It’s time for our early Scout Picks for Gameweek 16 of Fantasy Premier League (FPL).

Naturally, plenty can change ahead of our finalised weekly selection on Friday.

The upcoming Scout Squad nominations will help shape our final Scout Picks. The midweek European ties and the pre-match press conferences will also have a say.   

But this ‘bus team’, at the very least, offers an insight into the players and teams who will be under consideration.

There are, as ever, certain restrictions for our squad:

• An £83.0m budget for our starting XI
• An overall squad limit of £100.0m
• No more than three players per team

GAMEWEEK 16 FIXTURES

Above: The Gameweek 16 fixtures sorted by difficulty (easiest left, trickiest right) on our Fixture Ticker.

THE LIKELY LADS

The final Scout Picks will unquestionably feature a triple-up on Arsenal, the team that has scored the second-highest number of goals and kept the most clean sheets in 2025/26. The Gunners face winless Wolverhampton Wanderers on home turf.

The primary concern at this early stage of the week is that Mikel Arteta’s side are in UEFA Champions League action on Wednesday. That could lead to some minute management in Gameweek 16, although this will naturally depend on the starting line-up in Brugge.

Ideally, Declan Rice (£7.1m) and Bukayo Saka (£10.2m) will get a well-earned rest, particularly given Arsenal’s perfect record in the competition to date.

Rice is Mr Reliable and offers multiple routes to points: he’s Arsenal’s top player for chances created and defensive contributions (DefCon), having blanked only four times in 14 matches. Saka, meanwhile, has delivered four attacking returns in his last five appearances.  

But the minutes racked up in midweek may well go some way to influencing our final Scout Picks selection, with teammates David Raya (£6.0m), Jurrien Timber (£6.5m), Piero Hincapie (£5.4m), Myles Lewis-Skelly (£5.1m), Eberechi Eze (£7.8m) and Martin Odegaard (£7.8m) firmly in the mix.

Regarding Hincapie, he has racked up more DefCons than any other Arsenal defender since he began his run in the first team.

Elsewhere, Fulham have a plum away fixture at Burnley, so we can expect them to also feature prominently in our Scout Picks XI.

Joachim Andersen’s (£4.5m) DefCon potential enhances his likelihood of being chosen, while Harry Wilson (£5.2m), Samuel Chukwueze (£5.3m), in his final match prior to the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), and Raul Jimenez (£6.2m) all have strong claims for inclusion against a side that has suffered six straight defeats.

Above: The bottom five of the Premier League form table (last six matches), via Football Web Pages

Erling Haaland (£15.0m) and Igor Thiago (£6.9m) look like certainties for Scout Picks inclusion, too.

Thiago has nine goals in his last 10 appearances, so is tough to overlook at home against Leeds United.

And while Palace are tough nuts to crack, Haaland has scored in all four of his league meetings with the Eagles.

IN CONTENTION

Phil Foden (£8.5m) is probably one of the first names that come to mind when FPL managers think of ‘must-haves’ right now. He’s scored five goals and provided one assist in his last three league matches, while averaging 80.7 minutes per appearance over the season.

The only real downside is the fixture: Crystal Palace have the second-best defence in the division this season behind Arsenal, having conceded only 12 goals in 15 matches. They are also excellent, particularly at Selhurst Park, at defending in a compact back five, often forcing opponents to play around the outside.

Foden has never scored against the Eagles…

That said, it’s still hard to look past the in-form England international, who has outperformed every other FPL midfielder for expected goal involvement (xGI) over the last four Gameweeks:

Nico O’Reilly (£5.2m) and Jeremy Doku (£6.6m) are other options to consider in the Manchester City ranks.

Elsewhere, in addition to Arsenal and Fulham, you’d expect Chelsea (at home to Everton) and Brentford (entertaining Leeds) to feature highly in G-Whizz’s upcoming clean sheet odds list, so they could feasibly supply us with a backline option or two.

After a thumping win for Manchester United over Wolves on Monday night, Bruno Fernandes (£9.0m) and Bryan Mbeumo (£8.4m) both carry appeal against Bournemouth, with Andoni Iraola’s side in the bottom two for goals conceded away from home.

However, United’s defence isn’t exactly robust either (their last clean sheet was in early October), which lifts the appeal of Antoine Semenyo (£7.6m), who was unfortunate not to return in Gameweek 15.

Other midfielders in the mix include Pedro Neto (£7.3m), Enzo Fernandez (£6.6m), Morgan Rogers (£6.9m) and Dango Ouattara (£6.0m), although we’ll see how Cole Palmer (£10.3m) and Liverpool assets fare in Europe this week before making any commitments.  

THE LONGER SHOTS

The Sunderland v Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest v Tottenham Hotspur fixtures both feel tough to call, so their players remain long-shots for now.

Elsewhere, it’ll be a tough ask for forwards such as Jarrod Bowen (£7.5m), Joao Pedro (£7.3m) and Ollie Watkins (£8.5m) to force their way past others in Gameweek 16, largely due to the opposition they face.

We could perhaps consider Matty Cash (£4.8m) at the back. He’s already scored three times this season, the joint-most of any defender, and ranks joint-third in his position for shots (see image below). Aston Villa have conceded six goals in their last three away matches, mind.

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (£5.1m), Yankuba Minteh (£6.3m) and Georginio Rutter (£5.6m) certainly aren’t bad options this week, but they perhaps don’t carry the same appeal as those included in our ‘bus team’.

GAMEWEEK 16 EARLY SCOUT PICKS