FPL chips
Triple Captain, Bench Boost, Free Hit and Wildcard are the four season chips. Play them when minutes and the calendar justify it. The 2025/26 reconstructive path played none of them — including Gameweek 34, when the optimiser took an 8-point hit in a blank instead of Free Hit or Wildcard.
Triple Captain
Triple Captain triples one starter’s points. Save it for a player who is very likely to start twice or who has an outsized single-fixture ceiling.
The 2025/26 reconstructive path never played Triple Captain. That is a gap in the policy, not evidence that the chip had no value.
Bench Boost
Bench Boost scores your four bench players. It needs four likely starters, not four cheap names.
Bench Boost was never played in the 2025/26 reconstructive replay. The published squads therefore understate a complete FPL policy.
Free Hit
Free Hit rebuilds the squad for one gameweek, then reverts. Use it for blanks, not for a mild upgrade.
In Gameweek 34 the optimiser and the template both took three transfers and an 8-point hit during a blank, instead of Free Hit or Wildcard. Free Hit was available and unused.
Wildcard
Wildcard rebuilds the squad permanently. Spend it when the squad is structurally wrong for the next block of fixtures, not to patch one player.
Wildcard was never played on the 2025/26 reconstructive path, including before the Gameweek 34 blank. Chip planning is the largest functional gap before treating 2,010 as a complete-policy score.