TIME

You are your own worst enemy. You waste previous time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Cut your ties to the past — enter unknown territory. Place yourself on “death ground”, where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive.

Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War

Sometimes you can accomplish most by doing nothing. Now is not that time. The next 4 game weeks are what this whole season is about. We are at the extraordinary moment.

ATTACK

^ATTACK

ATTACK

If you expect me to lay out my vision of attack in advance, you are going to be disappointed. I will say I have two chips, triple captain and free hit. I am also still in contention to advance in the Super Cup, the group stages are reaching a crucial point, the knock out stages begin in GW29 – ‘the blank one’. I also have my second Wildcard. I have flexibility and team value on my side.

Because of the importance of tactics over the entirety of March I have decided my blogs will focus on big picture topics, with a brief game week update and review included.

I will be indulging in some escapism to help me through the pressure, and spoiler alert, March is a Monster – but we already knew that 😉

Game Week 26

If you do not go all out to optimise your squad for this upcoming week you will regret it.

Many managers will be bench boosting, after playing their wild card last week. They have identified GW26 as a major source of points.

They were fully committed to this tactic, even though they were carding ‘blind’ as the fixtures were not officially announced until after the GW25 deadline.

If you are not utilising a chip to boost your score this week, cut yourself some slack and prepare your head to see some big scores.

No Chip? You can still aggressively attack this game week.

I would urge serious consideration of team restructuring, and if hitting is the only means to do this, I say do it.

How many points hits would you take to change up your team for a double game week?

This is a question I raised in chat earlier in the week.

A few tentative shouts of 4, 8 …an hour later we were exploring the best ever score from a double game week, 223 points using the bench boost AND A MASSIVE 20 POINT HIT.

This singular good outcome just bumped up my tolerance, I am now willing to spend 16 points to buff my team. Crazy ? maybe.

We played three days ago, travel, couldn’t train much. In three days, we play at 12:30. It’s an incredible challenge, everyone needs to be involved. Next game, we’ll change 5, 6, 7 players. The only way to sustain every player…

Pep Guardiola this week

Do I really want to take the risk that tired and rotatable players will generate me enough FPL points to cover my 16 points outlay ?

OK, how about I factor in that they should also be chosen to meet the needs of GW27 and GW28 also. My perceived risk diminishes.

Future positive bias rules, and why not, I don’t have the pressure of being in the top 10K, I can be more Gung ho.

My appetite for hitting changes by the hour, the pendulum swings as I consume more content and take more advice.

FRIDAY 19th FEBRUARY

Because I had to work deadline day, and the upcoming fixtures had not been announced, I made just two (free) transfers – 1 shield 1 in preparation for blank GW29.

Out went thorn in my side Chilwell and sadly I let Soucek go ( WHU fixtures turn) I only kept Grealish because of the promise of double fixtures, his FPL output has dropped off immensely.

In came Raphinha ( I only trust Leeds attack) and Brighton defender Ben White, a price lead decision, but also a player for GW29. I will need funds available if I opt for both Vardy and Kane. Southampton don’t fill me with confidence right now so I swerved them.

WEDNESDAY 24th FEBRUARY

Hindsight is a wondrous thing, Dallas scored 17 points this week, since I transferred him out in GW21, I have never been able to make peace with my defensive set up…

An OR gain of 2K is still a gain ( I have to keep telling myself )

Postscript

Finally some action, I feel like I have been stagnating for so long. It is of course a now or never moment. If I don’t take some risks, be aggressive, I think I will regret it more than if I don’t. What I do next could be the difference between a final rank of 200K, 50K or 1.2MK.

Only time will tell.