The best FPL players to target with no Free Hit in Gameweek 29

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Today’s topic

Okay, so you’ve decided to navigate Blank Gameweek 29 without using a Free Hit chip.

That could mean two things.

You have settled on a different chip strategy that best suits your team (this might or might not involve wildcarding in GW28), and that’s totally fine.

Or you already used it, which was either a genius decision or a really, really bad one.

But that’s for you to analyse.

Either way, now you need to make the most of upcoming fixtures, and I’m here to help.

(if you plan to use your FH chip in 29, use this simply as a review of players it’s a good idea to own long-term)

Heung-Min Son (£9.8m) and James Maddison (£7.9m)

Apart from having a fixture in BGW29, your desired player should also benefit from a good fixture run in the gameweeks that follow.

And a good match-up in DGW28 is certainly a fine bonus.

Heung-Min Son and James Maddison tick all the boxes.

I mention them as a package because, as I elaborated in one of my older X/Twitter threads, I strongly believe there is a huge benefit to owning them both:

At the same time, I know it’s not an easy task to execute in FPL simply because there is so much happening right now with all the blanks and doubles. So, the Son is the utmost priority between the two.

The main reasons are his goal threat and the fact he will play out-of-position for what seems to be anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks from now. The current reports are indeed confusing, but still, even in a few games with Son as a number nine, there’s a huge upside to chase.

I won’t dwell much on data this time. Instead, I’ll urge you to act quickly.

The first reason is to take value from the away match against Aston Villa in GW28. When I heard the news about Boubacar Kamara being out for the rest of the season (combined with other defensive injuries), I was vocal about Villa’s defence being one to target.

Since then, they conceded 5 goals and a whopping 6.39 expected goals in 3 games against Fulham, Nottingham Forest, and Luton Town.

The second reason is that there are just six gameweeks to take advantage of. Tottenham will face avl, ful, LUT, whu, NFO, and new in the next six, but after that, there will be tough games against Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool between GWs 34 and 36 (there’s about a 50% chance Spurs will double in 35/36, but the postponed game is against Chelsea, not the easiest one).

The more you wait, the less EV you’ll extract.

Jarrod Bowen (£7.9m)

West Ham’s talisman is back in favour with the masses.

Bowen recorded 6 blanks in a row between gameweeks 20 and 25, while his performances were far from ideal.

But to add more context, at least 4 games were against pretty solid defences, and West Ham were missing Lucas Paquetá, one of the most influential players in the current Premier League season.

Since the Brazilian returned, West Ham took three points from Brentford and Everton, scoring 7 goals in the process, with Bowen recording 25 FPL points (3g+1a).

And just like Son, he is an FPL MID playing as a centre forward.

He will face Burnley (H) and Aston Villa (A) in the next two GWs, and the fixtures suggest he could be a firm part of your FPL team pretty much for the rest of the season.

Anthony Elanga (£5.1m)

For the record, the Watkins, Bailey, and Toney trio deserve to be there.

It’s just that Toney will face Arsenal away this weekend, and Villa is too obvious regarding their attacking assets.

And I also want to stress that Anthony Elanga has emerged as a genuinely viable budget pick from now on.

He averages 0.26 non-penalty expected goals and 0.17 open-play expected assists, meaning he regularly gets into very good goal-scoring opportunities, and his final pass is of immense quality. Both numbers are in the 90th percentile for his position.

His final product is, in fact, similar to that of Gabriel Martinelli or Raheem Sterling.

With fine upcoming fixtures, Elanga seems to be the best NFO player to own. Morgan Gibbs-White offers much less attacking threat this season, and Taiwo Awoniyi faces competition from Chris Wood and Divock Origi.

Elanga seems to be nailed and even plays some games up front. More returns will certainly come.

Furthermore, Nottingham’s defence has improved significantly lately, being ranked 7th best in the xG conceded metric since December (sample size of 14 games). This should translate into Forest having more control over the game and increasing their attacking potential as a byproduct.