CHIP WEEK · WILDCARD 1 · GW4 · 26/27
This is the week
the wildcard was made for.
The record transfer window shut after your squad was drafted. GW4 is the first deadline that can price all of it in — and the model’s highest-EV firing window of the season.
vs no-wildcard
Why GW4 is the season's optimised window
The model’s historical per-season gain of firing Wildcard 1 at GW4 versus never firing it — its preferred window in 70%+ of seasons.
Deadline-day departures who can never score again. Two or more in your 15 and the wildcard beats digging them out at −4 a time.
Six squads were rebuilt and the price list hasn’t caught up. GW3 put real minutes on the new signings — evidence, not guesswork, and it decays weekly.
The curve only goes one way from here — and this season the post-window mispricing stacks on top of it. Every week you hold, the market closes the gap the window opened.
The engine's live GW4 board
Not editorial — the model’s own projection: sixteen names, four per position, ranked on the next six gameweeks. That six-week total is the only number that matters on a wildcard.
Firing the wildcard for GW4? These are the model’s highest-projected targets over the next 6 gameweeks — the horizon a wildcard squad actually lives in — with this week’s projection and the fixture run behind each one.
The four names above in each position cost £117.5m as a set of sixteen, so treat them as the shortlist rather than the squad: take the two cheapest keepers, build the spine from the defenders and midfielders with the greenest runs, and spend what is left on one forward the model rates over six gameweeks rather than one.
NUMBERS AS OF 2026-09-06 FROM THE LIVE FPL API + THE ONSIDE ENGINE · RANKED BY SIX-GAMEWEEK PROJECTION · LOW-CERTAINTY STARTERS EXCLUDED · UPPERCASE = HOME, lowercase = away
Fire or hold — then build it in order
- ✓Two or more departed players in your 15 — the wildcard is the cheaper repair
- ✓Your squad is missing 2+ of the board’s premium anchors
- ✓You’re chasing in your mini-league — the reset is your swing at the field
- —Zero or one departed player AND a top-decile league rank — don’t reset what’s working
- —Your premiums already match the board — two free transfers buy the same upgrade
- —You’re deliberately banking both wildcards for GW20–29 — valid, different math
- 1Count your departed players
Anyone who left in the window scores zero forever. Two or more is the wildcard trigger.
- 2Pass the fire/hold gate above
The chip is spent once. If the hold column describes you, close this tab until GW5.
- 3Draft from the board
Two keepers from the top four (take the cheaper pair) · three board defenders + two enablers · Bruno and Saka as the midfield core with one window-arrival bet · Haaland + João Pedro + a budget third.
- 4Let the solver check your work
The squad builder runs the full £100m optimisation under every FPL rule at once — it will find the structure your eye missed.
- 5Set the armband last
Against the slate below — derby week distorts captaincy. Pick from the six-week run, not Saturday’s headline.
What GW4 actually looks like
A lunchtime deadline, then the Manchester derby
All times UK. The deadline is Saturday 13:30 — this season’s deadlines have mostly fallen on Friday evenings, so a Saturday-lunchtime lock is the one that catches returning managers out. Set an alarm.
Three doors out of this page
Wildcard Week 4: The Post-Window Reset
— Onside (onsidearena.com), predictions graded in public.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — and this season more than most. The transfer window shut after GW3, 87 FPL players left the league while staying priced in the game, and six clubs were structurally rebuilt. GW4 is the first deadline where a full reset can price all of that in, with the international break giving two weeks to plan it.
Now put the model on your team.
The same engine that graded every World Cup call in public — pointed at your Fantasy Premier League squad. Two ways in:
Everything for your FPL 26/27 season
The same model that graded every World Cup call in public, pointed at Fantasy Premier League.
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