In the series of introducing Fantasy Football, today I will be writing something about FPL chips. There are 4 kinds of FPL chips, which are Wildcards, free hit, bench boost, and triple captain. I discussed Wildcards in my previous post here. I will be discussing Free hit chip today.
Free hit chip is a new feature and was introduced as a replacement to all-out-attack and it allows managers to make an unlimited transfer in given GW. It is like a wildcard where the managers can make the unlimited transfer in a given but there are some differences. It can be played only one time in any of GW throughout the season.
The only difference between the wildcard and free-hit chips is that the transfer made in free-hit is temporary, and the original squad and the bank balance is restored for the next deadline. But the transfers made in the wild card is permanent along with the price change.
You have one chance to play free-hit chip, and it has the potential to boost your overall points. You need to use it at the right time. For me, blank GW is the best time to play the free-hit chips. There is a time around March in the season when there will be very limited fixtures. I don't remember the exact GW, but there was a one-time last season, where there were only 4 fixtures and 8 teams were involved. These clubs were mostly the lower side, while the top team featured in the cup games. And it was hard to get the playing 11 in your team for that GW because your team is made up of from the players on the top team. Its ideal situation to play free-hit, bring the best 11 for the blank GW, and if they perform well, your ranking will go pretty high.
The biggest advantage of the free-hit is that the team is restored in the next GW, which means you needn't worry about the future and make the best team for single GW. If one of the game is between Crystal Palace vs Fulham, you can afford to bring 3 defenders from Crystal Palace hoping for clean sheets for that GW, which you normally don't do in a normal GWs in FPL.
Also, the top teams have blank fixtures as they have cup commitment. As your team is build up with the players from these top teams, you will have lots of non-playing players on your team. To accommodate the blank GW, managers are required to transfer-out the players from the top team, thereby losing the price in top players, when they have to transfer back. Losing the team values is worse scenario during the later part of FPL.
During blank GW, managers who aren't using the free-hit are likely to make multiple transfers incurring -4/-8 points. You can use free-hit and make your best team during these blank GW to outscore the other manager and improve overall ranking.
I personally don't prefer it but it is is another alternative to play your free-hit chips. It is effective if you used wildcards early. For me, I always save wildcard for double GWs.
Using in double GW, you can have a set of the players playing twice for that GW. But the downside is, if you use your free-hit chips, you can't use the triple captain or bench boost which are more effective in double GWs. Also, free hit chips prepare you for single double GW, but there are usually two double GWs during a season, and you need to have a wildcard to be intact with the double GWs.
But I have seen managers playing the free-hit between two double game weeks, which is also an effective strategy. When you prepare your team for two double GWs, and don't want to mess between them, you can use the free-hit chips.
Again, the other time to use the free-hit chip is during the crisis when your team has many non-playing players because of injury and suspension. But as you know, your team will be reverted, it is not effective techniques, and don't recommend.
This article was published in Scorum by me here
