In Gameweek 1, 814,606 bench boosts and 250,816 triple captains were played. That is 1,065,422 chips burned in the one gameweek where no manager had seen a competitive match, and where the average score finished at 50 points.

That the chips come in two sets, and that the first expires at the Gameweek 19 deadline, has been known since the summer. What is new is the outcome. The wildcard and the free hit could not be played in Gameweek 1 and only opened this week in Gameweek 2, while the bench boost and the triple captain were available from the start. Of the 8,903,411 teams ranked in Gameweek 1, one in eight had a chip active.

What a chip is worth is decided entirely by the gameweek you put it on. Gameweek 1 averaged 50 points and the highest score in the world was 131. The most captained player of the round was Erling Haaland, who returned two points. A triple captain on him therefore produced six points rather than the four a normal captain would have given. Two extra points, for a chip that does not come back until January.

The behaviour continues. Before the Gameweek 2 deadline, which has not yet passed, 9,660 wildcards and 6,365 free hits have already been played, alongside 45,420 bench boosts and 37,930 triple captains. The wildcard became available for the first time this week, and close to ten thousand managers used it immediately, after a single gameweek of evidence.

There is a rational case for a bench boost on the opening weekend. Every team plays, nobody is yet rotating for European fixtures, and prices had not moved, so the squad you built was the squad you had. The case still only holds if the bench was strong, and a bench chosen without a single match played is built on guesses. The opener showed what those guesses were worth: of the nine highest scores, two came from clubs normally counted among the elite. The highest went to De Cuyper of Brighton, owned by 6.8 per cent, with seventeen points.

The context is that the game is growing faster than it can teach anyone anything. Two days before the Gameweek 1 deadline, 5,933,308 managers had registered a team. In Gameweek 1, 8,903,411 were ranked. At least three million teams were therefore created in the final two days before the deadline, and by the morning of 27 August the number of registered managers had passed 9.7 million.

Gameweek 1 is the only gameweek of the season in which transfers are free and unlimited right up to the deadline, which is precisely why the wildcard and the free hit are locked for it. Playing a chip in that gameweek means spending one of the autumn's four jokers on the one week the game was already giving you everything for nothing. More than a million managers did it anyway.

In Gameweek 1, 814,606 bench boosts and 250,816 triple captains were played. That is 1,065,422 chips burned in the one gameweek where no manager had seen a competitive match, and where the average score finished at 50 points.

That the chips come in two sets, and that the first expires at the Gameweek 19 deadline, has been known since the summer. What is new is the outcome. The wildcard and the free hit could not be played in Gameweek 1 and only opened this week in Gameweek 2, while the bench boost and the triple captain were available from the start. Of the 8,903,411 teams ranked in Gameweek 1, one in eight had a chip active.

What a chip is worth is decided entirely by the gameweek you put it on. Gameweek 1 averaged 50 points and the highest score in the world was 131. The most captained player of the round was Erling Haaland, who returned two points. A triple captain on him therefore produced six points rather than the four a normal captain would have given. Two extra points, for a chip that does not come back until January.

The behaviour continues. Before the Gameweek 2 deadline, which has not yet passed, 9,660 wildcards and 6,365 free hits have already been played, alongside 45,420 bench boosts and 37,930 triple captains. The wildcard became available for the first time this week, and close to ten thousand managers used it immediately, after a single gameweek of evidence.

There is a rational case for a bench boost on the opening weekend. Every team plays, nobody is yet rotating for European fixtures, and prices had not moved, so the squad you built was the squad you had. The case still only holds if the bench was strong, and a bench chosen without a single match played is built on guesses. The opener showed what those guesses were worth: of the nine highest scores, two came from clubs normally counted among the elite. The highest went to De Cuyper of Brighton, owned by 6.8 per cent, with seventeen points.

The context is that the game is growing faster than it can teach anyone anything. Two days before the Gameweek 1 deadline, 5,933,308 managers had registered a team. In Gameweek 1, 8,903,411 were ranked. At least three million teams were therefore created in the final two days before the deadline, and by the morning of 27 August the number of registered managers had passed 9.7 million.

Gameweek 1 is the only gameweek of the season in which transfers are free and unlimited right up to the deadline, which is precisely why the wildcard and the free hit are locked for it. Playing a chip in that gameweek means spending one of the autumn's four jokers on the one week the game was already giving you everything for nothing. More than a million managers did it anyway.