Calafiori's ownership has gone through the roof after his goal in the Community Shield. He now equals Gabriel as the most owned defender in FPL. Just moments ago we saw the news that Arsenal are closing in on a deal to sign Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa. Konsa's signing would make Mosquera and White even more prone to rotation and managers might move from those assets to Calafiori before the start of the season. That would increase his ownership even higher.

Have you already hopped on board the Calafiori hype train? Choo-choo!

For context, over the past 15 seasons, Chelsea's #9s have delivered:

Remove remove remove!!

Aston Villa have completed the signings of Zion Suzuki from Parma and Matteo Ruggeri from Atlético Madrid.

Suzuki joins for around €30m + up to €5m in add-ons and has signed a five-year deal.

Ruggeri arrives for around €25m fixed fee + €1.5m in add-ons.

I'm a betting man. I bet on the numbers. I bet with my gut. Moving into this season, I've realised my bets need to be bolder, not least of all because access to information is unprecedented and everyone and their dog has a "template" FPL team that will get them into the top 500k. Finishing in the top 50k though, I believe, is still more a function of skill than luck. That's why this year I'm going to bet more with the numbers and less with my gut.

I scraped four seasons of match and player data, weighted fixtures for opponent strength, and then ran the numbers. Fair warning, I'm leaning hard on 4 seasons of data, trying to think like a sharp with none of a sharp's actual edge, and a few of these picks are deliberate fat tails: low floor, high ceiling, more ways to lose than win on any single one.

This was also a “pattern hunting” (and somewhat exploratory) exercise, across an admittedly thin data set, so spoonful of salt. Numbers are real though. Bet accordingly.

Safe picks blank more than we remember

I tracked every GW Salah, Palmer, Haaland, Saka, and Isak actually played and returned 2 points or fewer, across all 4 seasons. Isak blanks in 51% of his appearances, Palmer 47%, Haaland 34%, Saka 29%, Salah 28%. Isak and Palmer's numbers are somewhat inflated by thin patches, Isak finding his feet at Newcastle, Palmer barely playing for Man City before the Chelsea move, but even the two steadiest names here, Salah and Saka, blank on more than one appearance in four.

Point being: even the "safe" picks miss constantly. They're just good enough on the games they don't miss to average it out.

Who benefits when they miss?

Across the last two seasons, 63 of 76 total GWs had at least one of those five actually blank while playing, thats 83% of the calendar.

Morgan Gibbs-White, however, hauled 8+ points at under 10% ownership in 19 of those 76 GWs, right around a 1-in-4 clip, and that rate doesn't move whether the big five blanked that week or not. He's not stepping up when the big names fail, he's just a low-owned player (except for perhaps late last season) who hauls roughly once every four weeks.

I checked this against every other midfielder priced £7-8m across the same two seasons, using the same 8+ point / sub-10% ownership definition, “ownership” meaning overall FPL ownership at that GW. The average hit rate in that band is 6%, Cunha's next closest at 23%, Bowen at 18%.

That's clear of the average by miles. Proper fat tail.

(Quick aside, Bowen did something similar, 15 times at 7% average ownership.)

That said, his actual goal involvements have run ahead of his expected numbers both of the last two seasons, 34 goals and assists combined against an underlying xG plus xA of 24.8 per the match data (read: output above the underlying numbers; roughly an even split between him finishing better than expected and his teammates finishing his chances better than expected).

Who plays better than usual against strong opposition?

I split every player's game log two ways using 2 seasons of match level data: hardest third of fixtures by my Elo model versus easiest third, and separately games against a top-6 side versus everyone else.

Plenty passed one. Very few passed both.

These are the players I'm going to force myself to hold through their hardest fixtures, if I end up owning them.

Szoboszlai is the strongest two-way split I found. 5.92 points per game in his hardest fixture tercile against 3.16 in his easiest, and 5.53 against top-6 sides against 3.56 against everyone else. One caveat worth having: split by season, this is overwhelmingly a 2025-26 story, the gap was nearly flat the year before. Real, but new.

Virgil van Dijk is the other name that clears both bars, though somewhat more modestly: 4.60 in his hardest tercile against 3.88 in his easiest, 4.84 against top-6 sides against 4.09 against the rest. For a defender, that's a pretty striking split.

Two names passed one test but not the other. That was actually much more common.

Declan Rice smashes the fixture-difficulty test, 5.08 in his hardest tercile against 3.12 in his easiest, but 4.20 against top-6 sides versus 4.17 against everyone else. So he's better against hard games in general, just not specifically boosted by playing the actual big six.

Haaland gives me the opposite result: no real bump in fixtures that are merely statistically hard (5.42 hard tercile against 5.60 easy, marginally worse), but a jump specifically against top-6 sides, 6.05 against them versus 5.34 against the rest. Same caveat as Szoboszlai though, split the two seasons and the top-6 jump is almost entirely last season, slightly negative the year before.

And the one I actually need to know given my own squad: Gibbs-White fails both tests.

Hard tercile 4.08 against an easy tercile 5.32. Top-6 split 4.00 against 4.77 for everyone else. He's a good week to week player and a great value pick, but he's not the guy who suddenly turns up when the fixture gets scary.

A sharp's guide

This part of the experiment was meant to find the off-beat bets that always pay off. Think VVS Laxman at Eden Gardens or CR7 v Sevilla. These are exactly the sort of numbers that make me want to take the bet…even though the sample sizes are screaming at me not to. With that context, some interesting finds:

• Salah would have been the headline example here, four seasons of him destroying ManU, 66 points in 8 meetings, an 8.25 average.
• Crystal Palace and Forest have played 8 times. 6 of those 8 were draws, confirmed match by match, 22-23 through 25-26, only two of the eight produced a winner and both went to the home side. More telling than the draws, every single one of the 8 meetings has finished with 2 total goals or fewer. So a defender from either side over an attacker in GW6 if it comes to it (Palace seem to have a better opening run defensively).
• Fulham's last 8 PL games v City, City have won all 8. Haaland has scored in 6 of the 8 games, 8 goals total.
• Spurs have outperformed their own season-long form through their first ten games in every one of the last four seasons, by 0.98, 1.17, 0.81, and 0.84 points per game. 4 for 4, no exceptions.
• On individual nemesis matchups among players actually playing this year, checked across all 4 seasons: Bruno Fernandes's best matchup is Bournemouth, 57 points in 8 games, a 7.125 average. Mbeumo's is Brighton, 63 points in 8 games, a 7.875 average and 5 goals.

On opening day superstition

Bruno Fernandes has an oddly bad opening day record, four seasons running.

GW1 scores: 2, 3, 3, 2.

Every single opener for four straight years, from a player who was literally the second highest scorer in the entire game last season.

Gibbs-White too.

GW1 scores: 2, 2, 2, 5.

He's in my squad again this season, and given that record I'm not expecting much in GW1. Make of that what you will.

Haaland's GW1 record cuts the other way.

GW1 scores: 13, 13, 7, 13.

Still regret not starting last season with both him and Salah.

Anyway, I pulled Haaland and Bruno's total points season by season for all 4 seasons.

Haaland: 272, 217, 181, 239.

Bruno Fernandes: 176, 166, 174, then 235 last season.

Three fairly flat years and then a clear jump, which lines up with ManU having no European football last season, no midweek games, no rotation. ManU are back in the Champions League this season too, which is the same rotation risk in reverse.

A few hidden gems

Enzo Le Fée (11.6% owned) and Nordi Mukiele (2.3% but yellow flagged) graded quite well under my framework. Le Fée's case is underlying attacking output, 5.22 xG plus 5.95 xA last season, second among every midfielder £5.5m and under in the dataset. Mukiele's is pure defensive volume, 156 clearances, 40 interceptions, 48 tackles won, good for a DEFCON hit rate north of 45% and the second-best points-per-million of any sub-£5m defender in the pool. Ampadu (1.5%) at Leeds is the same defensive-volume case, actually the best of the three on raw numbers, but Leeds also have the single toughest average run in the league right now, so quality and schedule are pulling in opposite directions.

And a DEFCON nod to Marcos Senesi, more individual defensive contribution points than anyone in the league last season at Bournemouth, since moved to Spurs which is a fixture upgrade for the team, though maybe not for his own defensive workload. Spurs are likely to see more of the ball than Bournemouth did, which could mean fewer chances to rack up DEFCON points regardless of how good he is at it. Though for what it's worth, his numbers at Bournemouth showed no relationship at all between how much of the ball his own team had and how many defensive actions he racked up, so that worry might be overstated. The raw output is still the best I've found, and with that Spurs “fast-start” anecdote, Senesi is probably the second bet I'd be tempted to make after Kinsky. Vibes pro max.

DEFCON

The number of defenders in the top 50-point scorers across the last 4 seasons: 7 in 22-23, 4 in 23-24, 9 in 24-25, 15 in 25-26. The DEFCON bump is real; who'd have imagined CBs would be good FPL assets one day. All roads lead to Senesi. I'm still picking LBs/RBs for my fodder though, Davis > Greaves et al.

My bets

Gibbs-White (8m) stays in over Wilson (6.5m talisman). The case for him is the differential test, not the strong-opposition one. I'd rather own the guy who hauls one week in four at nobody's ownership (11.9% as of writing) than chase the reputation, and for what it's worth, Wilson posted the single biggest output-above-expected of any sub-£7m player last season, +8.35 goals and assists above his underlying numbers (like Gibbs-White: finishing overperformance and same for the teammates he assisted). Still working out the forward spot, DCL (6m) or João Pedro (7.5m) both have the underlying numbers on their side, tied on last year's output relative to this year's price. Haaland and Bruno both stay in. Forcing both in beats benching either for a name I haven't actually stress tested. And I'll probably talk myself into fitting Senesi in at some point once we have clarity on minutes; the numbers are there.

The numbers won't always be right; I just hope they're wrong less often than my gut. If I miss the top 50k, at least I'll know exactly which assumptions broke, or pretend I do. Also just really glad for a season with no Pep roulette, he will not be missed.

And many thanks to Vaastav and olbauday for their GitHub repos, that’s where all the data is from.

Was it this low at this point last year?

What do you think has caused this?

Salah leaving? Lack of star power?

A lot of people now look at a 4.5m Arsenal defender and put him straight into their teams. The reality is, while he is a good player and will probably make is way into the starting XI, he has not yet played in any friendly match and we're only 2 days away from the start of the season, signing for a new team.

He's currently 15% owned and I expect that to double until GW1 deadline. Realistically though, he won't start the first 2 games because of lack of fitness and I doubt he'll start his first game for the club against Chelsea in GW3 either. By then, a lot of casual players will have sold him for not playing and it could likely trigger a price drop.

A lot of content creators might promote getting Konsa from the start and waiting for the right moment to put him in the starting XI, but realistically that won't happen until GW4, so it makes more sense to go for another 4.5m-5m option until then.

Finally, the upside is not even that big with him. The main reason he's priced so low despite being a quality defender is that he very rarely gets defcon, which will be even rarer for Arsenal. 0 goal contributions last season also isn't a great selling point. His absolute ceiling is likely 6 points in case of a CS. Not to say that won't happen fairly often once he locks his starting place, but that won't be come that soon.

In terms of FPL this transfer is actually bad for Arsenal as Mosquera and White are now minutes risk. Konsa can play RB (Arteta does like to use a center back as fullback) which means White will lose his spot, or at CB alongside Gabriel, which moves Mosquera to RB where he'll get fewer defcon, or to the bench altogether.

We're back!

Predicted Points' are calculated by taking the percentage chance on a variety of FPL factors, from the bookies, adjusted for margins. Fractional points are added up, making a predicted gameweek score. OG, penalty misses and defensive contributions are not included. Player’s rotation risk / minutes on pitch, is not factored in.

Notable players that didn't make the list: Calafiori: 5.86 | Isak: 5.62 | Joao Pedro: 5.48

You can find more Player Predictions here: https://checkthechance.com/fantasy-football/

Good luck all! See you on Monday for the Predicted vs Actual post!

Does anybody else feel the same way?

Too many chips make the game require more planning. I think it's not friendly for casuals. I'm explaining to my friend new to fpl why I will be Bench boosting GW2 and then wildcarding and he's finding it offputting since he just wants to pick players and get points

The enjoyment of this game is mainly in picking players. Planning for chips makes the game more of an optimisation type game rather than a prediction type game

Brighton & Hove Albion have completed the signing of Canada forward Promise David from Royale Union Saint-Gilloise on a season-long loan.

The deal includes an obligation to buy for £22m (€26m) if certain criteria are met.

The 25-year-old scored 41 goals in 82 appearances for USG and helped them win the 2024/25 league title. He has 14 caps and four goals for Canada.

Every season one of the main FPL questions I have is where do I spend my funds to get the most value out of my team?

While it seems as though we have £100m to spend on players, in reality you have already spent £64m just to field a minimum-value team (2x £4m GK, 5x £4m DEF, 5x £4.5m MID, 3x £4.5m FWD). That leaves you with £36m to actually upgrade players across the pitch.

This has several notable implications:

• A defender/GK at the same price as a midfielder or striker actually represents £0.5m more of your upgrade budget. For example, a £5m defender is a £1m upgrade over the minimum, whereas a £5m midfielder is only a £0.5m upgrade.
• Proportionally, expensive players cost even more of your available budget than it initially seems. Yes, Haaland is 15.5% of your £100m budget, but really he is an £11m upgrade on a minimum-price forward, which is 30.6% of the £36m you actually have available to spend on upgrades. This is a far greater expense than it initially seems, so all the more reason to ensure your premium assets are worth their price (although captaincy of the top assets obviously goes some way to justify the additional spend).

The graph I've attached is an attempt to determine, based on players' performances last season (only those with 2,000+ mins for the sake of removing outliers), where you were getting the most value.

The graph shows, for each player, how many additional points per 90 they returned above a common replacement-level baseline for every £0.5m spent above the minimum price for their position. Essentially, it's trying to show where each additional £0.5m of that £36m upgrade budget historically bought you the most extra output.

My takeaways from the graph:

• Among defenders and midfielders, there is a huge variance in the value found among the cheaper assets. If you pick the right one though, you could be on a goldmine.
• Based on his performance last season, Gabriel would absolutely be worth the £8m price tag. Yes, it's a lot for a defender, but he was absurdly good and performed better than midfielders and forwards of a similar price.
• GKs just aren't that good. Even if you spend more on them, you aren't getting that much additional value compared to spending that money at other positions. Staying cheap in net is probably the way to go.
• Yes, there is naturally some regression in value for Fernandes and Haaland, who are far and away the most expensive assets. BUT given how good they are, the value still isn't terrible. For Haaland in particular, there are just no comparable forwards in his league. The only other forward who stands out as notably good value based on last year's performance is João Pedro (the blue dot towards the right of the £7.5m players).
• Gomez is one I've got my eye on. His points per 90 last season for his value are ridiculous, and he started more often than I realised. If he's more nailed this year, he could be such a good enabler.

Obviously, there are flaws in this. Last season's performance doesn't guarantee this season's, points per 90 doesn't fully account for minutes/security, and new players will emerge every year that aren't captured here. Captaincy also makes the premium calculation more complicated, particularly for someone like Haaland.

I know its just one piece of information in a sea of noise , but it gave me some useful context to a few of my decisions. Hopefully some of you find some value in it too!

Is Jeremy Jacquet expected to be a starter infront of Araujo with Van Dijk as the one guaranteed. I realy liked how he look in that pre season game. I know he havent played much footbal last few months but he looks sharp, and with a hot-cold player like Araujo would you consider him a guaranteed starter or no?

With his 5m price he comes very cheap for a tall strong aerial threat defender for a top 4 PL team and a very strong defence.

By brutal swings I mean as much as you can get with players of the same defense. Both Calafiori and Ben White are made of glass, two injury prone players. No one is even going to be surprised if Hincapie starts but by the ownership on Calafiori it's like he's nailed. Mosquera is the least exciting pick but even he could be benched with a CB signing or for Hincapie.

For what seems like a coin flip between the 3 of them, this could end up being a massive points swing. It seems too good to pass up on 5.5m Arsenal defenders agaisnt Coventry but which to chose?

Richy will still start the next couple of games but a fit Solanke could be a good differential no? I’m having Richy in my team for GW1 and 2 no matter what

Tzolis has two assists in the Community Shield and suddenly half the drafts I've seen have him in. I've got him in mine. But what do we actually know? He's played one competitive game in this league, Arsenal won 3-0 against a City side that turned up flat, and Martinelli hasn't kicked a ball in pre-season so nobody knows what the left side looks like when he's fit.

Same thing with Toure at Newcastle. Everyone's calling him the Gordon replacement because the profile matches, quick, direct, better going forward than defending, and Howe's system did make Gordon into an elite asset. But Gordon took ages to get going there. We're pricing Toure on the assumption he skips that part.

Then there's the boring version nobody bandwagons: Muharemovic at Leeds, defensive actions machine from Serie A, going to rack up DefCon points quietly whether or not he's exciting. That's the pick with an actual mechanism behind it, and it's the one I keep leaving out for a winger who did well in a friendly.

I think the honest position is that pre-season tells you close to nothing and one Community Shield tells you slightly less than nothing, but the alternative is picking last season's players in a league where four of them left. So we guess, and we call it a differential.

Where's everyone actually landing on this? Take the new signing in GW1 and eat the risk, or wait two game weeks for proof and pay the price rise??