Fantasy Premier League tips: Three times you can use your wildcard as Martin Odegaard injury forces managers into action

Martin Odegaard's injury during the international break will have Fantasy Premier League managers leaning towards signing him as a Wildcard.

Arsenal captain news twisting the ankle While playing for Norway, he would have made thousands of FPL bosses across the country sweat.

And with his Gunners teammate Ricardo Calafiori and Manchester City Nathan Ake In addition to suffering some blows, many will be considering changing their team before Week 4.

Of the numerous chips handed out to FPL managers, the two Wildcards each season are undoubtedly the most coveted. Instead of the usual weekly free transfer that can improve your 15-man squad, the activation allows for an unlimited number of matchday changes without any points deductions.

Managers can use their first card at any time until the end of December, but more than 580,000 have already made the decision to do so during this international break.

There are still other opportunities to play with that golden token, though, and Fantasy Football Scout has three perfect times for you to use your wildcard this season. Ahead of each matchday, the Scout will use his experience to provide talkSPORT readers with useful tips that could improve standings and, eventually, win mini-leagues.

Matchday 4

Activating it now unlocks a fortnight of thinking time, with the ability to react to national team injuries such as that of Martin Odegaard (£8.4m).

If any of their owners also need to correct their early mistakes with Christopher Nkunku (£6.2m), Jarell Quansah (£4.3m) and Valentin Barco (£4.0m), the wildcard option allows them to immediately stop the slide.

In addition, eight teams are about to play back-to-back home games, which looks particularly encouraging for Liverpool, Brighton and Aston Villa.

There is also the added benefit of improving squad value. In FPL, player prices rise and fall by £0.1m once a certain threshold of buying and selling is reached. We have seen plenty of both in recent weeks and players who opt for the wildcard can take advantage of this by quickly jumping on new trains.

The drawback, however, is that we are still at a very early stage of the campaign. More information may be needed before committing to any major decisions.

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Matchday 6

Would two more weeks be enough? The expected popularity of a wildcard on matchday 6 will depend on changes in the schedule.

While things are getting tougher for Liverpool, Brighton and Newcastle, fixtures are improving massively for Arsenal, Brentford, Everton and West Ham.

This season, player prices make it difficult to land top players such as Mohamed Salah (£12.7m), Bukayo Saka (£10.1m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7m) and Alexander Isak (£8.5m). So triggering a Wildcard in this case is a seamless way to move from Liverpool's expensive stars to Arsenal's.

At this point, we'll have seen which players are vulnerable to Champions League lineup rotation, but those managers who have several current issues to quell might not have time to fall even further behind.

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Matchday 12

On the other hand, some may be lucky enough to wait a little longer to use the chip. If you have managed to avoid problematic players and are well prepared for the upcoming matches, these regular free transfers should allow you to survive until matchday 12.

It coincides with the November international break, providing two weeks of testing ahead of positive changes to fixtures for Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brighton, Chelsea and Man United.

While other managers may envy your ability to continue using it, waiting until this point could conversely be seen as a lack of proactivity that also misses out on team value growth.

Visit FantasyFootballScout.es To find out more.