Our Fantasy Premier League expert picks his ideal wildcard team ahead of Gameweek 4 - featuring both Salah and Haaland...
We’re only three weeks in to the new Fantasy Premier League season and already so much has changed – and so many players and teams proven to be better or worse than expected – that a lot of players will be contemplating a wildcard over the course of the international break.
As 3 Added Minutes’ resident FPL expert, I’ve decided to put together what I would consider to be the ideal wildcard team for those players – and while I would generally advise against using such an important and impactful chip this early on in the game, it’s certainly possible to have constructed a team that’s struggling enough to justify it.
Below, I’ve not only composed a team I think should be extremely strong for the foreseeable future but also explained why I've built my team the way I have, and why I’ve selected or avoided certain players and teams.
The way price rises and falls work means that not everyone who is wildcarding will be able to afford exactly the same squad, so for the sake of fairness I’ve started afresh with £100m in the bank and spent the lot as if I was a new player coming in for the first time. Let’s jump right in…
Mohammed Salah and Erling Haaland together in the perfect FPL wildcard team
Our expert's FPL wildcard teamplaceholder image
Our expert's FPL wildcard team | Fantasy Premier League
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t seriously consider building a team which includes both Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland, simply because the cost of all the budget cuts you have to make elsewhere is too great – but with so many cheap midfielders making a splash this season, this is a rare occasion on which I would make the biggest double dip in the game.
Moisés Caicedo and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall can rotate as impressive budget enablers and with Tottenham Hotspur heading towards a good run of fixtures, Mohammed Kudus becomes very temptingly well-priced. There will be some rotation at Spurs now that Xavi Simons has signed, but they didn’t pay £55m to leave the Ghanaian on the bench.
Up front, I’ve changed my tune on João Pedro, who I was pretty cool on in pre-season based on his track record with Brighton – now that an injury to Liam Delap has effectively nailed the Brazilian on as the starting number nine for up to two months, I think he’s a straightforward inclusion at his price.
Jean-Philippe Mateta hasn’t had an amazing start to the season, but he’s a consistent and proven goalscorer, absolutely nailed on for minutes, and about to face Sunderland and West Ham. The pool of strikers I trust heading forward isn’t that deep, and while I’d happily consider Chris Wood and maybe Jarrod Bowen here, I think Mateta is the best bet (and the cheapest, conveniently).
As for Florian Wirtz, while people have rapidly moved off of him while he settles in at Liverpool, I suspect he’s a good pick-up at a lower price which is likely to climb rapidly once he starts scoring – and I believe in his sheer class and quality to the extent that I expect that to happen sooner rather than later, and the stats from his time at Bayer Leverkusen suggest that he won’t miss the mark for very long. He’s one hell of a player.
For those that don’t believe in Wirtz, I would happily gamble on Bryan Mbeumo but went elsewhere on this occasion simply because Manchester United have tough fixtures and, frankly, look rather bad. Mbeumo will score some points regardless, but the short-term ceiling on other players is likely higher.
I’d also not blame anyone for making room for either Viktor Gyökeres or Ollie Watkins. The former will surely rack up plenty of goals once he’s got his feet under his desk and Arsenal’s fixture difficulty eases off, and I’m patiently waiting for the moment to sign him. Watkins hasn’t scored once yet – in face, Aston Villa as a whole haven’t – but I’m a firm believer in the permanence of class, and Villa still have relatively gentle games coming up.
A lot of players who started the season with Salah are, of course, wavering a little. He’s had to wait until the dying moments for two of his goal contributions and was undeniably poor against Arsenal – but if there’s one thing we know about Salah, it’s that he will keep scoring.
Salah would have to collapse completely to have a season-long floor below 200 points, and the only other midfielders likely to be in that bracket, Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer, are both injured. The points are still there, and there are enough effective cheap enablers to include Salah still. When given the choice, always go for the highest ceiling player in the FPL unless you’re protecting a mini-league lead, and it’s too early for that.
Spurs, Sunderland & Leeds defenders make it easy to stay cheap at the back
The budget-friendly team building extends to my defence. Normally, I’d be very wary of setting up a team with two £4.0m defenders in it, but I’ve seen enough from the newly-promoted teams to have faith in them as rotational back-ups, especially given that I expect to play three at the back almost every week.
I’ve picked Nordi Mukiele and Gabriel Gudmundsson but I don’t blame anyone for going for one of Burnley’s centre-backs if they see the newcomers’ prospects differently to me. Mukiele isn’t nailed on for 90 minutes every week, especially given the sheer number of players that Sunderland now have, but he was effective enough against Brentford to look like a regular.
Elsewhere, I’m doubling up on Crystal Palace defenders who provide cheap ways into a defence that looks good for clean sheets and only has one really bad fixture (Liverpool at home) in the next five weeks. Both Chris Richards and Marc Guéhi should be good for defensive contribution points, too, and for now should have safe places in the starting XI. If double Palace feels strong, Ezri Konsa would be my first-choice alternative.
Two teams I have defenders from in my ‘real’ team but who I would back away from given the chance are Nottingham Forest and Wolves. Forest still looked perfectly solid without keeping clean sheets for the start of the season but the 3-0 defeat to West Ham was worrying, while Wolves have really declined after finishing the season strongly under Vitor Pereira. There’s no reason to think they won’t turn things around, but one of my pre-season sneaky picks, Emmanuel Agbadou, isn’t looking like such a great signing. That was a miss on my part.
In goal, I’m breaking another rule by spending more than £4.5m on my first-choice goalkeeper. Normally, I think you can find a cheap starter who’s worth enough points, but for now all of the £4.5m options look pretty dicey and Chelsea’s defence is good enough that I’m happy with Robert Sánchez. Martin Dúbravka is a £4.0m starting goalkeeper, and should be in every team.
I’m a big advocate of keeping it budget-friendly at the back and spending big further forward, and I don’t see any of the more expensive defenders being worth the extra investment in the long run as yet – although I’m still keeping an eye on Jeremie Frimpong when he returns from injury, as he should have a very high ceiling indeed based on his Bundesliga form.
I should reiterate that while I’d be very happy with this squad going forward, you should really try to hold on to your wildcard unless your team is in real trouble with injuries and form. The value of that wildcard could shoot through the roof when used later towards the end of December, and in the early stages of the campaign it should be viewed as being behind glass marked ‘break in emergency’. But if it is an emergency, hopefully this is a strong starting point.
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