What is Bench Boost in FPL? | FPL Bench Boost Ultimate Guide

If this is your first season of FPL, you may be wondering how each FPL chip might help you climb the ranks. In this blog, I’ll try to explain everything there is to know about the FPL Bench Boost chip, including what it does, how to use it, when to use it, and more.

FPL Rules & Basics

If you’re new to FPL, here is a link to all our FPL Beginners Guide including FPL Beginner’s Guide- How to play?, Bench boost, Team value, Triple captain, Effective ownership, Price Changes, Free Hit, Bonus Points, and more.

Link to all our 2023/24 Pre-Season articles including all team pre-season friendly updates, team previews, fixture analysis, position-wise analysis, differentials, players to target, budget enablers and more. Completely free to access as well!

What is the Bench Boost?

The points scored from your bench players in the gameweek is included in your total points score when you play the FPL Bench Boost Chip.

It provides a great opportunity to maximize your points in a given gameweek.

Just like the Free Hit and the Triple Captain chips, the success of the Bench Boost will be determined by the timing of its implementation.

This Chip can only be played once and is only active for a particular gameweek.

How to use the Bench Boost?

To activate the chip, all you need to do is go to the ‘My Team’ tab and click Play Bench Boost. The Bench Boost button is found below the ‘My Team’ screen on FPL’s official site. In the mobile app, it can be found above the team selection screen

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When to play the Bench Boost?

This chip can be played in any gameweek of the season. However, most of the experienced managers plan to use it when there is a Double Gameweek, in which some players play twice. Hence it provides the opportunity to maximize the use of the BB

Remember that the Bench Boost converts your benched players into point-scoring players, so you’re effectively playing with a 15-man team rather than an 11-man squad. When your benched players play twice, your chances of getting high points from them are doubled.

Another critical factor to consider is the dependability of the players at your disposal. It’s not uncommon to deploy a Bench Boost in preparation for a Double Gameweek, only to discover that several of your players do not start both games.

As a result, planning your Bench Boost to minimize fixture congestion for the players you possess can help you escape disappointment. Targeting players who rarely skip a game will also help to reduce the likelihood of rotation.

Things to keep in mind While playing FPL Bench Boost:

• The only thing worse than squandering your wildcard in FPL is squandering your Bench Boost.
• To get the most out of this amazing tool, make sure you read it carefully.
• When considering playing the chip, you must first ensure that you have sufficient quality on your bench. At the absolute least, all four bench players must be healthy, starting in their respective teams’ lineups, and free of suspensions or injuries.
• This can be a concern because most managers try to stock their benches with low-cost players. This is usually done to get the most points out of the better players that make up a fantasy team’s starting XI. When a cheap bench player is injured or suspended, fantasy managers rarely consider transferring him out because he isn’t earning points for the team anyhow. When it comes to player changing, there are usually more pressing needs in terms of transfers, and bench players are frequently disregarded.
• Sometimes a fantasy manager might find himself in a situation when 2 or 3 of his bench players are unavailable, but his starting XI is tearing the fantasy world apart. If such is the case, playing Bench Boost will do you no good.

To sum up, before even considering playing FPL Bench Boost, you have to make sure all your bench players are available for the coming game week and are likely to feature from the get-go. It goes without saying that every player in your starting XI should be up and running as well.

The Best time to use the Bench Boost Chip?

One of the most common strategies which have generally been used over the years is the Wildcard + Bench Boost Combo

You can freshen your team without neglecting your substitutes by wildcarding with Bench Boosting the following week in mind. You shouldn’t overinvest in your bench players, either, because they’ll be relegated to the bench after the Bench Boost gameweek anyhow.

What you want to do here is discover and move in guaranteed starters with good fixtures the next week, priced in the 4.0-5.0 million area. Do not be concerned about the rest of their games, regardless of how difficult they may be. All you need from these guys the week after your Wildcard is one good game (and perhaps a big fantasy return).

This has a basic rationale behind it. Even if your bench players don’t produce any fantasy points other than the 2 points for playing 60+ minutes or more, they’ll still contribute 16 points to your cause (4 players x 2 points x 2 games played). So, before you play your Bench Boost, make sure you single out and transfer these cheap guaranteed starters.

Due to teams competing in multiple Cup tournaments, Double Gameweeks generally occur in the second half of the EPL season (28+ game week). That is why I strongly advise you to save your second Wildcard and Bench Boost chip till the final 10 weeks of the season.

Back-Up Bench Boost Plans-

If your team was in shambles sometime during the course of the season, and you had to activate your Wildcard before going into the Double Gameweek madness, you have a few options.

• 1)Timing and playing your Bench Boost when all of your subs are available, have favorable fixtures, and just hope for the best. While the math suggests that you are more likely to get more points with your bench players featuring twice during a game week, it is not always the case.
  Bigger (longer, in our case) is not always better, and it’s favorable fixtures that do the trick at times. Sometimes your bench players would yield substantial fantasy returns playing just once, but against weak opponents.
• 2)Slowly build your team for Double Gameweek in mind using free transfers, trying to squeeze maximum value out of the chip.
  The problem with that approach is that rarely does a fantasy manager have enough free transfers to really improve his bench as I have highlighted earlier.
• You might end up with Bench Boost intact, but no decent bench when the Double Gameweek comes knocking at your door.
  Many managers find it tough to create a good bench to use this chip and can get a little frustrated if it doesn’t yield the desired results.
• If you don’t feel like building your bench for the season and want to concentrate on creating a strong first XI, you can activate this chip in the first gameweek of the season. It may just hand you a head start in your mini-leagues.

Bonus Bench Boost Scenario:

Very unlikely to happen but Gameweek 38 of the season is also a very good time to use this chip (If you’re not able to use it throughout the season, which is quite unlikely)

Reason being that GW 38 (the last gameweek of the season) throws up some very unusually high-scoring games in which you may find some hidden gems outscoring the popular players.

GW38 has always seen a lot of goals and it is a good strategy to play free hit in the last gameweek as well.

In the last gameweek of the 2021/22 season, we saw 39 goals, a whopping 3.9 goals per game, much higher than the season average. The trend is the same for GW38 in the previous seasons too.

The trend continued in the 2022/23 FPL Season:

• Total goals in GW38: 33 goals
• Goals per game in GW38: 3.3
• Goals per match(season average): 2.85

Also helps in giving you a final push in your mini-leagues and getting that extra edge in cup ties.

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Further reads from ALLABOUTFPL ahead of FPL GW1 of the 2023/24 FPL Season

Pre-Season Friendlies Updates & Fixtures

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FPL Gameweek 1 Drafts with Haaland + Salah and Trent Trio
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FPL Goalkeepers Analysis:

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2023/24 FPL Season Positional Analysis:

Defenders:
Best £4.0 Million FPL Defenders For The 2023/24 FPL Season
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Midfielders:
£4.5 Million FPL Midfielders Watchlist for the 2023/24 FPL Season
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Forwards:
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Ultimate Guide & FPL Calendar:

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Fixture Analysis:
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General FPL Blogs:
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If you’re new to FPL, here is a link to all our FPL Beginners Guide including FPL Beginner’s Guide- How to play?, Bench boost, Team value, Triple captain, Effective ownership, Price Changes, Free Hit, Bonus Points, and more.

Link to all our 2023/24 Pre-Season articles including all team pre-season friendly updates, team previews, fixture analysis, position-wise analysis, and more. Completely free to access as well!

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