A shortage of pre-launch reveals meant we were engulfed with Fantasy Premier League (FPL) player prices when the game went live.
It was difficult to know where to start.
We’re currently processing the player prices position by position, starting with the cheapest forwards in the game and those in the £6.0m-£7.0m bracket. This came in the wake of our ‘first impressions’ article.
We’ll be looking at value (last year’s points, this year’s prices) soon, too.
In this brief article, though, it’s more route one: the biggest risers and fallers.
Yet more thanks go to TopMarx, who has supplied us with the data to work from.
PRICE RISES
There were 116 players who rose in price for FPL 2025/26.
£2.0M RISES
Four players rose by a joint-high £2.0m: Morgan Rogers (£7.0m), Joao Pedro (£7.5m), Mohamed Salah (£14.5m) and Alexander Isak (£10.5m).
You can certainly understand that in the cases of record-busting Salah, top-scoring forward Isak and the grossly undervalued (last season) Rogers.
Pedro is an interesting one and you wonder how much his climb was due to the excellent start to his Chelsea career in the FIFA Club World Cup.
He’s never really been a prolific goalscorer: he’s scored just five non-penalty goals in each of the last two seasons. Given that he’ll surely cede spot-kick duties to Cole Palmer (£10.5m), he’ll have to buck the trend of previous seasons to merit a £7.5m price tag.
£1.5M RISES
Another dozen players climbed by £1.5m.
Most were unsurprising: Yoane Wissa (£7.5m), Chris Wood (£7.5m) and Matheus Cunha (£8.0m) were always going to rise after their free-scoring campaigns.
Probably the most eyebrow-raising are Enzo Fernandez (£6.5m), Kevin Schade (£7.0m) and Omar Marmoush (£8.5m).
With Enzo, it’s perhaps pre-emptive. With Romeo Lavia (£5.0m) and Reece James (£5.5m) (sort of) fit and increasingly the ones used alongside Moises Caicedo (£5.5m), Enzo may get more chances to play further forward and gatecrash the opposition box a bit more. It’s not as if he’s going to be a magnet for defensive contribution points: he would only have got six of those last season. Caicedo would have bagged 42, for context.
Schade was a bit of a Fantasy afterthought last season, thanks to Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo (£7.0m), but can he be Brentford’s talisman this year after the exit of one and the possible departure of the other?
It went under the radar that Schade himself delivered 15 attacking returns despite starting just 26 games. That’s the same number of goals and assists as £6.5m trio Ismaila Sarr, Kaoru Mitoma and Alex Iwobi banked, with Schade rising even beyond that group.
Marmoush, now a midfielder, did score seven goals in 14 starts last season but the competition is fiercer than ever at City. He pretty much featured only as Erling Haaland‘s (£14.0m) deputy in the Club World Cup, rather than out wide.
PRICE FALLS
A grand total of 72 players dropped in price this summer.
£1.5M DROPS
No one dropped by £2.0m so the biggest falls were the £1.5m losses suffered by Mykhailo Mudryk (£5.0m), Phil Foden (£8.0m) and Son Heung-min (£8.5m).
Mudryk is still provisionally suspended by the Football Association, so there’s no FPL interest there.
Son’s future is up in the air, meanwhile, with Thomas Frank cagey about the Korean. Son’s decline from £12.0m midfielder in 2022/23 to mid-price asset now mirrors his own career trajectory, and he’s very much a fading force at 33 even if he stays in north London.
Foden is the most enticing one here.
The England international endured a dip in levels last season. The player himself admitted that there were off-the-field mental struggles.
Perhaps this summer will serve as a big ‘reset’ – and the signs in the States were promising as he emerged from the Club World Cup as City’s joint-top goalscorer (three). His swagger was back and his long-lost knack of half-yards of space in the box returned.
And yet… he still only started one match out of four in the US. Even at a cut-price £8.0m, rotation concerns abound.
£1.0M DROPS
In terms of £1.0m drops, Kieran Trippier (£5.0m) catches the eye. While not the player he was, his points-per-start average of 4.4 was better than almost every other FPL defender last season. With Lewis Hall (£5.5m) working his way back from injury and Tino Livramento (£5.0m) having a delayed summer break thanks to England under-21 involvement, Trippier may well start the season at right-back.
A move to Manchester United would perhaps rekindle some FPL interest in Nicolas Jackson (£6.5m), especially a) after a price drop and b) factoring in the Cunha/Mbeumo/Fernandes supply line. He’s a sub-par finisher, let’s be honest, but has still averaged 18 attacking returns per season since joining Chelsea. He serves a suspension in Gameweek 1, of course.
Wolves’ Rodrigo Gomes (£4.5m) is now not just £1.0m cheaper but also a defender. Could he be the Rayan Ait-Nouri (£6.0m) replacement, having filled in for him last season?
Most of the other million-pound drops have game-time concerns hanging over them, including Ben White (£5.5m). Niclas Fullkrug (£6.0m) is a potential starter up front for West Ham United, however.
Kyle Walker (£4.5m), despite his fall, will still be too pricey for many at Burnley, who can offer £4.0m options elsewhere.
