The FPL Gameweek 4 wildcard team

The Gameweek 4 deadline is on Saturday and the wildcard drafts landed in a heap this weekend. One of them opens with eight transfers already made. Put them side by side and the overlap does most of the talking. Seven players show up in every single one. The arguments are all crammed into three slots.

Here is that squad, with prices and ownership as of 8 September. It costs £99.6m and leaves £0.4m in the bank.

Four at the back and two up top, which is the shape two of the three drafts used this week. The cheap third forward starts on the bench rather than in the eleven. Barry is at Spurs, and the defender keeping him quiet is the one playing instead of him, so that call is really a bet on a Tottenham clean sheet over an Everton goal.

How it scored

Gameweek 4 is done, so here is the squad marked. The eleven scored 94, and 99 with Palmer’s armband on top. The average manager scored 63.

Player	Points	Gameweek 4
Verbruggen, BHA	8	Six saves and a clean sheet in the 5-0 at Coventry
Calafiori, ARS	6	Clean sheet at Sunderland, four defensive contributions, short of the threshold
Konsa, ARS	6	Clean sheet, eight defensive contributions, also short
Van Hecke, TOT	8	Clean sheet against Everton and 13 defensive contributions, the best of the back four
Muharemović, LEE	7	An assist in the 4-1 over Newcastle plus 11 defensive contributions
Palmer (C), CHE	5 (10)	One assist against Hull, no bonus, the worst captain of the three candidates
Saka, ARS	8	Scored at Sunderland
Rogers, CHE	8	Scored against Hull, one bonus
Groß, BHA	17	A goal, two assists and three bonus at Coventry, the highest scoring player in the gameweek
Haaland, MCI	9	The winner at Old Trafford and three bonus
João Pedro, CHE	12	A goal and an assist against Hull, three bonus
Bench: Bentley 0, Hall 0, Gomez 3, Barry 2	5	Nothing you would have wanted to bring on

Three things the gameweek settled.

The captaincy went the wrong way. João Pedro as vice outscored Palmer by 7, so following the projections cost the squad 7 points, and Haaland would have beaten the armband too.

Hull turned up at Stamford Bridge and drew 2-2, which is roughly the objection this post spent a section arguing with. The Chelsea three still returned 25 points between them, so the fixture call survived the result.

The cheap forward argument was noise. Barry, Wissa and Gonzalo all scored 2. The defensive one was not: De Cuyper, the form pick the post named and nobody committed to, scored 11, against Van Hecke’s 8, Vuskovic’s 6, N.Williams’ 2 and Dedić’s 0. Raya beat Verbruggen 14 to 8 as well, so the money saved on the goalkeeper did not come back.

The rest of this post is the pre-deadline write-up, unchanged.

The seven in every draft

Player	Price	Owned	The case
Calafiori, ARS	£5.7m	47%	Nailed at left back, a goal ruled out against Chelsea, and the attacking upside nobody else offers at the price
Konsa, ARS	£4.4m	13%	First start against Chelsea and he picked up defensive contribution points doing it. Mosquera was not in the squad
Muharemović, LEE	£5.0m	3%	Top of the defensive contribution charts for defenders, with double figures in back to back weeks
Palmer, CHE	£9.6m	22%	Penalties, and more set piece work now that Enzo Fernández has gone
Saka, ARS	£9.5m	11%	Third most shots in the box in the league, right sided corners, and penalties whenever Gyökeres is off
Haaland, MCI	£15.5m	71%	Sunderland at home in five and Ipswich at home in seven are the reason to hold him through Man United away
João Pedro, CHE	£7.7m	72%	Top projected forward this week, no European football, and full minutes

Three Arsenal and three Chelsea is the shape everyone arrived at. Arsenal have conceded under one expected goal in total across three games, which is a number you normally see after one. Chelsea are at home to Hull.

About that Hull fixture

Hull have not conceded a goal all season, which is the obvious objection to loading up on Chelsea. They have also conceded around five expected goals in three games and rank 13th in the league for it. The counter from the community is fair: Hull defend in a low block and most of what they give up comes from outside the box, so the raw xG overstates it. Chelsea have also scored inside the first five minutes of every game so far, and nobody has seen Hull defend from behind yet.

Where the drafts split

Slot	The options	Where the weight is
Third forward	Barry EVE £5.6m, Wissa NEW £6.2m, Gonzalo FUL £6.0m	One draft each. Barry is Everton’s only senior striker after Beto left and two deadline day deals collapsed. Gonzalo has Ipswich, Hull and Coventry coming in a row
Fifth defender	Van Hecke TOT £4.9m, Vuskovic BHA £5.0m, Dedić NEW £4.5m, N.Williams NFO £5.0m	A four way split, one draft each, after Calafiori, Konsa, Muharemović and Hall. De Cuyper at £4.8m is the form pick nobody committed to, because he only holds the shirt while Mitoma is out
The fifth midfielder	Szoboszlai LIV £7.0m, Rogers CHE £7.6m, Gomez BHA £5.0m, Slater HUL £4.5m	Szoboszlai and Rogers are in two drafts each. Only one draft fitted both, and it paid for them by playing three at the back
Goalkeeper	Verbruggen £4.5m plus a £4.0m, or Raya at £6.0m	Raya costs you a third Arsenal outfielder. Most drafts spent the money on Saka instead

The cheap forward is the loudest of these arguments, and underneath it sits a question about how many transfers you want to spend in October. Barry gets into good positions and then misses from them, which is either the buying opportunity or the warning depending on who you ask. Gonzalo is his opposite: fewer chances, much better finishing, and Fulham put up the highest expected goals of any side in Gameweek 3. Wissa is the safe one, and the dearest.

The defence is worth being honest about. Four names are settled and the fifth is a coin toss between four players nobody agrees on. Van Hecke is here because Tottenham have conceded under two expected goals across their last two games, he took two bonus points out of a goalless draw at Forest, and the fixture list stays kind well past the international break. He is a pick, not a consensus.

Captain

Palmer at home to Hull is the top projected score of the week, a shade ahead of João Pedro, with Haaland away at Man United behind both. That is the order the drafts settled on: Palmer with the armband, João Pedro as vice.

Why now and not Gameweek 6

Two reasons keep coming up. The Man City attacking rotation has started, so anyone holding Cherki or Foden has a problem that transfers cannot really fix, and Chelsea at home to Hull is the fixture swing worth being early for. The counter is that every club plays midweek before Gameweek 4 in Europe or the EFL Cup, so anything you buy before Wednesday is a guess. If that bothers you, Gameweek 6 after the international break is the next clean window.

One thing worth knowing if you are wildcarding: you can make all your transfers first and only activate the chip before the deadline. The moves still count towards price changes until you do.

Then watch what everyone else did

Save this squad and the AI workflows tab will build it out with you, or swap the names you disagree with and it works out where the money goes. After the deadline, look up any FPL manager to see who in your mini-league burned the wildcard this week and who is holding it for Gameweek 6.