Fantasy Premier League: How does the Free Hit work in FPL and when should you use it?

The Free Hit is one of the most valuable chips in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) - here is a guide on how to use it to great effect this season.

FPL is a game of extremely fine margins, with one transfer sometimes making the difference between your team topping your mini league or finishing as runner-up.

In fact, FPL even has a tiebreaker in place that involves total transfers - if you are level on points with an opponent come May, but have made more transfers, you would finish behind them.

With all that in mind, how does the Free Hit chip work, and when is best to use it?

Fantasy Premier League: How does the Free Hit work?

The Free Hit does what it says on the tin. When activated, you can make as many transfers as you want in a single Gameweek, at no cost.

That means you can reshape your entire team, and not have to take any penalties for doing so.

However, once used, you cannot use the Free Hit chip again for the rest of the season. This is different to last season, where two Free Hit chips were given out due to fixture disruption.

In addition, it only lasts for the Gameweek in which it is activated, meaning that, the following Gameweek, your team reverts back to what it was before you use the chip.

As a result, timing is everything.

When is best to use the Free Hit chip on FPL?

Usually, the Free Hit would be best reserved for a blank Gameweek, where only a select number of teams were playing.

You could, therefore, stock up on players from teams that you felt were going to win their game that week, and not have to worry about transferring them out again the following week.

This season, things are slightly different. During the World Cup break, players are allowed to make unlimited free transfers between the upcoming GW16 ending, and the start of GW17 on Boxing Day.

Therefore, if you have not already used your only Free Hit of the season, it would be best to wait until later on in the season, with a packed fixture schedule likely to be disrupted further by European and domestic cup competitions.