Sam Austin

Weekly Wildcards: Gameweek Thirty-Five

Every week The Hype Train analyses the best wildcard options for your Fantasy Premier League teams. Historically weekly dream team’s comprise of mostly wildcard players whose selection falls under 5% of overall players, to which there is no doubt that their influence cannot be ignored. With such an abundance of points coming from the FPL’s hidden gems The Hype Train selects one player from each match in the upcoming gameweek to decide who could be the differential for your teams.

LAST WEEKS PERFORMANCE (GW 34)

Well, that was interesting. Gameweek thirty four was a chaotic scene of rotation, substitutions, crucial red cards in a hotly contested title race…that plus the number of points on offer. The definite winners of the double gameweek were Liverpool who won both their games whilst Manchester City and Arsenal picked up four points each. One thing was ever present…wildcards, and boy oh boy did they not disappoint. Everyone knew that it was going to be a bit of a brave challenge putting in players with little faith but it had been rewarded. Of our ten picks eight performed and got admirable points, and Daniel Sturridge went close to becoming our best ever wildcard. The man with the dance and Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi are no longer wildcards however much to our disappointment, but as they are both now valid FPL options we strongly recommend putting them in your team.

Out of our picks we registered five goals, we assists, and one clean sheet alongside all the other goalkeeping save points Robles made against Liverpool. This will probably be our best return in a single week this season, the great shame is that many people considered these players and didn’t feel brave enough.

Yannick Bolasie: 10pts

Joel Robles: 6pts

Alex Iwobi: 6pts

Daniel Sturridge: 17pts

Marcos Rojo: 7pts

Samir Nasri: 5pts

Aleksandar Mitrovic: 5pts

Troy Deeney: 0pts

Craig Dawson: 3pts

Andy Carroll: 15pts

Gameweek 34 Average Points: 79pts

Gameweek 34 Wildcard Points: 74pts

TEAM OF THE WEEK WILDCARDS

The first week where everyone scored double digits…GW34, the dream team is an unbelievable sight on sore eyes as four players score over twenty points. Nobody knew that so many players would score returns, sure there will be major disappointment in other alternative players, but teams won who were meant too, clean sheets were kept, goals were scored. Leading our line was Daniel Sturridge who we singled out as the best alternative striker if you couldn’t afford Aguero, and what a bet it was. The fact he remains injury free is something to be celebrated, we are walking on unfamiliar territory and most the FPL will hope he retains his valuable FPL option status.

The champions of this week were the wildcards; there were so many options outside the usual faces (Aguero, Alexis) that many players could have been picked by accident and end up scoring big. We knew someone who transferred in Darmian by accident from one of our mini-leagues and the twist was that it was the best transfer this man has made.

We will say one thing, everyone looked over Newcastle, and everyone thought they were down and out. We were all proven wrong and were one of the best teams in the gameweek. We commend the very few people who put money on Lascelles stepping up for the Toon.

Wildcards: Valencia, Lascelles, Sakho, Noble, Townsend, Sturridge (6)

Non-Wildcards: Gomes, Darmian, Sanchez, Alli, Aguero (5)

Points achieved by wildcards: 101pts

Points achieved by non-wildcards: 103pts

THIS WEEKS WILDCARDS

For this gameweek we are once again selecting wildcards. Same rules apply: the players we choose must not be selected by more than five percent of the games players. With only seven fixtures we are picking seven players, we won’t do full reviews this week just as we did in GW34.

The wildcard options selection percentage is accurate as of 23/04/2016.