AllAboutFPL Founders Tackle GW5: Wildcard and Free Hit Strategies

Gameweek 4 left more bruises than green arrows. Leeds were the only side to win at home, popular picks stumbled, and two of Fantasy Premier League’s most seasoned voices decided they’d seen enough.

Surya has slammed the Wildcard button.
Srini has gone all-in on a Free Hit.

Both co-founders of AllAboutFPL are attacking Gameweek 5, and they’re doing it aggressively.

Surya: Wildcard active, structure over short-term fear

GW4: Free Hit frustration

Surya’s Free Hit in GW4 landed on 78 points – a total that sounds fine until you realise how much upside slipped away.

He backed a triple Arsenal, but missed the two big difference-makers: no David Raya, no Bukayo Saka. Both delivered from the spot, and the swing hurt. Add in a Joao Pedro injury concern and a squad riddled with issues, and the decision came quickly.

Wildcard activated for GW5.

Why now, with a three-week break looming?

On paper, it’s risky. GW5 is followed by a long international break, the kind of stretch where injuries and surprise knocks can wreck a freshly built squad.

Surya’s view is simple: the team is “a mess” and the opportunity cost of waiting is too high. The Wildcard isn’t just about GW5; it’s about locking in a structure he believes will carry him deep into the season:

• Erling Haaland up front
• Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka as premium midfielders
• Morgan Gibbs-White as a key mid-price engine
• Double Arsenal defence

Around that core, he’s targeting value from teams with strong upcoming runs, loading up on cheap assets with good fixtures.

The draft he’s currently toying with is rated at 91% on Fantasy Football Hub’s AI Team Rating Tool and projected at 59 points for GW5.

Defence and goalkeepers: Arsenal double locked

At the back, Surya isn’t overcomplicating it.

Double Arsenal defence is “a no-brainer” on Wildcard. On top of that, Ezri Konsa offers standout value at 4.5m, giving him a nailed, reliable starter in a solid backline.

Muharemovic and Silva are what he calls “DEFCON defenders” – steady, low-drama picks capable of churning out four-pointers most weeks regardless of fixture difficulty. They’re there to tick over.

Then comes the upside play: Munoz. With Coventry, Crystal Palace and Ipswich in the next three or four, Surya is chasing attacking returns and clean sheets in a short, favourable window.

Midfield: penalties, talismans and a DEFCON gem

Saka and Palmer headline the midfield. Both are on penalties, both are central to everything their teams do, and both carry captaincy-level ceilings in the right fixtures.

There’s already a longer-term twist in the plan: one of them could make way around GW11–GW12, when Bruno Fernandes and Manchester United hit a more appealing run of games.

Gibbs-White is the key mid-price cog, and the numbers back it up. Among midfielders so far, he sits:

• 1st for big chances created (4)
• 5th for xGI (2.57)
• Joint 2nd for bonus points (6)
• 11th for total FPL points (26)

He has multiple routes to returns – creativity, set pieces, bonus potential – and a strong home fixture against Coventry in GW5.

King is the budget midfielder punt. He faces three promoted sides in a row from GW6 to GW8 and operates in an advanced No.10 role, consistently popping up in dangerous positions. Surya is backing this to be the season where those positions finally translate into FPL points.

Vitaly Janelt completes the midfield as the eighth attacker and bench enabler, but there’s intent behind the pick. He’s contributing on both ends of the pitch and already has:

• 2 goals this season
• A share of corners and set pieces (8 corners taken so far)
• Strong DEFCON scores across the first four gameweeks, peaking at 20 in GW4

At 5.0m and just 2.5% ownership, Surya sees Janelt as a low-key gem who can step in and deliver whenever called upon.

Forwards: Haaland, Barry and a final toss-up

Up front, there’s no debate about the main man. Haaland is locked.

Alongside him, Barry is the standout value striker. Priced at 5.6m, nailed for 90 minutes and with no rotation risk, he faces two promoted teams in the next two gameweeks. The fixtures are ideal, but the underlying data is even better.

Among forwards, Barry ranks only behind Haaland for:

• xG
• xGI
• Shots
• Shots in the box
• Big chances

He’s been unfortunate to score just once so far. Surya is backing the old FPL truth: fixtures breed form. If Barry is going to explode, this is the stretch.

The final forward slot is currently with Wissa. He has four appealing fixtures lined up – Hull (H), Coventry (A), Aston Villa (H), Crystal Palace (A). Two promoted sides, two struggling teams, and no European distraction for Newcastle to complicate rotation. Garcia is still in the conversation for that spot, but Wissa holds the edge for now.

Captaincy: no gamble against Sunderland

The armband is on Haaland.

Surya briefly considered a bold move: captaining Gibbs-White at home to Coventry, especially with projection models giving him a 6.1-point expectation. But the conclusion is ruthless. Owning Gibbs-White is enough of a differential if he hauls. Fading Haaland, who again tops AllAboutFPL’s GW5 captaincy metrics, is a risk too far.

Haaland stays captain. The Wildcard does the rest of the heavy lifting.

Srini: Free Hit deployed to attack GW5

GW4: punished for missing the big swings

Srini’s GW4 was defined by absences.

No Pascal Gross. No Saka. No Raya. A double-up on Liverpool midfield and a triple-up on Chelsea attack did their bit, but those were popular plays. The real damage came from missing the Arsenal pair who turned penalties into huge rank swings.

With his squad not set up to fully exploit GW5’s fixture landscape, he’s chosen a different route to Surya.

Free Hit active.

Why Free Hit in GW5?

Srini is targeting one thing: home fixtures against promoted and struggling sides. GW5 offers a cluster of them, and he wants to stack heavily into those matchups:

• Everton vs Ipswich (H)
• Forest vs Coventry (H)
• Newcastle vs Hull (H)
• Leeds vs Crystal Palace (H)
• Man City vs Sunderland (H)

The Joao Pedro situation nudged him further towards the chip. Xabi Alonso has been coy on the injury, refusing to rule him out but hinting that Pedro could play the next game and then miss Brazil duty. The most likely scenario for Srini’s planning: Pedro sits out GW5, recovers over the international break, and returns in GW6.

Either way, Pedro is no longer a reliable short-term asset. A Free Hit lets Srini bypass that headache entirely.

Only two or three players from his original squad are expected to survive into the GW5 Free Hit XI.

The draft he’s currently leaning towards is rated 95% by Fantasy Football Hub’s AI Team Rating Tool and projected at 62 points.

Core locks and flexible slots

There are six names Srini describes as “locked” for his Free Hit XI:

• Haaland
• Barry
• Dominic Calvert-Lewin
• Bruno Fernandes
• Gibbs-White
• Munoz

Haaland, again, is non-negotiable. Barry’s numbers and fixtures mirror Surya’s logic. Calvert-Lewin offers a classic Free Hit striker profile: strong home fixture against a promoted side and talismanic when fit.

Bruno Fernandes is earmarked for his upcoming run and all-round threat, while Gibbs-White once again features as a key creative hub with bonus potential. Munoz provides attacking upside from defence in a favourable short-term spell.

The remaining five spots are where the Free Hit really comes into play. Srini is juggling combinations that will almost certainly include:

• At least one Manchester City defender
• A Leeds defender
• An Everton defender

He has three draft variants in mind and is “very likely” to go with the team in his current mock-up, though he still likes elements of options one and three. The final call will land closer to the deadline.

Captaincy: rested Haaland, prime home fixture

There’s no debate for Srini on the armband.

With Haaland having enjoyed a midweek rest and Manchester City holding the highest goal-scoring odds of the gameweek ahead of Sunderland at home, the Norwegian is his clear captain.

The logic is brutal and simple: when City score, Haaland is usually involved. On a Free Hit, with the chip designed to maximise a single week’s ceiling, there is no room for cleverness.

The armband stays where it usually belongs.

Two founders. Two different chips. One gameweek that could redraw their seasons.

If the Wildcard and Free Hit both land, GW5 won’t just be a reset. It will be a launchpad.