Here is my position before any of the numbers. A wildcard is worth playing when you genuinely want it or genuinely need it. If a -4 or a -8 or even a -12 rearranges your funds into a squad you are happy with, take that and save the wildcard. The chip is worth more in your pocket than it is spent ‘perfecting’ the squad.
Every figure below comes from the official Fantasy Premier League API or premierleague.com, read on 8 September 2026.
FPL chip usage so far: who has already wildcarded
709,478 wildcards were played in Gameweek 3, up from 279,227 in Gameweek 2. The window only opens at Gameweek 2, so those are the only two weeks it has been available, and usage has more than doubled between them.
From the official FPL API:
| 2026/27 | Wildcards | Free Hits | Bench Boosts | Triple Captains | Average score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GW1 | window closed | window closed | 814,606 | 250,816 | 50 |
| GW2 | 279,227 | 78,863 | 338,660 | 233,946 | 81 |
| GW3 | 709,478 | 421,239 | 144,735 | 1,787,071 | 51 |
One caution on that table, because it is the wrong inference everyone reaches for. The average is league-wide. It does not show that chip users scored badly. What it shows is that an enormous number of chips were committed into a week that turned out below average.
Why so many went in Gameweek 3
Last week’s wildcards came from two groups.
The first had two bad weeks to start the season. The second went without Haaland for the first two weeks and then got him in for the Coventry game.
Who actually won Gameweek 3?
Look at where Gameweek 3’s returns came from. Isak scored twice inside the opening nine minutes at Ipswich and Gakpo assisted both, so one match produced a striker’s brace and a double-assist return before the game was ten minutes old. Haaland scored the only goal at Coventry. This is what the Haaland-less Bruno-and-Palmer guys did.
Now these guys go into gw4 with Joao Pedro, Palmer and 2 FTs. A great position to be in.
FPL wildcard GW4 or GW6?
It’s a good time to wildcard. Chelsea host Hull City on Saturday rated 2 on FPL’s own FDR which is the beginning of a really good run for The Blues. Chelsea don’t have Europe, they have good FPL picks and look like the type of team which can score 3 goals against any team at the moment.
Arsenal’s fixtures also look good, but with UCL games during the mid week, rotation risk remains high for many players, especially players like Saka need to be monitored for mins.
I expect Gameweek 6 to be the next window, and Gameweek 9 the one after. Look at what Gameweek 9 does. Arsenal go to Liverpool and Chelsea host Manchester United. That is where many managers would want to pivot off them.
FPL chip strategy 2026/27
The first-half wildcard is available in any gameweek from 2 to 19, stated directly in the API’s chip listing. There are eight chips this season, four per half, and the Premier League’s summary of the 2026/27 changes confirms the first-half set expires when the Gameweek 19 deadline passes at 13:30 GMT on Saturday 2 January.
Nothing lapses in September. The real cost of holding is that you solve problems with transfers instead, and free transfers roll to a maximum of five, so the bank has a ceiling. That is the whole trade, and it is far smaller than “use it or lose it”.
Upcoming FPL deadlines
| Gameweek | Deadline |
|---|---|
| GW4 | 13:30 BST, Saturday 12 September 2026 |
| GW5 | 18:30 BST, Friday 18 September 2026 |
| GW6 | 11:00 BST, Saturday 10 October 2026 |
Six days between the GW4 and GW5 deadlines. Then a three-week international break until GW6.
Take the hit instead
A wildcard barely moves your expected points for one week. Fifteen new players projected slightly higher than fifteen old ones is a small mean improvement.
What it actually does is change the shape of your season: which teams you are tied to, how correlated your defenders are, how much of your squad blanks together when one fixture goes wrong. And it spends an option you cannot get back until January.
So price the alternative properly. A hit costs you its points once, this week, and then it is done. The wildcard costs you every future week in which you would rather have had it, including the ones you cannot see yet. If a -4 gets your funds where you want them and leaves a squad you are content to hold, that is usually the better deal, and it is not as close a call as this week’s discussion suggests. Wildcard when the problem is structural rather than a name or two.
Two questions before you press it
- What is your squad’s blank risk, not its projected total? Read the first bracket across your starting eleven in the Points Range Forecast. A team that is fine on paper and fragile in the tail is a different problem from a team that is simply behind, and only one of them needs a chip. The reasoning behind that is in how a points range is built.
- How correlated is what you own? Six players across three clubs looks efficient until two of those clubs have a bad afternoon on the same day. Correlation is the one thing a wildcard fixes cheaply and transfers fix slowly.
So, wildcard in GW4 or not?
Not unless you have to. That is the whole argument. The obvious objection is that 709,478 managers went last week and more will go on Saturday. Every article telling you to wildcard on Saturday, and every article telling you to wait, is not team specific advice. Mine included. What I will say is that the chip is worth more unspent than most of this week’s discussion assumes, and that a hit you are happy with beats a wildcard you talked yourself into.
So before the 13:30 deadline, do one thing: put the FPL wildcard GW4 squad and your current squad plus a -4 side by side, over GW4, GW5 and the October break rather than over Saturday alone. If the chip is not clearly ahead across those three, it was a transfer.
Open the free planner to run that comparison on your own team. Every input is yours to edit, so if you disagree with the model about a player’s minutes through the international break, change it and watch the spread move. The Gameweek 4 fixtures and deadline are set out separately.