The World No 1 reveals his strategy around captaincy and his decision-making for when to use chips
The 2025/26 Fantasy Premier League champion Erik Ibsen is explaining the decisions that led him to glory, so others can learn from the best. Here, he reveals his strategy around captaincy and how to maximise the chips.
Don’t take risks with the captaincy
Erling Haaland’s huge ownership and potential for double-figure hauls ensured he was the go-to captain for millions of managers in every Gameweek in 2025/26.
And a look at Ibsen’s armband picks shows the Manchester City forward was by far his No 1 pick, handed the armband in 22 of the 38 Gameweeks.
Bruno Fernandes was the only other player captained more than twice by the FPL champion, with the Manchester United star entrusted with the armband on seven occasions.
Ibsen’s captains
| No of GWs captained | Player |
| 22 | Haaland |
|---|---|
| 7 | Fernandes |
| 2 | Gabriel, Raya |
| 1 | Tarkowski, Guehi, Rice, Semenyo, Joao Pedro |
As the Dane explains, his approach is all about reducing the risk of a poor Gameweek score.
“I think that’s an obvious choice for many people, going with Haaland,” Ibsen says.
“There were also other times where I felt ‘Oh, I wish I hadn’t gone Haaland’. There was a period where in five Gameweeks, he blanked four times and I had him captain every single one of those weeks.
“But if you look at it over 38 Gameweeks, and you’ve hit captaincy wrong half the time, it can cost so many points. I think being less risk-averse with the captaincy – even though it is a lot less dopamine-inducing – is probably the smarter choice, and the safer choice.
“I was more looking at gaining points with all my other players, rather than having to risk my captaincy – you have to go somewhat defensive with it, because a bad captaincy can ruin a Gameweek.”
Take risks with your other starters
Ibsen’s tactic of keeping it safe with the armband and instead taking risks with his other 10 starters was very much in evidence in Gameweek 29, when he chose to keep faith in Chelsea’s Joao Pedro away to Aston Villa.
More than 388,000 managers had sold the Brazilian for his Gameweek 28 match against Arsenal, and his blank at Emirates Stadium persuaded a further 229,000 to transfer him out for the Villa encounter.
But Ibsen’s decision to go against the crowd paid off in style as Joao Pedro scored a hat-trick and supplied an assist in a 4-1 win to return his season-high haul of 19 points.
Crucially, Joao Pedro helped Ibsen total 86 points in Gameweek 29 and he climbed from eighth into first place, where he remained until the end of the season.
Even when he hit the summit, Ibsen was determined to keep faith in this policy.
Whereas many of his fellow managers who played their Wildcard in Gameweek 32 brought in Leeds United’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin due to his upcoming Double Gameweek and kind end-of-season schedule, the FPL champion kept Brentford’s Igor Thiago, a player who didn’t have a Double Gameweek.
“I was very against going full defensive when I was No 1,” Ibsen explains.
“I started Thiago. If I wanted to be very safe, I should have just bought Calvert-Lewin, but I went after players that I liked because I thought they were the best choice.”
AFC Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott was another player brought in by Ibsen on that Gameweek 32 Wildcard.
And the bold move of playing him away to Arsenal proved a masterstroke as Scott rewarded his faith with a 12-point haul.
“I still wanted my own differentials. Alex Scott was my legend, my GOAT,” says Ibsen.
“I remember the time when I was No 1 and he had scored against Arsenal, and no one in the top 50 even owned him. And I had started him.”
Chip strategy
Notably for Fantasy managers, the 2025/26 season was the first time we had two sets of chips to use in a campaign.
In previous seasons, you had one each of the Bench Boost, Free Hit and Triple Captain chips, along with two Wildcards – one for each half of the season.
But in 2025/26, there were Bench Boost, Free Hit and Triple Captain chips, along with a Wildcard, for each half of the season.
First half
Having used his Wildcard as early as Gameweek 2 in his debut season, Ibsen’s huge learning curve means he’s unlikely to use the same tactic in 2026/27.
“I think the way I did it the second half season is the way I should approach it from now on,” Ibsen says.
“I was really, really patient. I wanted to Wildcard in Gameweek 24. I had a few players I was not happy with.
“And then also with Gabriel as a Triple Captain option (in Arsenal’s Double Gameweek 26), I was like, ‘I’m not going to use this here.’
“Patience in the second half was essential for me to win. If I hadn’t been patient, I don’t think I would have won.”
Second set
In the second half of the season, Ibsen’s patience allowed him to focus his chip strategy around Double Gameweek 33 (DGW33) and Blank Gameweek 34 (BGW34), which were the biggest Double and Blank Gameweeks of 2025/26.
“It was either Wildcard in Gameweek 32 or Gameweek 33,” says Ibsen.
“What I liked a lot about Wildcarding in Gameweek 32 is that it just made every single Gameweek after that so straightforward for me.
“Because then it was just Wildcard in Gameweek 32, Bench-Boost in DGW33, Free-Hit in BGW34, Triple-Captain in Double Gameweek 36. Simple.”
As you can see in the table below, Ibsen earned 75 points on his Wildcard in Gameweek 32, using the chip to bring in a number of players who had two matches in DGW33.
He then deployed his Bench Boost chip to earn points for all 15 of his players and totalled 112 points in DGW33.
Ibsen followed that up by using his Triple Captain chip on Haaland for his two home matches in DGW36, with the Norwegian bringing in 33 of Ibsen’s 92 points that week.
Ibsen’s second set of chips
| GW | Chip | Points | GW rank |
| 32 | Wildcard | 75 | 222,646 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 33 | Bench Boost | 112 | 453,458 |
| 34 | Free Hit | 52 | 2,070,491 |
| 36 | Triple Captain | 92 | 1,003,949 |
Scroll across on mobile to see the full table
Notably, the Free Hit chip was the least successful of the four, earning Ibsen 52 points.
“I think a Free Hit is more about being risk-averse than being aggressive,” explains Ibsen.
“That’s at least how I used them both times the season – when my team looked worst. By using a Free Hit chip when it’s a bad week, I make my Wildcard and my Bench Boost stronger. To kind of play the chips off of each other, in that sense.”
Ibsen’s strategy is also backed up here by his Gameweek ranks.
By Wildcarding in the players he wanted for the rest of the season, he placed around the 222,000 and 453,000-marks in Gameweek 32 and DGW33 respectively.
But when he temporarily replaced them on a Free Hit chip in BGW34, he ranked just outside the top two million for that round of matches.