The Scout and FPL expert Sam Bonfield give the best advice on how to recover from a difficult start in Fantasy Premier League, and explain why nothing is yet lost for managers.
Underlying data can help patience pay off
Delving into the underlying data can help managers be a little more patient with their early-season picks.
Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze (£6.9m) is the perfect example over the opening Gameweeks of 2024/25 Fantasy.
The Eagles’ talisman was sold by a hefty 778,000 managers ahead of Palace's trip to Chelsea in Gameweek 3, dropping £0.1m from his initial cost of £7.0m.
Eze immediately punished those sellers with a goal and 10-point haul at Stamford Bridge.
Despite blanking in both of the opening two Gameweeks, Eze’s displays had been hugely encouraging – indeed, his 12 shots were joint-top among all players in Fantasy.
Those who kept him were not only rewarded with his double-figure return against Chelsea, they now still have Eze in place for Gameweek 4 – when Palace have a plum home match against promoted Leicester City.
Focus on fixtures
Assessing the upcoming schedules of each club can also help drive your decisions.
Arsenal, for example, have a tough pair of fixtures ahead, with visits to north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and champions Manchester City up next.
If you currently own both Bukayo Saka (£10.1m) and Kai Havertz (£8.1m), then it might be a good idea to move away from the attacking double-up temporarily until the Gunners’ fixtures improve in Gameweek 6.
Saka owners could consider a move to Mohamed Salah (£12.7m) or Cole Palmer (£10.1m), who both have far kinder match-ups. Liverpool and Salah host Nottingham Forest and AFC Bournemouth, while Chelsea's Palmer has away trips to Bournemouth and West Ham United.
Meanwhile, Ollie Watkins (£8.9m) and Danny Welbeck (£5.7m) both have back-to-back home matches to offer a solution up front for Havertz backers.
Aston Villa’s Watkins has home encounters with Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers, while Brighton & Hove Albion’s Welbeck can benefit from home matches against Ipswich Town and Nott’m Forest.
Be flexible with your Wildcard
The early-season displays of Salah and Erling Haaland (£15.2m) have shown why you need at least one of them in your squad.
Both have delivered a record-breaking 41 points across the first three Gameweeks of the season, with their ability to deliver huge armband hauls the key to their appeal.
Salah has recorded a double-figure return in all three of his outings under the Reds' new head coach Arne Slot, while Haaland has hit back-to-back hat-tricks against Ipswich and West Ham.
If you don’t have either of them in your squad, now could be the time to rectify that decision.
Salah looks set to be the runaway captain pick in Gameweek 5, in particular – he plays at home to Bournemouth when Haaland is up against Arsenal.
The Wildcard can also be used to effectively target changes in schedules for certain clubs.
See: What is the Wildcard chip in FPL and how can it help now?
In Gameweek 6, for example, a triple-up on Arsenal players looks a very strong tactic – they have back-to-back home meetings with promoted pair Ipswich and Leicester, followed by a trip to Bournemouth.
If you’ve loaded up on Newcastle United players such as Alexander Isak (£8.5m) or Anthony Gordon (£7.4m) early on, replacing them with Arsenal assets at that point looks a smart move. The Magpies have a tough five-match run of opponents from Gameweek 6, which starts with a home contest against Man City and ends with the visit of Arsenal to St James’ Park.
Expert View: Sam Bonfield
It can be really disheartening when the season hasn't started as you wanted. Many managers spent weeks tinkering with their teams to create what they thought was the perfect squad, only to then be thrown by surprise benchings and injuries.
For example, I started with Christopher Nkunku (£6.2m), who lost his starting spot, and Dominic Solanke (£7.5m), who got injured ahead of Gameweek 2. That, along with a couple of picks I would like to change, Valentin Barco (£4.0m), for example, who joined Sevilla on loan from Brighton, can make you want to rip up your team and start again.
But it is worth taking a step back and looking at your team with fresh eyes. Often with one or two tweaks a team can look and feel very different to a manager.
Hitting the Wildcard button might be the right thing to do, but before you press the button to activate, think about whether just taking a -4 points hit makes your team better and enables you to hold that Wildcard for later.
The other really important thing is that FPL can't be won, or lost, in the opening weeks of the season. A bad start is recoverable. Managers who owned Eze and sold ahead of Gameweek 3 due to frustration may be disappointed now.
So check the underlying data and look at team performances. If your players' numbers look good then have some patience, especially if their team is performing well too.
One of the hardest things in FPL management can be stopping yourself from chasing the points. Managers see the likes of Noni Madueke (£6.6m) as the top-scoring player in Gameweek 2 and feel the need to immediately buy him for Gameweek 3.
Of course, in Gameweek 3 he then failed to produce an attacking return and has now had over 120,000 transfers out. If you believed in a player enough to bring them in then at least give them a couple of weeks to produce for you.
The key for me in the early weeks of the season is to look at form and fixtures. Then, as hard as it might be, be patient and make moves to improve the overall feel of your team by improving the weakest player in your squad.
FPL is a game of 38 Gameweeks. So far we have only seen three of them. Fix your weakest players, try not to panic and make too many transfers each week and play that Wildcard only when it's right for your team - not just because those in your mini-league are!
