There is a particular kind of loyalty in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) that would be admirable in almost any other part of life. We stand by our players, defend them when they disappoint us and find increasingly sophisticated reasons to believe that better days are coming.
When somebody suggests selling them, we sometimes react as though they’ve questioned our judgement rather than our team selection. I’ve been thinking about this because of Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.1m), although I suspect my problem began long before he entered my FPL team.
The difficulty is not that he is obviously a bad FPL asset. That would make the decision considerably easier. It’s that he might still be a perfectly reasonable one, and sometimes those are the hardest players to sell.
The problem with loving Leeds
Leeds United is not just another team to me. On 3 December 2025, my birthday, Emil and I were at Elland Road watching them beat Chelsea 3-1. It was our first Premier League match together; an experience that makes it difficult to remain objective about a football club.
They gave me the perfect birthday present. Unfortunately, FPL does not award points for sentimental value.
When I first started playing, I approached the transfer market with what can only be described as a highly questionable recruitment policy. My first purchase was Ilia Gruev (£5.0m), largely because he was Bulgarian and playing in the Premier League. I considered that a perfectly sufficient scouting report.
It turned out that nationality, however admirable, does not automatically translate into FPL points. A lesson I learned slowly.
Then came Ao Tanaka (£4.9m). Another decision influenced more by affection than the probability of attacking returns. At some point, I had to accept that I was building something closer to a Leeds supporters’ club than a competitive FPL team.
There is nothing wrong with loving a football club. There is, however, a problem when that affection starts influencing decisions in a game that rewards goals, assists, clean sheets and other measurable contributions rather than personal memories.
Which brings me back to Calvert-Lewin.
An uncomfortable case for keeping
Calvert-Lewin has not been delivering the sort of returns that make an FPL manager feel particularly clever. But there are legitimate reasons to remain patient: regular minutes, attacking opportunities and upcoming fixtures in which he could realistically deliver.
None of these arguments is unreasonable. In fact, they are exactly the things we should consider before selling a player. The trouble begins when we stop asking whether those arguments are still convincing and start using them to defend a decision we have already made.
There is a difference between trusting the underlying numbers and becoming emotionally attached to what those numbers might eventually produce. Most of us understand that distinction in theory, although recognising it in our own teams is another matter entirely.
And when the player happens to wear the shirt of a club you love, objectivity becomes an even more ambitious project.
The player you own vs the one you want
Emil, my co-host on Her Fantasy League, thinks I should replace Calvert-Lewin with Alexander Isak (£9.2m). His argument is straightforward: Isak offers greater attacking potential.
I’m less convinced. Calvert-Lewin still has fixtures worth considering, and I could use my free transfer to strengthen the defence instead. There is also the uncomfortable possibility that I simply do not want Emil to be right. Again.
We spend a considerable amount of time discussing transfers together, and Emil has developed an irritating habit of making suggestions that sound considerably more convincing after his players have scored. But this time, the disagreement is useful because it exposes something about how we value players we already own.
The interesting question is not whether Isak will outscore Calvert-Lewin next weekend. He might, or he might not. The question is whether the evidence available today makes him a sufficiently better option over the next five or six Gameweeks to justify spending a free transfer and a substantial part of my budget.
That is a much more useful question, even if it is considerably less entertaining than watching Emil celebrate another successful transfer.
Defending yesterday’s decision
One of the most useful questions in FPL is also one of the most uncomfortable: if I didn’t already own this player, would I buy him today?
It sounds simple, but it changes the entire conversation. Instead of asking whether Calvert-Lewin might eventually reward my patience, I have to ask whether I would choose him now over Isak, Nicolas Jackson (£7.0m), Thierno Barry (£5.6m) or another forward.
The distinction matters because of something behavioural economists call the sunk cost fallacy. We become reluctant to abandon a decision because of what we have already invested in it, even when that investment cannot be recovered.
In FPL, the investment is not always financial. Sometimes it is three disappointing Gameweeks, several convincing statistical arguments and the increasingly personal belief that a particular player is about to prove us right.
Or, in my case, a wonderful birthday at Elland Road and a lingering suspicion that Leeds players deserve a little more patience than everybody else.
We have already waited, so waiting one more week feels reasonable. Then another. Eventually, selling the player begins to feel less like a tactical adjustment and more like admitting defeat.
But the points we have already missed cannot be recovered by keeping him. His prospects are the only thing that should matter now.
This is where statistics can become surprisingly dangerous. Expected goals, shots in the box, big chances and fixture difficulty should help us evaluate a player objectively. Instead, we can end up selecting whichever numbers support the conclusion we already prefer.
The problem is not the statistics. It is the direction in which we use them.
The hidden cost of doing nothing
We tend to think of a failed transfer as something that costs us points. A player arrives, blanks repeatedly, so we regret buying him. But keeping a player can have a cost too, even when no transfer takes place.
Every Gameweek we hold an underperforming asset, we are effectively making a new decision to own him. That may be correct, but it may also mean passing up another player with better prospects.
My own dilemma illustrates why this is more complicated than simply identifying the better striker. If I sell Calvert-Lewin for Isak, I am not only buying a more expensive forward. I am also choosing not to use that transfer elsewhere.
My defence has problems of its own. There is a perfectly reasonable argument for replacing Semi Ajayi (£4.2m) with Jan Paul van Hecke (£5.0m) and leaving the forward line alone.
So the real comparison is not simply Calvert-Lewin versus Isak. It is Calvert-Lewin plus an improved defence versus Isak plus the defence I already have. Suddenly, the supposedly obvious transfer becomes less clear.
This is the part of FPL that interests me most. A transfer can be a good move in isolation and still be the wrong move for a particular squad.
Sometimes the most expensive mistake is not buying the wrong player. It is using a transfer to solve the wrong problem.
When he finally scores
There’s another reason patience can be difficult to evaluate: sometimes we are eventually proved right. The forward we defended for weeks finally scores, perhaps even producing a double-digit return, and we feel vindicated.
We tell ourselves that trusting the process worked. But one good Gameweek does not automatically prove that holding him was the best decision throughout.
If another player delivered more points during the weeks we waited, our patience may still have been expensive. Equally, selling a player just before he scores does not automatically mean the sale was a mistake.
Imagine two managers who own the same underperforming striker. One keeps him because his minutes, underlying numbers and fixtures remain encouraging. The other keeps him because selling would mean admitting that the original transfer has not worked.
The striker scores twice. Both managers receive exactly the same points tally, but only one has a decision-making process worth repeating.
That distinction is easy to overlook because FPL rewards outcomes, not explanations. There are no bonus points for having made a sensible decision that happened to go wrong.
Football has absolutely no interest in helping us distinguish between good judgement and good fortune
When patience becomes stubbornness
I do not think there is a universal answer. Three blanks are not necessarily a reason to sell, and neither are five if the underlying evidence remains strong enough.
But there are warning signs. Patience starts looking like stubbornness when we defend a player more enthusiastically than we evaluate him, when the promising fixtures are always just around the corner, or when we dismiss alternatives because selling would make our original decision feel wasted.
Perhaps the clearest warning sign is when the reasons for keeping a player are no longer the reasons we bought him.
Circumstances change. Roles change, minutes change and teams improve or deteriorate. Our opinions should be allowed to change with them.
Changing your mind is not the same as panicking. Sometimes it is simply responding to new information.
And perhaps genuine patience requires something more difficult than holding a player through disappointing results. It requires being willing to sell him even after defending him for weeks, if the evidence no longer supports the decision.
The transfer I still haven’t made
At the time of writing, Calvert-Lewin remains in my team. Emil prefers Isak, and I’m still considering whether the more valuable move might be in defence.
I could tell you that this is a carefully calculated strategic position. It might even be true. But I also know that if Calvert-Lewin scores this weekend, I will probably feel extraordinarily pleased with my patience.
And if Isak scores twice, Emil will probably remind me that he mentioned the transfer. Repeatedly.
Neither outcome will necessarily tell us which decision was better. We have to make decisions without knowing what will happen, then resist the temptation to rewrite our reasoning once the points arrive.
I will always remember that birthday at Elland Road, and there’ll always be a soft spot for Leeds. But perhaps the best way to honour that memory is to keep it out of my transfer decisions.
After all, I can support Leeds without employing half their midfield.
Perhaps patience is not about holding a player until he finally rewards us. Perhaps it is about continuing to hold him only while the evidence supports doing so.
Patience is a strategy when it is supported by evidence. Stubbornness is what happens when we need the evidence to support us.
And if Emil turns out to be right about Isak, I suppose I will have an excellent opportunity to practise accepting that distinction.
Although I would prefer Calvert-Lewin to make the whole discussion unnecessary.
So, a question for the Scout community: If you didn’t already own your most frustrating FPL player, would you buy him today? And have you ever kept someone for one Gameweek too many simply because you had already waited so long?
