We’ve all been there; you proudly click that shiny Wildcard button, bring in all the players you’ve spent hours (or even days) obsessing about and deliberating over and then sit back and watch the majority of them either get injured or blank. Then, an even more terrifying thought enters your mind….. I wonder how my old team would have done this week?

You nervously look back at your previous Gameweek’s team and start adding up their points, sweating more and more profusely as the total points gets closer and closer to your current Gameweek total. And then it passes it – meaning you’d have done better by not doing anything. The panic sets in, ‘what have I done? I knew I shouldn’t have tinkered with it.’ You start second guessing yourself and every other life decision you’ve ever made, especially given the FPL season is only as long as the current Gameweek.

Wait? What? You mean that there are future gameweeks too? So maybe, my wildcard isn’t a complete failure?

Okay, I may have slightly over-egged the pudding here but you get my point. It’s all too easy to wildcard and then have a bad gameweek following the use of the chip and get carried away with the negativity (I’ve done it myself many a time).

The most important thing though is to learn to quell those negative urges and take a second to sit back and look at your freshly wildcarded team in a new light. Yes, you may have had a bad gameweek but remember the reasons why you brought in the players you did. The chances are that you didn’t bring them in for just one gameweek and if there were one or two that you did do that for, then don’t worry about it! They’ll be gone in a week or two anyway. (Mahrez, I’m looking at you.)

The main question you have to ask yourself is, why did you bring in the players you did? Did you bring them in because they were on form? Do they have good upcoming fixtures for the next 6 gameweeks at least? Are they popular players that have a huge Overall Ownership? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then don’t worry if you had a bad gameweek. After all, FPL is a marathon, not a sprint.

As long as you had valid reasons for bringing in the players you did, then it’s important to remember that when judging the success or failure of your wildcard. No wildcard is ever just for one gameweek really, so give it a few gameweeks before you even start to consider whether the wildcard was worth it or not.

This may even be as cathartic thing for me to write this week given the fact that I wildcarded last week and it’s fair to say that it could have gone better (it could have gone worse but still). To use my wildcard as an example, I wasn’t happy with at least six players in my old team and combining that with a few injuries, it was worth me triggering the chip before Gameweek 8. Sadly, it didn’t go quite as well as I hoped and then lead on to both Lukaku and Doucoure picking up fairly long-term injuries, meaning I had to take a -4 for GW9. This was certainly not what I had planned and I would have far preferred to simply take out Mahrez after my one week punt as my free transfer.

But, I’ve learned over time to not rage transfer players out and get angry about bad luck, especially after wildcarding, so that’s my main piece of advice for any FPL managers frustrated after a bad wildcard gameweek. The initial frustration you suffer will ease and it’s important to give it time before you plan for the future or deem your wildcard a success or failure.

After all, you know the saying;

‘Wildcards are for the season, not just for a gameweek.’