Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 24: Picking the perfect assistant manager as Liverpool and Everton double up

Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com 
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
Our resident FPL expert works out when the best time to use your assistant manager chip is and figures out how to play Liverpool’s double gameweek.

The Fantasy Premier League is back with the biggest week of the season so far – not only is there a double gameweek to deal with but it’s also the first time that FPL players can play the brand new assistant manager chip. Fortunately, our resident expert is here to help you navigate this brave new world.

We’ll hand over to Top 2,000 player Matthew for his thoughts on how to get the most points out of Liverpool and Everton’s extra fixture and when to play your assistant manager chip in just a moment, but before that it’s our solemn duty to remind you to make all of your moves by 11:00 GMT on Saturday 1 February, before Nottingham Forest face Brighton & Hove Albion in the early kick-off.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Editor’s note - the following column has now been updated with fresh advice following the unexpected announcement of a double gameweek in GW25 caused by the EFL Cup final. Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham will all get doubles that week if they qualify, and our expert’s advice has been updated accordinly.

Liverpool & Everton double up

There’s a lot to get through today, so to avoid going over ground I’ve already covered, anyone who’s debating whether this is the right week to play a triple captain or assistant manager chip should probably refer back to last week’s column, where I went into chip strategy in a little more detail than I’ll have time for today – but sufficed to say that both are very good options this week, with the right answer depending on which chips you’ve already used and how many free transfers you have in the bank.

But getting the most out of Liverpool and Everton’s impending double gameweek isn’t just about chips – it’s about making the right transfers, too, and to start with we’re definitely going to want three Liverpool assets. Remember, if you want Arne Slot as your assistant (which, as I’ve previously discussed, I believe to be the best choice unless you’re desperate for a differential – more on which later), you can only have two Liverpool players and need to use a transfer to get there. Assistant managers count against team limits.

Slot is someone I’ll talk about more in a minute but my advice for signing Liverpool players is straightforward – Mohamed Salah is absolutely essential, even if you think you want differentials, Cody Gakpo is the second best attacking asset ahead of Luis Díaz (a form player out of form), and Ibrahima Konaté is better than Virgil van Dijk or Trent Alexander-Arnold based on price value. There are few arguments for picking anyone outside of the six players named, and banking on goals coming from elsewhere is optimistic at best. Alisson is just too expensive compared to alternative goalkeepers to be a major consideration, but if you happen to have him then keeping him is fine.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Everton assets, meanwhile, aren’t all that appealing despite a couple of positive recent results. Their only regular points-scorer, Dwight McNeil, is out of action, and that pretty much restricts us to looking at defenders and Jordan Pickford. If you want them for the long run, go for it, but remember that given Merseyside Derby form you’re mostly backing them against Leicester City and hoping they don’t ship too many against their local rivals. I won’t have any of their players in my team by the time Saturday’s deadline rolls around, but if you want to gamble on Iliman Ndiaye, be my guest. It’s not a crazy idea, but I don’t think it has a very high ceiling.

Who’s the best assistant manager to sign – and when?

Given that it’s brand new, the assistant manager chip is perhaps harder to figure out how to use than most, but we do have some figures that help us figure out how many points we can expect to get out of it, and whether it’s worth just picking the best manager of the best club or whether we can eke out some extra value by picking a cheaper option.

I went over most of the logic in a previous column but a quick recap will be helpful. On average, managers have been scoring about 6-7 points per game they take charge of, so 20 points is an average return from your chip and 30 a very good one. Anything in the area of 40 is exceptional and won’t be a regular occurrence at all.

The best way to try and get 30 or more points, so far as I can tell, is simply to take a manager from a consistent top team and give them three fixtures that are as easy as possible. If a team win three on the bounce and scores a few goals, you’ll get a score in the region of 30 – and that, to me, suggests that looking for a run of good games for Arne Slot or Mikel Arteta is the way to go.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

There is a caveat, however, because the chip lasts for three weeks and you can’t use any others during that time period. So planning ahead to dodge double gameweeks down the line makes a lot of sense, as you would cost yourselves the chance to use free hit or triple captain when it would make the most impact.

Barring further re-arrangements due to the weather, we’re only expecting two more blank and double gameweeks, caused by cup fixtures. The blanks will come in GW29 (four teams) and GW34 (eight teams), while the corresponding doubles will come into play GW33 and GW36 - and we now know that there will also be double in GW25 for at least one of Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal thanks to the EFL Cup final.

As you can see, we’re going to want our chips to work overtime towards the end of the season. It’s easy enough to plan ahead for the blanks in GW29, but you’re likely to want to wildcard swiftly afterwards if you still have one, and to use free hits or bench boosts in weeks 34 or 36. Basically – we probably shouldn’t consider saving our assistant manager chips for when it overlaps with blanks or doubles because we’ll need other chips to get through them, although 36-38, the end of the season, does work fine.

So we want to look for runs of three good, winnable fixtures between now and week 28, or for the last three weeks of the season. Clearly ‘winnable’ is not something we can easily quantify and opinions will vary, but here’s are my picks for the five best runs inside that timeframe for managers of teams who could and perhaps should win the lot:

Hide Ad
Hide Ad
  1. Arne Slot (£1.5m) GW24-26 (Bournemouth A, Everton A, Wolves H*, Man City A)
  2. Pep Guardiola (£1.5m) GW36-38 (Soton A, Bournemouth H, Fulham A)
  3. Andoni Iraola (£1.1m) GW25-27 (Soton A, Wolves H, Brighton A)
  4. Mikel Arteta (£1.5m) GW25-27 (Leicester A, West Ham H, Forest A)
  5. Enzo Maresca (£1.5m) GW26-28 (Villa A, Soton H, Leicester H)

In other words, my opinion is that the single best time to use you assistant manager chip, in a vacuum, is right now on Slot – but remember that it’s possible that using a triple captain and holding off could work better for your chip strategy. After all, there may not be a better set of games for any given triple captain than those Salah gets right now.

Of course, assistant managers also get a massive 10 bonus points should they beat a team who are at least five places higher in the table than their team. That means the ceiling on the chip goes way beyond 40 points, but it’s rare anyone will manage it. Only Iraola would have gone past that mark all season to this point, and I suspect his theoretical record of 47 will be the top score by the conclusion of the campaign,

In other words, a lot of players are on the lookout for a team down the table with theoretically winnable games against teams several places higher in the league. Having checked the options, there aren’t any I’m in love with – but if you need a differential, these are the best gambler’s picks with at least two winnable games against teams sufficiently far up the league, in my opinion:

  1. Ruud van Nistelrooy (£0.5m) GW26-28 (Brentford H, West Ham A, Chelsea A)
  2. Graham Potter (£0.5m) GW26-28 (Arsenal A, Leicester H, Newcastle H)
  3. Ivan Juric (£0.5m) GW25-27 (Bournemouth H, Brighton H, Chelsea A)

If you’re thinking that none of those look very appealing… Yeah, me neither. There just aren’t runs of fixtures that look likely to yield that dream 50-point return. It’s a huge gamble to go for that kind of assistant manager and I just don’t see where it’s worth it. Besides, there’s not always a guarantee that teams will even stay five places ahead to give you a shot at those bonuses. I’d only go down this road if you’re very desperate indeed.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In conclusion, I’m going high-end, and I think Slot right now really is the best option thanks to that extra game, but there are good options elsewhere if you want to triple captain this time around or if you can’t get Slot in due to the way your team is structured or your available free transfers.

The caveat to all these thoughts is that if you’ve already burned chips that should have been saved for the late double gameweeks, then you get more fixtures to look at – but do plan ahead how and when you’re going to use them properly.

Normally, I’d spend much more time talking about potential transfers and captain choices for the week at hand, but this is already the one of longest advice columns I’ve ever written and anyone not captaining Salah (or at least another Liverpool player) is beyond my help, so I’ll simply sign off here and wish you the best of luck working it all out. See you next week!

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.

Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice