🎁 This is a bonus email. The deadline is three days away (Friday, 4th September, 18:30 BST).

🔒 The transfer window closes tonight (Tuesday at 11pm BST). We’ll do a quick briefing in Thursday’s main email.

👀 Keep reading for socially acceptable Free Hit and Wildcard drafts.

Alright?

It’s another bonus email, and in today’s episode, we’re talking about chip usage in Gameweek 3, with a specific focus on the Wildcard and the Free Hit.

To be honest, it’s really difficult for us to talk about chips without making a load of shite chip-related puns. Cheesy chips, overcooked chips, burnt chips; we have no shame. Our thirst for shite puns is…

…punquenchable.

So today we’re going to try to get through the whole email without any chip-based banter. Just pun-free advice about playing your chips. Thanks in advance for your support; let’s see how we go.

Big stat: Four of our five pundits are in the top 200k already. That means 80% of our experts are currently doing better than 98% of the rest of the field.

More interestingly, three of them are playing their Free Hits this week. Two are playing their Triple Captains, which we’ll explore more in Thursday’s newsletter.

To get their Gameweek 3 teams, you’ll need to be subscribed to LazyFPL Premium.

Premium is for managers who prefer FPL league prizes over FPL league forfeits. Aside from all of our expert team reveals, you’ll get:

New members can get a no-strings-attached refund if you don’t like it after a week.

Given the nature of this newsletter, we figured it’s best to remind you of this weekend’s fixtures.

Summary for the Lazy: If you’ve planned to play it, stick with the plan. If not, consider very carefully whether you actually need it at this stage.

Ffs, we’ve already failed on the shite pun front. But that’ll definitely be the last one.

A lot of managers are looking at the Free Hit in Gameweek 3 - particularly if they don’t own Haaland, who plays Coventry at home.

Should you play your Free Hit?

You should certainly play your Free Hit if it was always part of your plans for Gameweek 3. Some managers, like The Professor, for example, have been telegraphing it since pre-Gameweek 1.

In essence, if you don’t own Haaland, the Free Hit makes it easy to get to him. That’s the main driver for the Gameweek 3 Free Hit strategy.

If it wasn’t a part of your plans, and your team looks alright going into this weekend, then we’d advise against yielding to the FOGMO (Fear of Getting Mugged Off) that seeing a Free Hit draft might induce.

I’m playing it. Who should I pick?

Here’s a Free Hit team that has already been vaccinated against public humiliation:

You’d play a 3-5-2, with Walle Egeli, O’Shea and Egan benched (Along with Dubravka). Well, you could play any formation you want, but that’s what we’d recommend.

Crucially, the team maximises Man City and Liverpool assets, whilst temporarily ditching some of the tropes that have ruled Gameweeks 1 and 2 (like Man United defenders, Arsenal players and Chelsea picks).

It’s not like Pedro is suddenly a bad pick for Gameweek 3, or that anyone who owns Arsenal defenders needs to activate their Free Hit. Calafiori might well bag a few assists, and Pedro is in good enough form to score against anyone.

But this is a drum we often hit: Being good at FPL is about creating as many opportunities as possible to get lucky, then hoping you do. This Free Hit draft gives us plenty of dice rolls because it targets the players with the best fixtures for Gameweek 3. If you’re not doing that, you probably don’t need to play your Free Hit in the first place.

Summary for the Lazy: Gameweek 3 is a tough week for the Wildcard because some good teams have challenging fixtures, but there might be a strategic advantage to moving early.

The Wildcard is more hipster. It’s a polenta chip; the sort eaten by hungry Napolitans on the foothills of Mount Vesuvius.

(Final chip pun, guaranteed.)

It’s worth emphasising that the Wildcard is a valuable chip. It’s probably the most valuable, capable of turning an entire season around if used wisely.

And it’s that last caveat - if used wisely - that you really need to chew over. Some proper mastication is needed here, because an ill-timed Wildcard can be just as damaging as a good Wildcard can be beneficial.

How do you know when the timing is right?

Stop applying RomCom logic to FPL. There’s no such thing as “when you know, you know” in this game. Sorry, Richard Curtis, but we prefer the understated sexiness of cold, hard logic.

The fact is, the Wildcard is always tempting, particularly if you haven’t gotten off to the best start. If nothing else, playing a Wildcard is fun. It gives you something to do.

In other words, it’ll always feel right, to an extent, because you’re addicted to making transfers, and the Wildcard is your free money at the casino.

But without knowing what your team looks like, there’s a strong possibility that it’s too soon. After all:

The case for the Wildcard.

Your team might need a Wildcard. Maybe you started the season with Gyökeres, or you’ve woken up and realised that, somehow, you’ve tripled up on Coventry midfielders. We haven’t seen your team, so we don’t know.

The strategic argument is more compelling.

You might’ve planned a Wildcard all along, maximising value in Gameweeks 1 and 2 ahead of a rejig going into Gameweek 3 and beyond.

And besides, this season is a bit anomalous, in that usually very early Wildcards are more common. Many a top manager has played an early Wildcard in seasons gone by and reaped the rewards. An early Wildcard might allow you to capitalise on a hunch before the rest of your mini-league do, whether that means getting rid of an underperforming pick, or bringing in someone who’s yet to make the template.

If, for some reason, we were physically forced to play our Wildcard this week, this is close to what we’d go for:

Our conclusion.

Look, if your team is in desperate need of a refresh, it’s usually best to put out those fires now before they spread.

But don’t be led astray by others Wildcarding - just because they are, it doesn’t mean you have to as well. Resist the FOGMO.

We’ll leave you with this thought: Last season, Spurs won their first two games, beating Man City away and conceding zero goals in the process. But nobody wanted Spurs assets by Gameweek 4. Two gameweeks can be deceiving.

We’re going to save our captaincy analysis for Thursday’s 24h email, but Haaland against Coventry is as good a fixture as any for the first Triple Captain chip.

As always with a chip like this, luck will play its part, but if you’re not playing one of the other chips (remember, you can’t use two chips simultaneously), you could do a lot worse.

Right, if you join LazyFPL Premium, you’ll get The Professor’s next deep-dive newsletter later this evening. Otherwise, we’ll see you on Thursday for the pre-deadline, everything-you-might’ve-missed inbox bonanza.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.