You know, every season, there’s that one week where everything goes nuts. That Double Gameweek (DGW). You hear the whispers, then the official confirmation drops, and suddenly, you’re not playing FPL anymore; you’re managing a hedge fund on pure adrenaline. I spotted the calendar conflict early this 2024/25 season, probably around Gameweek 15, when the rescheduling rumors started getting solid.
My first step? I immediately pulled up my custom spreadsheet. Forget the official site tools for a minute; I needed raw data filtered by fixture difficulty rating (FDR) and confirmed blanks/doubles. I identified the three teams that were likely getting two games and then I drilled down into player minutes. This isn’t about who scores goals; this is about who physically will play 180 minutes across six days. Fitness over flair, always.
My Initial Assessment: Chip Strategy First
The whole plan hinges on the chips you have left. If you still have your Bench Boost (BB) and Triple Captain (TC), a DGW is the target. I had both, but my initial team setup was trash—full of single-game players and bench fodder that wouldn’t see five minutes of action. I knew I had to rebuild the skeleton of my squad just to activate the BB.
I usually save the Bench Boost for the biggest possible DGW, meaning the one with the most teams doubling. This season, it looked like DGW 34 was going to be the monster. So, I decided: BB locked in for 34. The TC chip? That was going on the best player in the earlier, smaller DGW (likely DGW 25 or 27) that involved just two or three teams. You don’t waste TC when 14 teams are doubling; the risk is too high.
For DGW 34, the checklist was simple, but brutally hard to achieve:
- Find 15 Starters: Not 11 starters and 4 subs, but 15 players guaranteed 90 minutes in at least one game, preferably two.
- Budget Management: I had to stockpile cash. I started saving transfers four weeks prior, taking a calculated -4 hit in GW 30 just to get two key players in before their price rise, which gave me an extra £0.5m buffer.
- Target Specific Positions: You need cheap defenders and keepers who are playing twice. I scoured the bottom feeders of the league tables looking for a £4.0m defender who miraculously had a DGW. Found one, plugged him in. Job done.
The Execution: Banking Transfers and Pulling the Trigger
When Gameweek 33 hit, I had three free transfers (FTs) and about £2.5m in the bank. This is where I usually mess up, getting greedy and taking a massive -8 or -12 hit. Not this time. I made the conscious decision to limit myself to a -4 maximum.
I used the three FTs to bring in the three high-value assets who were playing twice—let’s call them Player A, B, and C for discretion. I then used the -4 hit to swap out my dead bench keeper for a DGW keeper (Player D). That gave me 15 players doubling, a mix of guaranteed starters and rotation risks, but all having two fixtures.
I remember sitting there on the Friday night, hitting the ‘Confirm Bench Boost’ button. The feeling is like jumping off a cliff. You’ve committed your season to this one week. If your £4.0m defender concedes eight goals, you’re toast. But you have to commit fully.
The week itself was exhausting. I spent 48 hours glued to the screen, watching games I didn’t care about, just tracking bonus points for Player A’s clean sheet or hoping Player D didn’t get subbed off at halftime. In the end, Player A hauled 18 points, Player D got a surprise assist, and my bench chipped in a meager 12 points combined. It wasn’t the 200+ point haul I dreamed of, but a solid 142 points overall. I took a significant green arrow, climbing almost 500k places globally.
The Real Cost of the ‘Expert’ Strategy
Why do I bother with this level of micro-management? Why the spreadsheets and the four-week advance planning? It’s because I’ve been burned before, badly.
Two seasons ago, I got cocky. I thought I could just slap the Bench Boost on a DGW team without proper preparation. I was busy moving house and just threw together a quick team update on the Monday before the deadline, forgetting I had a player who was injured and one who was traveling for a non-FPL international friendly. Result? Two non-starters in my bench boost. I think I scraped 89 points that week. It ruined my season.
What I learned is that the only way to succeed is to treat the DGW like a job interview. You have to over-prepare. The truth is, that massive preparation for DGW 34 this season? It happened during my anniversary weekend. My wife and I had planned to go hiking, but the team news dropped, the deadlines shifted slightly, and I locked myself in the spare room for six hours doing final checks and reading every single press conference transcript. I basically had to bribe her with a fancy dinner afterward just to make up for my obsessive behavior.
That’s how I know this preparation works. Because when you commit that much time, you make sure you don’t mess up the basic steps. You analyze, you save, you execute, and you just pray the players don’t let you down after all your hard work.