FPL: Countdown to GW8 - To wildcard or not to wildcard?

We’ve had a weekend off from FPL and only have seven fixtures in Gameweek 8. We’re taking hits, using our chips and activating wildcards. But what’s the optimal play?

As always, it is team dependant but, for me – who can’t field 11 players without hits this week – now is the time to wildcard.

If the wildcard isn’t an option for you then this is a week where taking a 4-point hit or two to field 11 players is worth strong consideration. Meanwhile, lots of FPL managers are asking me if they should free hit and, whilst I could name 101 reasons not to this week, I will leave you with two words; double gameweeks!

Regardless of whether or not you are using the wildcard, I’m going to flag a few players and teams that I am targeting, starting with the Newcastle defence.

Predicting clean sheets hasn’t been easy this season but Newcastle look like one of the league’s most reliable defences right now. They have kept six clean sheets in their last 10 matches at St. James’ Park and with home fixtures against Bournemouth, Brentford, Everton and Aston Villa coming up, I think this is a back line we have to invest in. I’m doubling up with Nick Pope (5.1) and Kieran Trippier (5.3), who clocked up a whopping six chances versus Crystal Palace last time out.

It’s worth noting that Manchester City will have a blank in GW12 (their fixture with Arsenal has been postponed) but until that point, we need to be going big on the Champions. Every wildcard draft has to include triple City for me, and there is no bigger or better way of doing it than owning Erling Haaland (12.0), Joao Cancelo (7.0) and new addition to my team, Kevin De Bruyne (12.2).

The Belgian is playing super advanced at the moment and I’m encouraged to see him off the shoulder