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Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 29: Chip strategy and the Arsenal & Bournemouth players who could be big buys

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Our FPL expert explains his chip strategy and tells you who to buy, sell and captain in Gameweek 29.

It’s crunch time in the Fantasy Premier League – we’ve reached the point where blank and double gameweeks come in thick and fast and it’s here that mini-leagues are won and lost. Fortunately, our resident FPL expert is here to guide you through Gameweek 29 and beyond.

Today, he’s going to offer his opinions on the best strategy for your chips and suggest some players to target (and captain) in a week in which four teams won’t get a game – but before we hand you over, a reminder that it’s a late deadline this week. There’s no early kick-off, so you won’t have to make your moves until 13:30 GMT on Saturday. Enjoy the lie-in.

How to use your chips as blanks and doubles bite

Let’s start by looking ahead to how the remaining blanks and doubles are likely to play out, because that’s going to dictate your strategy for the home straight. We’ve already got two confirmed – the blanks for Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Newcastle United and Liverpool that hit this week, followed by doubles for Palace and Newcastle in GW32 – but what about the rest?

It all hinges on the FA Cup. The semi-finals take place during GW34, which means that the teams who reach that stage will see their fixtures from that week moved, most likely to GW33. There’s some chance that the fixtures move to midweek in a way that keeps them in GW34, but it’s more likely that they shunt forward a week, likely creating a hefty double followed by a big blank.

We’ll know which fixtures get moved around before GW30, which will be helpful if we want to use a wildcard after this week – which I think is the right play for most players, but more on that in a moment.

The final possible shift in fixtures comes around GW37, which is when the FA Cup final will take place. The teams affected by that could have their games moved to GW36, but that’s less clear at this stage. In any case, the biggest double and blanks will hit around 33/34, with GW37 less of an immediate concern.

For players with a full suite of chips, the best way to handle these fixtures will probably be to use a wildcard in GW30 in order to have a strong team for the blanks this week and then to pivot towards one which can ride the rest of the gameweeks out with minimal fuss. If you can get 11 men out this week and your team still looks strong for GW30, of course, you can hang on a little longer perhaps utilising it slightly closer to GW33 instead – but as it’s likely to be the biggest double, that’s also probably the best week to target with your bench boost.

WATCH: ThePremier League Panel - Who will win the League Cup final?

It's likely that you’ll then want to use a free hit in GW34 to maximise your points for the blanks, because it’s almost impossible to have enough players to get the most out of a bench boost in GW33 and then still have a strong team the next week.

If you still have your assistant manager chip, I’d probably recommend targeting gameweeks 35-38, right at the end of the season, perhaps using a transfer to get the most out of the double before pivoting for the blank the following week. Until we know the fixtures, it’s hard to say who the best managerial pick would be, but that’s the smartest way to use that chip such that it doesn’t get in the way of wildcards and free hits – remember that using the assistant manager chip prevents you from using any other chips for three straight weeks. Players who’ve burned their wildcard can use it earlier, of course.

As for the triple captain, should you have that handy, I’d recommend targeting GW32’s doubles, which probably means using the TC on Alexander Isak. We won’t know for sure that there will be a double in GW36 until after that point, so if you don’t use it then you may risk being forced to drop it on a single fixture. In fairness, Mohamed Salah can do enough damage in one game that it may work out OK anyway.

So to recap, my ideal strategy for a manager with all their chips is: wildcard between GW30 and GW31; triple captain GW32; bench boost GW33; free hit GW34; assistant manager GW35-38. There are too many combinations to go through every alternative for players who’ve used one or more chips already, but that should offer a strong outline, and remember to be stingy with free transfers whenever possible to be able to get the most out of any doubles and blanks in GW36 and GW37.

Who to captain and the best buys for Gameweek 29

With that out of the way, how should we address this week’s blank fixtures? Needless to say, the priority is getting to 11 decent players, ideally ones who have promising fixtures for two or three weeks in order to reduce the urgency of the wildcard – and for the players who haven’t got their handy, forward planning will be especially important.

Because saving transfers could be critical over the coming weeks to deal with doubles and blanks more effectively, I want to use as few transfers as possible to get to 11 players, and I’m not dropping anybody who’s playing this week, regardless of their form – so yes, Cole Palmer has gone way off the boil, but I’m not spending a transfer to drop him before the Arsenal game. He’ll come good again sooner or later. It may well be this week.

Still, won’t give him the captain’s armband, and with Salah and Isak both out of action due to the EFL Cup final, we actually have an interesting decision on who to captain for once – personally, I’d say Chris Wood is hard to beat, and while Nottingham Forest’s fixtures over the next couple of weeks are middling to hard, I still think he’s a reliable enough scorer to be worth a transfer too.

If you don’t have to want Wood, then I can’t argue against Erling Haaland, whose ceiling remains pretty high despite Manchester City’s form and who I suggested last week should be a consideration as we head to the finish line, or Bournemouth players like Evanilson and Justin Kluivert – but the Cherries do spread their points about a fair amount, making it less of a reliable source of extra points than Wood might be. Jarrod Bowen and Son Heung-Min aren’t in good enough form to really excite me, but they’re solid options as well.

As for which players to transfer in and out, I’ll start by say that you should prioritise strikers and midfielders over defenders. You may, like me, still have Lewis Hall on the books but you’re just more likely to work up a big score from someone further up the pitch than a new defender.

I still wouldn’t take Salah out, as the cost of selling him and signing back is huge for most players, but dispensing of players like Ollie Watkins, Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo and so on is more sensible. I’d rather have three iffy defenders and a full contingent further up the pitch.

In terms of teams who have good fixtures over the next, say, three weeks, which is about as far ahead as you need to look given the ideal chip strategy, I’m interested in players from Arsenal (just about, given their form) as well as Bournemouth, Manchester City, West Ham and perhaps Wolves, although outside of the suspended Matheus Cunha they don’t have great assets.

That means that big ticket targets like Haaland and Phil Foden are worthy considerations, as is Bowen, Evanilson, Kluivert, Ethan Nwaneri if you want a budget-friendly midfielder, Arsenal defenders and perhaps Milos Kerkez, according to your budget and needs – not that I’m going big on defence if I can avoid it.

That’s all for this week. Best of luck and may your 11 remaining players all score some big points this week…

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