Tom Hadley – a one-time world number one in FPL – is the newest addition to our ever-growing team of contributors for 2025/26.
He’ll be providing data-driven articles every week this season, continuing with this one.
His own Gameweek 3 team plans can be found towards the foot of this article.
FPL kicked off in typical fashion. Late clean sheet wipeouts, big hitters blanking and some narrow DefCon misses. A warm welcome back indeed!
Can Stach compete with the other cheap midfielders?
It was the week of the budget midfielder, with Tijjani Reijnders (£5.6m) undoubtedly the star of the show.
Forget Pep roulette: you’ve got a goalscoring midfielder (with pedigree) in that City team for just £5.6m. It’s a no-brainer and the one pick I’m still kicking myself for not going for!
Elliot Anderson (£5.5m), whom I do own, did impress me a lot, mind. He was relentless against Brentford, taking corners, creating chances and coming close himself on a couple of occasions. He was only one away from the DefCon threshold, too – on another day, it was a big haul.
Above: FPL midfielders sorted by defensive contributions in Gameweek 1
Anton Stach (£5.0m) gave a somewhat similar performance to Anderson’s. On corners, he created four chances and took four shots – all whilst actually hitting the DefCon threshold. For £0.5m cheaper, he is definitely one to watch.
Above: FPL midfielders sorted by chances created (CC) in Gameweek 1
DefCon Leaderboard
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