I decided to not Free Hit for GW18 with the aim of utilising it later in the year when large number of players would have already used it. For that plan to succeed, I needed to not loose a lot of ground in BGW18, and I believe I managed to do just that. Although I did not manage to secure a green arrow, my red arrow was not big, keeping my rank static around 25 lacs.

Although my rank is abysmal and I could have done with a big gameweek using Free Hit, I was not sure how different my Free Hit team would have been, except for maybe inclusion of Harry Kane in my team. Hence the decision to go without Free Hit chip.

GW 18 Summary

GW 18 Points	33(-4)
GW 18 Rank	31.44 lacs
Overall rank after GW 18	25.30 lacs
Net Change	– 0.63 lacs

Positives

Value for money defenders: Holding and Stones, who I bought for 4.4M and 4.8M respectively provided returns yet again. Stones has returned 22 points in 4 GWs and Holding has returned 25 in 3 GWs. Only if Holgate would have kept a clean sheet as well, it would have clean sweep for my value for money defenders.

De Bruyne: KDB finally came into my team this week after news of Aguero in self isolation. He got an assist. Simply captaining him could have gotten me a green arrow, but captaincy choices are anyways fine margins.

Negatives

As per me, there were no negatives per say in team, couple of calls in Smith-Rowe and Wilson didn’t go my way. But I can’t call them bad choices based on 1 GW. DCL is now injured and will finally go out of my team in all probability. He was the only surviving member of my 15 from GW1.

Near Misses

Harry Kane: I had the choice to either get KDB or Kane for this GW. Given large chunk of FPL Managers were captaining KDB, I felt pressure to get him in my team. Also because I already own Son, I thought it is better to hedge my risks.

FPL Cup Progress

One silver lining for this GW was that I managed to get through in the FPL Cup with a narrow win over Mee, Mooy Delph&Ibe who got net 23 (35-12) points to my net 29 points.

Next up is the double game week 19, which is now a blank and double gameweek 19 with Everton not having a fixture. Will include my plan for the BDGW19 in my next post.

Hope you had a good gameweek, cheers!