Introducing the FPL Assistant Manager Chip: All You Need to Know!
One of the key decisions for players in the Premier League’s widely enjoyed official fantasy football game is determining the optimal time to use their chips for maximum advantage.
Fantasy Premier League creates a competitive environment among friends, families, coworkers, and fans, where strategically deploying chips can significantly impact the ongoing FPL season.
FPL players often suffer the common frustration of misusing a Free Hit, Triple Captain, Bench Boost, or Wildcard. However, players now have access to a chip that allows them to harness the guidance of a real Premier League manager during the season’s latter half.
How does the FPL Assistant Manager chip work?
The Assistant Manager chip provides FPL players with the opportunity to select one of the Premier League’s 20 actual managers as their assistant manager.
By activating the chip and designating an assistant, players will accumulate points corresponding to the wins, draws, goals, and clean sheets of the assistant manager’s real Premier League team over three consecutive gameweeks.
The scoring system is straightforward: a win for the assistant manager’s team earns 6 points, while a draw earns 3 points. Each goal scored adds 1 point, and a clean sheet contributes 2 points.
Players who select Arne Slot at the start of the Assistant Manager chip’s availability will accumulate points based on Liverpool’s Premier League matches against Bournemouth, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Manchester City.
However, be prepared for a cost—there’s an Assistant Manager price range of £0.5m to £1.5m, which will need to be accommodated within the existing budget, necessitating the freeing up of funds before utilizing this new chip.
If Liverpool were to triumph in all three encounters, Slot’s FPL managers worldwide would earn 18 points from the wins, at least 3 points for goals, plus potential points from clean sheets.
Is Slot the obvious selection? Not necessarily.
FPL players should keep an eye out for double gameweeks, where some Premier League teams have an extra game midweek, allowing players to transform three fixtures into four for their assistant managers. Monitoring potential double gameweeks as the season progresses is essential.
Additionally, there’s a ‘table bonus’ that could give FPL players an edge.
If the assistant manager’s team faces an opponent positioned five or more places higher on the Premier League table, a win is worth 16 points, and a draw yields 8 points.
When can you play the Assistant Manager chip?
The Assistant Manager chip will be available starting from Gameweek 24, which commences on Saturday, February 1, 2025, and can be activated at any point until the end of the Premier League season.
As with all chips, only one can be played at a time. The other chips will be locked out during the three gameweeks while the Assistant Manager chip is active.
For the bold strategists in FPL, there’s an additional chance to identify an edge in the schedule by using a free transfer during those three gameweeks to switch one assistant manager for another.
If a real-world club decides to sack a manager, FPL players will continue to rack up points from the club regardless of who takes over the matches while the chip is active.
