Maximize returns!
If you have wildcard 1 left I would strongly recommend using the Bench Boost for DGW19 over the triple captain chip.
FPL Managers who don’t have their First Wildcard left, But have Free hit/Bench Boost left:
This is the category vast majority of managers including me fall under. Although you’ll have your second wildcard available from GW17 it is too early in the season to use it as we still have more than 20 weeks left from GW17 with couple of double and blank game weeks coming up.
Use Freehit in BGW18 and bench boost in DGW19
This is the best possible plan if you don’t have wildcard one left with you. BGW18 has some decent fixtures where in you can load on Spurs, Man City assets and add few more from Palace, Everton, Aston Villa to complete the 11. Use the free transfers you have from GW15 to GW19 to get in DGW19 players to maximize the bench boost in DGW19.
Alternate plan:
The above seems to fairly a straightforward move but if you have already got Son/Kane and KDB(2/3 premiums from City/Spurs) who’ll be most likely on every manager’s radar for free hit then you can ditch the plan of BGW18 Free hit and navigate BGW18 with 7-8 players which isn’t really bad.
You could then either use the freehit in DGW19 to field 11 DGW19 players and get your squad back to how it was at the GW18 deadline for the period after DGW19. It’s worth considering KDB and Man city have exiting fixtures after DGW19 even though they don’t have two games in GW19. Similarly, assets like DCL, Son, and Kane who are quite popular and have only one game in GW19 could be held without losing value if you considering Free hitting in GW19.
What to do with FPL Triple captain chip?
Triple captain in DGW19 isn’t a great move as the two stand-out DGW options worth considering triple captaining, Salah and Bruno play against each other so it’s better not to use the TC chip in DGW19.
Conclusion ~ Summing up if you don’t have a wildcard one left and have just 4–5 decent BGW18 assets then use your FH in GW18 and use the transfers to get a good squad filled with DGW19 assets for a potential DGW19 Bench boost. If you have a decent team of 7-8 BGW18 players then use your freehit in DGW19 to maximize your returns from your squad.
What should be the Chip strategy for FPL DGW26, bgw29 and BGW33?
BGW29 will have four, five or six Blank fixtures. The Blanks will be confirmed in the midweek before the GW24 deadline. The Blanks are most likely to move to GW26. You can use your second Wildcard before DGW26 ideally in GW25 and use your bench boost(if you don’t use it in DGW19) and then use the transfers leading till BGW29 to build a decent squad for BGW19. The triple captain could also be a handy chip for BGW26.
There could also different strategies that you could adopt and one that caught my eyes was this one by the WGTA lads.
Check out their Pod for chip planning!
Teams to consider for BGW18 & DGW19
First up it’s the defensive matchups for BGW18 & DGW19 done by @fplmariner
- Man City, Newcastle, Everton, Spurs and Aston Villa top the attacking metrics for BGW18 based on opponents defensive numbers.
- Newcastle, Mancity, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, and Everton top the defensive metrics for BGW18 based on opponents attacking numbers.
- Man Utd, West Ham, Southampton, Chelsea, and Liverpool top the attacking metrics for BGW18 based on opponents defensive numbers.
- West Ham, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Leicester top the defensive metrics for BGW18 based on opponents attacking numbers.
These above teams are the ones you’ll be ideally need to be looking at for BGW18.
Players to consider for FPL BGW18 & DGW19
@fplZhou has once again done a commendable job in short listing the potential players for the blanks and Double game weeks.
It is important to look at fixtures after GW19 as well to set your time nicely. Manchester United enjoy a very kind fixture run after the double and a double or triple up could be good decision. Similarly, a Leeds attacker in Raphina could be solid option for DGW19.
Of course there isn’t one right or wrong strategy in FPL and this holds the same as well for the Blank and double game weeks. Analyze your team and decide the best strategy for your team.
Check out the latest episode of FPLEXPECTASIANS where me, @fplZhou, and @fplmariner discuss the DGW19 and BGW18.
FPL Chip strategy: Episode link
Further reads from ALLABOUTFPL for FPL Managers:
All that you need to know about FPL cup
History Of Fantasy Football And Origin Of FPL
FPL Tools – All That You Need To Know About Fantasy Football Fix
FPL Tools: All That You Need to Know About FPL Gameweek Tool
Tools Series- FPL: All About Premier FPL Tools
FPL Tools: All that you need to know about FPL Planner
FPL Tools Series- Best Chrome Plugin – FPL Tools Chrome
FPL Tools: All That You Need to Know About FPL Review
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