With the start of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) 2025/26 growing ever nearer, three-time top 500 finisher FPL General provides his top five tips for Gameweek 1 and beyond.
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1. EMBRACE THE NEW SCORING SYSTEM
We’ve got a new scoring system. We’ve got very attractive defenders across the board. We’ve got the Moises Caicedos (£5.5m) and Rodris (£6.5m) of this world, who are in our thinking, probably for the first time ever for many of us.
We’ve got to play the game that’s in front of us now. This is essentially a new FPL game this season. We’re going to have very different scorers and very different players in our teams. I think it’s dangerous to just ignore that and stick to the way you’ve always played the game. So, embracing the new scoring system is key.
That should be reflected in your tinkering. You should be playing around with all sorts of players and looking in the Fantasy Football Scout Members Area at the defensive contributions (DC) from last season, for example, to give you an idea of which players are going to get a big boost this year or certainly have the potential to do so.
- READ MORE: FPL 2025/26: Recalculated points totals for last season, factoring in defensive contributions
It’s not obviously ‘forget everything you’ve done before’ because a lot of the bread and butter of FPL is still the same: goals, assists, clean sheets. But there’s a much wider pool to choose from now. It would be easy to just say, “Ah, I’m not too bothered about this.” But I think we have to be because it’s going to make a big difference to the scoring.
2. PICK PROVEN PREMIER LEAGUE PLAYERS
This is more of a Gameweek 1 tip! It’s a very simplistic one but it’s one that’s very easy to kind of forget about when there are shiny new toys. We’ve got Florian Wirtz (£8.5m), who is an incredible footballer playing for the champions this year. We’ve got Viktor Gyokeres (£9.0m), who has an incredible goalscoring record in Portugal, coming to Arsenal, who will be fighting for the title as well. He certainly improves their chances of winning it this year.
But they’re new to the league and we’ve seen many times before: incredible players don’t always instantly become incredible Premier League players. It’s a totally different ballgame. And for that reason, I like keeping it simple in Gameweek 1.
Imagine there was no break in the summer and it’s kind of a continuation from Gameweek 38 of 2024/25 to Gameweek 1 of 2025/26. You know which players are good for FPL. You know which teams have good fixtures. You know who the talismans are: Jared Bowen (£8.0m), Chris Wood (£7.5m), Ollie Watkins (£9.0m).
Who did well last year? Who’s reliable? Who’s going to get the minutes? And then after a couple of weeks, I can see what Wirtz looks like, what role he’s playing, if he’s taking set pieces etc. Gyokeres will be up to full speed after a couple of weeks. We’ll see if he’s settling in well.
So, pick proven players in Gameweek 1 and adjust accordingly later. I don’t think you can go too far wrong with that.
Your Mohamed Salahs (£14.5m), your Erling Haalands (£14.0m) – they won’t be in my team this year (I’m going maverick!) but they’re very sensible picks.
3. AVOID TRIPLE-UPS!
This is again more for Gameweek 1 because, of course, we do end up with triple-ups from the big teams when they’ve got good fixtures at a later date.
But this season, no big team has a fantastic run of fixtures to begin with. And there’s plenty of unknowns at Liverpool, at Arsenal, at Manchester United. I probably shouldn’t put United there as a big team, but I’m hoping this year they will be!
The simple idea here is, if you have a triple up of say, Gabriel Magalhaes (£6.0m), Declan Rice (£6.5m) and Bukayo Saka (£10.0m) for Gameweek 1, you might very quickly realise that Gyokeres is a must-have. Then, you need two transfers to get him. You could say the same about City and Liverpool assets.
So, if you only double up on any one team, it leaves the door open for the best asset from that club that you may not have to begin with.
4. USE THE FPL WATCHLIST
You might not know this but the FPL website has a feature called the ‘Watchlist’. If you click into any player’s profile, at the bottom, it says ‘Add to Watchlist’. You can then find your Watchlist on the transfers page.
What I do every week, once I’ve watched all the highlights and looked at the stats, is update my own Watchlist. I usually do this every Monday or Tuesday.
It’s very simple. I go through all 20 teams on the Premier League website and just add players each week that I like the look of and/or who are showing up in the stats, have got good fixtures etc. I’m also removing players from the Watchlist that I no longer like.
And then, when it comes to making a transfer on Friday night or Saturday morning, I open it. I only ever transfer in a player from there.
What I find it does is stops me from falling into traps or bandwagon jumps that I don’t agree with. It just streamlines things and makes life easier, saving time when it comes to making moves.
Even for Gameweek 1, it’s really useful because we’re changing our squads all the time as new information emerges. Martin Dubravka (£4.0m) and Marc Guiu (£4.5m) moving to Burnley and Sunderland, for instance, suddenly brings them into focus and onto my Watchlist.
What I do is just basically pick a pool of about 50 or 60 to begin with, add them all to the Watchlist and then every day I’m slowly removing one or two. Eventually, I’m down to a more manageable number.
5. USE PRICE POINTS
Flexibility is advisable in the early weeks of a season, as we try to suss out who the best players are. Price points are a good indicator of how flexible your squad is.
So, if you’ve got a draft that you really like, what you should do is ignore the player names, ignore the teams they played for, and just look at prices only. Maybe even just write them down or stick them into a Word document.
For example, £14.0m forward, £9.0m forward, £4.5m forward, and do that throughout the team. And then ask yourself: how do I get from A to B to C? And that can maybe help you with a 50/50 decision as a deciding factor.
A very simplistic example of a price point is Jarred Bowen at £8.0m. There are loads of £7.5m forwards, so if Bowen doesn’t work out, there’s an escape route.
It’s also an example of why the £5.5m forward is a dangerous price point because there’s no outball there. You’re going to have to upgrade, probably, unless you’re content with a Guiu on your bench. Again, the £4.5m midfielder is probably a dangerous price point nowadays – especially if you don’t have any money in the bank – when we’ve got good £5.0m options.
So, price points are really useful and you should definitely look at them in Gameweek 1 in particular.
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