Are You Using Your Free Hit Chip in GW22?

With the new “free hit” chip this season, we’re entering uncharted territory! Fun fun fun! What is the free hit chip? Well, here are the description and rules from the Official Premier League fantasy website:

• “Free Hit: Make unlimited free transfers for a single Gameweek. At the next deadline your squad is returned to how it was at the start of the Gameweek.”
• “The Free Hit chip can be used once a season, is played when confirming your transfers and can't be cancelled after confirmed.”
• “After playing your Free Hit chip, at the next deadline your bank balance and squad is restored to as they were at the previous deadline, with any player price changes in the previous gameweek reflected. Any change to your bank balance whilst the Free Hit chip was active will be lost.”
• “Please note that when playing either a Wildcard or your Free Hit chip, any saved free transfers will be lost. You will be back to the usual 1 free transfer the following Gameweek.”
• “Only one chip may be active in a Gameweek. For example, it is not possible to make transfers with your Wildcard chip and then use your Bench Boost chip in the same Gameweek.”

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Basically, it’s kind of like a spur of the moment spree where you decide to head off to Vegas, go crazy in a brief, blurry bender, then suddenly wake up back at home and everything has magically gone back to the same as it was before, with barely a memory of what happened.

The question is, should you use it now for the double game week featuring Tottenham and West Ham, or should you hold off until later? Let’s consider some pros and cons:

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WHY YOU SHOULD USE THE FREE HIT CHIP NOW

• If you are lagging behind in your league, it’s a good chance to grab some points, narrow the gap, get some momentum, and put some pressure on the team(s) ahead of you.
• Tottenham and West Ham players are generally not owned by many managers. The only player on Spurs with at least 14% ownership is Harry Kane (36%). Meanwhile, the player with the highest ownership on the Hammers is Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez at a mere 7%. So it’s a great opportunity to add a handful of players whom competing managers in your league likely don’t have (e.g. Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, Davinson Sánchez, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, and Son Heung-min plus West Ham’s Adrián, Aaron Cresswell, Angelo Ogbonna, Marko Arnautović and Manuel Lanzini).
• It’s impossible to predict the double game week schedule in the future. Sometimes it’s best to worry about later, later. You might not get a better chance, and if that’s the case, you will regret not using it now.
• It’s fun to use a chip. Come on, do it now... just like Vegas, baby, it’s a big beautiful crazy awesome rush!

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WHY YOU SHOULD WAIT TO USE THE FREE HIT CHIP LATER

• There are just two teams involved in this double game week, and you are only allowed a maximum of three players per team. If you wait, there is a good chance that you will be able to use it when there are more teams involved so you could theoretically go with 11 (or more, including bench) players from those teams, rather than the six limit here.
• With only one day of rest between the games, there is a fair chance of rotation for some key players.
• Harry Kane is doubtful for the Swansea game with illness. Fernando Llorente could play against the Swans, and Kane could come back to feature only against West Ham. If you’re adding in Kane, don’t you want to be pretty sure he will start both games?
• Looking at the two teams, Tottenham has an attractive pair of fixtures on paper (at Swansea, v. West Ham). West Ham, meanwhile, has a tasty opener (v. West Brom) but of course the second game looks considerably tougher. If you’re picking from only two teams, do you really want just one of those squads to have two favorable fixtures?

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THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?

Another consideration, there’s always the halfway or partial option that could prove fruitful if you want some DGW action but don’t want to go all in with the free hit chip: You could take a points penalty by adding three or four players that you like from the two teams, then slowly transfer them out in future game weeks if you don't want to keep them long term. If you didn’t make a transfer prior to GW21 and have the maximum two free transfers available for GW22, this could actually prove prudent.

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Vote in the poll below to let us know what you are doing, then let us know why in the comments!