AllAboutFPL Founders Take Bold Steps for GW5: Wildcard and Free Hit Strategies

Gameweek 4 left a mark. Leeds were the only side to win at home, popular picks misfired, and the margins on penalties and injuries were brutal. Out of that chaos, the two founders of AllAboutFPL, Surya and Srini, are taking very different but equally aggressive routes into FPL GW5 – both with a chip active, both reshaping their seasons.

Surya has torn his squad up with an early Wildcard. Srini has hit the Free Hit button to attack a single week with maximum upside. The logic is clear. The risk is obvious. The upside, if it lands, could be huge.

Surya: Free Hit frustration triggers an early Wildcard

GW4: 78 points, but the wrong kind of swing

Surya walked away from GW4 with 78 points on a Free Hit and still called it “disappointing”. The reason? Arsenal.

He backed the triple-up, got the call right in principle, but missed the key men. No David Raya. No Bukayo Saka. Both scored. Both saved penalties. Both punished him.

Add in Joao Pedro’s injury concern and a series of fires across the squad, and the decision came quickly: Wildcard active for GW5.

Why pull the Wildcard now?

Using a Wildcard right before a three‑week international break is a bold move. Injuries, late returns, surprise benchings – all of that lurks on the other side of GW5.

Surya’s view is simple: the squad is a mess, and the long‑term structure he wants is too far away without major surgery. Waiting would just cost points.

The target core is clear:

Erling Haaland
Cole Palmer
Bukayo Saka
Morgan Gibbs‑White
Double Arsenal defence

Around that spine, he’s hunting value from teams with strong runs of fixtures, building a squad that can sit for weeks rather than needing constant hits.

His current Wildcard draft is rated 91% by Fantasy Football Hub’s free AI Team Rating Tool and projected at 59 points for GW5. The structure, not the single‑week score, is the real prize.

Defence and goalkeepers: double Arsenal, value hunting, and upside

Double Arsenal defence is locked. On a Wildcard, Surya sees it as a straightforward call: strong clean‑sheet potential, nailed minutes, and attacking threat.

Konsa comes in as the standout value pick at 4.5m, freeing cash while still offering solid returns.

Around them, it’s a mix of reliability and upside:

Muharemovic and Silva are labelled “DEFCON defenders” – the type of picks who can quietly grind out four points almost every week, regardless of fixture difficulty.
Munoz is the gamble. With Coventry, Crystal Palace and Ipswich in the next four, he’s the attacking full‑back play, the kind of defender you back for a haul rather than just a clean sheet.

Midfield: penalties, talismans, and a £5.0m workhorse

Saka and Palmer headline the midfield. Both are on penalties. Both are central to everything their sides do.

There’s already a plan for later: one of them could make way for Bruno Fernandes around GW11/GW12 when Manchester United’s fixtures turn kinder. For now, they’re locked.

Morgan Gibbs‑White is the key mid‑price piece. The numbers back the eye test:

1st among midfielders 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 – and a strong fixture against Coventry at home in GW5.

King is the budget swing. From GW6 to GW8, he faces three promoted sides in a row and operates in an advanced No.10 role, consistently finding good shooting positions. Surya is backing this as the season where those underlying signs finally turn into FPL returns.

Vitaly Janelt completes the midfield as the eighth attacker and safety net. Priced at £5.0m, he’s a defensive workhorse with set‑piece involvement and an eye for goal:

DEFCON scores: 13, 10, 12, 20 across GW1–GW4
8 corners taken already
13.75 DEFCON per 90
2 goals this season
2.5% TSB – a genuine differential

He’s there to step in whenever rotation or injuries hit, with steady underlying data to justify the pick.

Forwards: Haaland, Barry, and a Wissa punt

Up front, there’s no debate about the first name. Haaland is non‑negotiable.

Beside him, Barry is the value gem. Two promoted teams in the next two gameweeks, 90 minutes locked in, and no rotation risk at just 5.6m. The fixtures are strong, but the data is even stronger:

Only Haaland beats him among forwards for xG and xGI
Second for shots, shots in the box, and big chances
Just one goal so far, but the underlying numbers scream that more are coming

Surya is backing the old rule: fixtures breed form. If Barry’s going to explode, this is the window.

Wissa rounds out the front line with a run of four appealing fixtures: Hull (H), Coventry (A), Aston Villa (H), Crystal Palace (A). Two promoted teams, two struggling sides, and no European distractions for Newcastle, which makes the punt even more attractive.

Garcia is the other forward under consideration, and that final slot is still up for debate. The Wildcard draft isn’t fully locked yet.

Armband: the Haaland safety net

Surya flirted with the idea of captaining Gibbs‑White at home to Coventry. Fantasy Football Hub’s projections have Gibbs‑White at 6.1 points, and with his ownership relatively low, a haul would move rank in a big way.

But the risk of fading Haaland is huge. The Norwegian again tops AllAboutFPL’s captaincy metrics for GW5, and Surya has ultimately decided not to get too clever. Haaland takes the armband. Owning Gibbs‑White is aggressive enough.

Srini: Free Hit deployed to smash GW5

GW4: punished by missing the big swings

Srini’s GW4 story is all about what he didn’t have.

No Pascal Gross. No Liverpool midfield double‑up. A Chelsea attacking triple‑up that did its job, but one most active managers already owned. And, crucially, no Saka or Raya – a combination that turned into a huge rank swing in the wrong direction.

The response is ruthless: Free Hit active for GW5.

Why Free Hit now?

Srini’s plan is to go hard at specific fixtures in GW5, stacking players from sides with strong home games against promoted or struggling teams:

Everton vs Ipswich (H)
Nottingham Forest vs Coventry (H)
Newcastle vs Hull (H)
Leeds vs Crystal Palace (H)
Manchester City vs Sunderland (H)

He also has the Joao Pedro situation to navigate. Xabi Alonso has said no one is officially ruled out, refused to reveal the exact nature of Pedro’s injury, and suggested it’s possible Pedro could play this week and then miss Brazil duty. The expectation is that Pedro likely misses GW5, recovers over the international break, and returns around GW6.

That uncertainty, plus a squad that doesn’t align with the best GW5 fixtures, has pushed Srini to commit the Free Hit.

Only two or three players from his original team survive into the GW5 draft. The rest is a one‑week strike.

The current Free Hit squad is rated 95% by Fantasy Football Hub’s free AI tool and projected to score 62 points.

Core locks and moving pieces

Some names are non‑negotiable for Srini’s Free Hit XI:

Haaland
Barry
Dominic Calvert‑Lewin
Bruno Fernandes
Morgan Gibbs‑White
Munoz

Around those six, five slots are still flexible. Different combinations are on the table, but the structure will include:

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

Srini is leaning heavily towards the draft shown in his initial build and is “very likely” to stick with it, though he still likes two alternate options that tweak the balance across defence and midfield. Final decisions will land closer to the deadline.

Captaincy: no overthinking with a rested Haaland

With Haaland getting a rest in midweek, Srini isn’t interested in overcomplicating captaincy.

Manchester City host Sunderland, and City hold the highest goal‑scoring odds of the gameweek. When City score, Haaland is usually at the heart of it.

For Srini, that’s enough. Haaland wears the armband on the Free Hit. The rest of the squad is built to chase upside around him.

Surya’s Wildcard and Srini’s Free Hit tell the same story in different ways: both founders are refusing to drift through the early weeks. One is reshaping his season’s foundation. The other is firing a one‑week shot at the fixtures.

GW5 will show which gamble pays off first. The bigger question is whether these bold early chips set the tone for a charge up the ranks, or leave them scrambling for balance once the international break dust settles.