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The picture to us keeps getting clearer. The outcomes of some cup games over the last week have given us more information to help us piece together a chip strategy.

WHAT WE KNOW

By now, you probably know that the confirmed information is that Liverpool and Aston Villa have a Double Gameweek 25 and four teams have a blank in Gameweek 29: Liverpool, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Newcastle United.

It is worth noting that there is a very small chance that Crystal Palace and Newcastle United still play in Gameweek 29. If both lose their FA Cup fifth-round ties, they would be free to contest their league match on FA Cup quarter-final weekend, which would still fall within Gameweek 29.

However, both clubs have home ties in the FA Cup last 16. Crystal Palace has a fairly easy tie (v Millwall), too, so the odds of this are low.

BLANK GAMEWEEK 34 OUTLOOK

There were a couple of other interesting things that we found out due to the FA Cup results and fifth-round draw:

As we can see, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa on paper have fairly easy ties in the fifth round of the FA Cup. In addition, we had some big results in terms of Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspurs losing.

That means a few things.

Firstly, two games are confirmed as going ahead in Gameweek 34:

• Chelsea vs Everton

• Liverpool vs Tottenham Hotspur

Without complicating things too much, unless we have a postponement, the above four teams are not expected to have a double in Gameweek 33/36. The teams that will blank in Gameweek 34 due to the FA Cup will likely double in Gameweek 33/36.

In the table above, the higher the blank percentage for Gameweek 34, the greater the odds for a double in Gameweek 33 (and Gameweek 36).

CHIP STRATEGY

What this means is you’ll likely want to use a Bench Boost in one of Gameweek 33/36 and another chip (Free Hit or Triple Captain) in the other.

If you’re looking at a Bench Boost in Gameweek 33, you could Wildcard around Gameweek 30-32 based (to get four playing substitutes) or you could choose to Wildcard after the Bench Boost in Gameweek 33 (to focus more money into your starting XI).

If you’re someone that hasn’t used the Assistant Manager chip yet, you either use it now for a three-week period or deploy it around Gameweek 36 where you hope that some teams are on the ‘beach’ and you can get access to some juicy bonus ties.

Lastly, the most important thing is we will get the information for Double Gameweek 33/Blank Gameweek 34 after Gameweek 29, which is why we’re likelier to Wildcard from Gameweek 30 onwards and not before.

I just wanted to give a brief overview (without diving into too much depth) of what you have in front of you towards the end of the season.

But what does all of this mean for now? One thing above all…

FREE HIT V NO FREE HIT IN GAMEWEEK 29

You need to now decide whether you are Free Hitting or not in Gameweek 29 and manoeuvre your team accordingly. That depends on your team’s health and how many players you have in place for Blank Gameweek 29.

It is one of the reasons I took a minus eight in Gameweek 24 for Jordan Pickford (£5.1m) and Vitalii Mykolenko (£4.4m) and spent five out of my last seven transfers on players that have a confirmed fixture in Gameweek 29. I already have nine players who will play in Gameweek 29 so it is very unlikely that I Free Hit that week. I will either use it on Blank Gameweek 34 or a future double depending on how the fixtures fall.

Now, you might have a team that is heavy on Newcastle United, Liverpool and Crystal Palace. As a result of this, you could be looking at using a Free Hit in Gameweek 29, which is perfectly fine.

If you have many free transfers lined up and want to save the Free Hit for the future, you can start taking your team in such a direction.

Bournemouth is the perfect team to target if you want to save your Free Hit in Gameweek 29. I did an article in detail about the Bournemouth midfielders which you can view here.

ROGERS V BOURNEMOUTH MIDFIELDER + SCOUTING CITY

A few people have asked me who I would buy this week: Morgan Rogers (£5.6m) or a Bournemouth midfielder? My answer to this question is dependant largely on three things: team health, transfers accumulated and when you are Free Hitting.

If your team is in a decent place for Gameweek 29 then I don’t mind a punt on Rogers (largely because I think he is playing some really good football at the moment) but if you are planning not to use the Free Hit in Gameweek 29 and are short of players, I would go directly to a Bournemouth midfielder. There is a case to jump on a Cherries asset immediately anyway because of the great entry point against Southampton.

The last thing I want to add is Manchester City is a team we should be scouting now because there is a good chance they could be out of Europe and have some good fixtures (and a double or two in the future) starting from Gameweek 29.

Newcastle United will also have some future doubles, which means that you need to think about whether you are okay with losing value on a certain Alexander Isak (£9.5m) if selling for Ollie Watkins (£8.9m) this week. One thing is certain, though, if you want to afford Manchester City’s expensive assets should you choose to go there, you will need to eat a value drop on some popular assets.

That is all for now. If you want to know more, we deep dive into chip strategy with Pras and Zophar on this week’s episode of The FPL Wire which you can view below:

Find out which players are predicted to get the most points in Double Gameweek 25:

We dive into player ownership, and pick out the most owned players going into the new round:

We brought in our expert to reveal his transfer and captaincy plans for the new round:

Our expert reveals his tips and team reveal for the new round of Challenge:

If you're looking to gain rank in Gameweek 25, then check out our experts differentials:

Be sure to check out all of our latest articles over at Fantasy Football Community.