When is the best time to play your final FPL chips?

There are just seven gameweeks left in this season’s FPL and if your mini-league is anything like mine, there’s still loads to play for!

If you’ve been carefully planning your FPL season consistently up to this point, there’s a high chance you’ve got at least one of our chips left to play while some may even be lucky enough to have all three still at their disposal.

If you haven’t already blown your load and you’re wondering when the best time to use one or all of your chips, make sure you don’t have your pants pulled down due to a lack of planning and take a read of what we believe could be the best time to play each chip between now and the end of the Premier League season…

Bench Boost

Most people would’ve played their Bench Boost by now to ensure they had previous double gameweeks wrapped up in terms of a high FPL points return, but others will have kept this chip close to their chest for a rainy day.

Well, this coming week is also a double gameweek, with just Spurs playing twice in GW32. With that in mind, it’s probably not worth playing it this weekend if your squad doesn’t have a full set of favourable looking fixtures.

However, with at least one or two more double gameweeks due between now and the end of the season – once fixtures are rearranged - there’s still a chance of using it in an optimised week of fixtures.

As things stand, GW36 looks attractive, with Everton (Sheffield United H), Leeds (Burnley A), Man City (Newcastle (A), Liverpool (West Brom A) and Spurs (Wolves H) all having good fixtures on paper, while GW37 also looks good.

In the penultimate gameweek of the campaign, Everton face Wolves (H), Liverpool travel to Burnley, Man United host Fulham, Spurs play Aston Villa (H) and West Ham make the trip to West Brom. These are all fixtures that look good on paper, with no apparent dead rubbers as clubs continue to fight for the top four and Premier League safety, and should deliver some decent points if you FPL team is packed with players from these teams.

Triple Captain

If you haven’t already used your Triple Captain chip, then this coming gameweek is an obvious one, with Harry Kane and Heung-min Son all looking like attractive picks in GW32. Spurs travel to Everton before hosting Southampton in a double-header as Jose Mourinho looks to save his side’s poor season.

However, if you currently have trust issues with Mourinho’s men (I don’t blame you if you do), then taking a huge gamble and saving it for the final weekend of the season might just pay off.

If the top four race goes down to the wire, we could find ourselves with four or five clubs heading into GW38 with Champions League football at stake, and both West Ham and Arsenal have good-looking fixtures that weekend.

West Ham, with an on-fire Jesse Lingard at their disposal, host Southampton at London Stadium, who will either have nothing to play for by then or might even be preparing for an FA Cup final. Meanwhile, Liverpool host Crystal Palace at Anfield, with Roy Hodgson’s men already playing out the remainder of the campaign with safety almost secured for another year.

If the Hammers and Liverpool go into the final weekend with everything to play for against two teams with absolutely nothing to play for, that should play into the hands of FPL managers with the likes of Lingard and/or Mohamed Salah in their teams. Keep that in mind.

Free Hit

Everyone knows the Free Hit Chip is the one that is best saved for blank gameweeks, when only a handful of fixtures are taking place.

There have been a few occasions already this season when it would’ve been wise to play the chip but, if you’ve still got it in the bank and wondering when to use it, then GW33 is currently the only obvious time to do so.

Man City and Spurs don’t play due to facing each other in the Carabao Cup final on the same weekend, while Southampton and Fulham also don’t play due to them being due to play the two finalists.

With so many managers with City and Spurs players in their squads, while many others will have been quite shrewd to have the odd Fulham and Saints player, this is the week to use your Free Hit if you’ve still got it.

Obviously, don’t have to use your chips before the end of the season and if you’re confident of your own squad’s ability to perform under pressure without any help, then back yourself as an FPL manager and go it alone.

But remember, you can only use one chip at a time, so if you still have all three available and you definitely want to use them before the end of the season, make sure you use at least one by GW36, or you won’t be able to use all of them before the campaign comes to a close.