Premier League Fantasy Football Free Hit Chip Tips

This week, a popular strategy is to use the Free Hit chip, if you still have it, to cover the blank gameweek for Manchester City, Manchester United, Brighton and Chelsea. On the Fantasy 606 podcast, Statman Dave argued that there is more to be gained using your Free Hit in double gameweek 34 if you have enough players to get a decent score in this gameweek, but I think my squad for gameweek 34 will be similar to what I would go with on a Free Hit. It is up to you to decide whether you are going to use the Free Hit defensively to protect a lead in a mini-league or offensively to try and make up ground on your rivals. If you choose the latter, you can bring players in for one week that most other managers probably won’t have and you don’t have to keep them for the long-term. Darwin Nunez, Jarrod Bowen, Eberechi Eze, Andreas Pereira and Dango Ouattara are good examples in gameweek 32. If you are playing defensively, it is not too hard to cover the highly owned players this week. Most Free Hit teams will contain three Arsenal players and three Liverpool players for their home games against Southampton and Nottingham Forest respectively. Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Jesus are good Arsenal choices, while Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold are obvious Liverpool selections. Martinelli would be top of the Arsenal list due to his recent form and Saka should be backed for a big points haul in any given gameweek. Ivan Toney and Ollie Watkins are good striking options for the Brentford v Aston Villa game, Alexander Isak and Harry Kane for Newcastle v Tottenham and Bournemouth’s Dominic Solanke at home to West Ham. For your third Liverpool choice, Nunez could get a start ahead of Diogo Jota or Cody Gakpo for the game against Nottingham Forest. James Maddison could be an ideal one-week punt for Leicester’s crunch home game against Wolves and either Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise look good bets with Crystal Palace at home to Everton. Sam Johnstone is a budget keeper choice on my Free Hit but make sure you have a playing back-up just in case he loses his place to Vicente Guaita. Andreas Pereira is a good option for Fulham at home to Leeds and West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen or Said Benrahma would be good differential picks away to Bournemouth. Defensively, Kieran Trippier and Fabian Schar from Newcastle are good choices against Tottenham, while Alex Moreno offers attacking returns for Aston Villa but they may not keep Brentford out. Don’t forget the FPL deadline is at 18:30 BST on Friday and if you’re not on the Free Hit then you should prioritize signing Liverpool players this week. Alistair Bruce-Ball presents the Fantasy 606 podcast alongside former Premier League winner Chris Sutton and Statman Dave. The latest episode previewing gameweek 32 is available on the BBC Sounds App.