Nobody gets a double-digit haul FOUR times in a row!!

Well, OK, Phil Foden just did! But it almost never happens.

Even really exceptional players won't often manage a double-digit return more than 4 or 5 times a season. To get even 2 such big hauls back-to-back is fairly uncommon; a string of 3 is very rare; 4 or 5 in a row is possible, it will happen occasionally, but... it's a real 'Black Swan Event', incredibly unlikely. [Actually, I'm not sure it has ever happened before. FPL put up a post on their Facebook page on Monday suggesting that Foden's 4-in-a-row was a "first time in history" feat; but they neglected to specify if this was a first just for him, or for anyone.]

Basically,... the longer a sequence of big hauls extends, the less likely it is to continue. You could, with relative safety, bet a large amount of money that Foden will get a more modest return in Gameweek 17 (even though he's at home, against West Ham!); and if, by some freak of nature, he does manage another 10+ points haul in that game, you can bet your house that he won't do it again in Gameweek 18.

That's not at all to say that Phil Foden (or Harry Wilson, who's also just racked up 4 good hauls back-to-back - although the 2nd and 3rd were only 8-pointers; or Bruno Fernandes, who's posted 3 double-digit returns in his last 4 games) would be a bad pick at the moment; far from it. 

But you should be realistic in your expectations. When you buy in a player because he's just had 1 or 2 (or 3, or 4....) really good hauls in a short space of time, you shouldn't be counting on him doing it again immediately, this week. That is statistically very unlikely. You should accept that he's probably 'due' a blank or two now; and you shouldn't quickly get impatient with your new purchase if that happens. You should be buying players for a run of games - at least the next 3 or 4 fixtures, hopefully more like twice that many - not just the next game. And you should be happy if he averages a decent points-return over that run.

Being unreasonably greedy in your points-expectations of a player is a recipe for disappointment, frustration,.... and further rash, impulsive transfers to try to 'put things right' (when there's probably nothing actually wrong - apart from the fact you were hoping for something absurd).

If a player can bring you, say, 3 returns of 6-8 points over the next 5 games, that's a very good result. You should be more than satisfied with that - not fretting that his little sequence of 12 or 15-pointers suddenly dried up as soon as you bought him.

The Palmer Conundrum

Now that Cole Palmer seems finally ready to return to regular action, after missing pretty much the whole season so far with a succession of niggling injuries, FPL managers are being confronted with the difficult decision of when - or whether - to transfer him into their squads.

With Mo Salah having proved to be worthless this season, and - so far - Isak and Watkins having failed to stake any claim on our attention either, there really hasn't been much pressure on budget in the 2025/26 FPL season; but there is always some budget-pinch. (Player spending always expands to consume whatever funds you have available...)  With Haaland still being, for now, that great rarity, a true FPL 'essential', and fiendishly expensive (especially if you didn't have him from the start of the season, but only acquired him after his price had begun to shoot up further!), and other moderately expensive players like Thiago and Woltemade and the top Arsenal or Palace defenders also having become 'must-haves' for most FPL managers, there isn't that much spare cash knocking around for anyone.

Hence, this really becomes a Saka/Palmer Conundrum: Bukayo Saka is the only similarly priced player, and one of the only midfielders at any price-point who's currently playing well and producing points; so, if you fancy acquiring Palmer, the only convenient pathway to him is to swap out Saka. There doesn't seem to be any reasonable way to afford both of them. And if you don't have Saka (rather surprisingly, only 21.5% of FPL managers do at the moment), it's still going to be awkward to juggle your budget around to accommodate such an expensive new acquisition as Palmer - probably requiring the use of multiple transfers (unless you had a lot of unspent money somehow swilling around in the kitty...).

Now, I am a huge fan of Palmer. And I do believe that he is a slightly 'better' player than Saka, both in real-world terms and for FPL purposes (though it's a foolhardy and unnecessary comparison - they are different types of player, with different strengths and weaknesses): Palmer has more variety in his game (though that's very largely down to how their managers make use of the two players), is more the principal playmaker (where Saka is merely a primus inter pares amongst many strong attacking options, and largely plays second-fiddle to Odegaard as the main creative force in the team), and - when really on song - is an even more prolific provider of both goals and assists.

But there's the crux of the matter. Palmer went through a long spell last year - most of the second-half of the season - where his FPL productivity fell off a cliff. It wasn't really his fault; the rest of the team had stopped performing around him. But that continues to be a problem with Chelsea: they can be astoundingly brilliant in individual games or short runs of games, but Enzo Maresca still doesn't seem to have been able to build any lasting consistency or resilience into their play. And that has continued to be the case this season, with embarrassing losses to the likes of Brighton, Manchester United, Sunderland and Leeds interspersed among some much more impressive performances. 

So, even 'peak' Palmer might fail to produce very much if the rest of his team is misfiring. And after such an extended lay-off, it will surely take him a little while to get back to his best. He was pulled after less than an hour against Bournemouth last week, and was immediately given a precautionary rest again, rather than being brought along as a bench option for the Champions League game against Atalanta on Tuesday. He's not physically anywhere near 100% yet; and recovering full mental sharpness might take a bit longer still. 

Furthermore, Chelsea's upcoming fixtures aren't the best from now through till the beginning of January: Newcastle and City away, and defensively solid Everton, Villa and Bournemouth at home.

For me, this is clearly a wait-and-see decision. In present circumstances, it would be far too much of a risk to go in for Palmer straight away, before he's shown that he's recovered his best form; and also far too disruptive of your existing squad, if you had to sacrifice Saka (or one or more of your other more expensive players) for him, and/or make multiple other changes to rebalance your budget. [Well, damn, he did immediately come up with a very nice goal against Everton in Gameweek 16. But he said afterwards that he's still recovering from the groin problem, and he was again withdrawn a few minutes shy of the hour-mark. So, I stand by my assessment here that he's probably still some weeks away from being anywhere near his best again.]

Saka might prove to be expendable - though largely because there are so many rival claimants to a squad place from the limited club quota at Arsenal. Their defence is so superior to every other team's that we'll probably all want Gabriel again as soon as he's back, while also hanging on to another of their defenders (most probably Timber or Calafiori). Rice is looking like he could be a more consistent midfield points-producer than Saka this year. And there will probably be other attacking options - Trossard, particularly, but also perhaps Havertz or Merino or Martinelli on occasion - who merit consideration for short spells when they hit a scoring streak.

Saka, although he's been playing very well, hasn't yet produced the big points that we've often seen from him in the past (especially in the opening third of last season). And maybe he won't - as Arteta usually imposes a very limited and disciplined role on him, out wide on the right; and, as opponents get more used to these patterns of attack, they defend against them better, often double-teaming the tricky Saka when he gets near the box. 

I have a feeling that Saka is on the brink of exploding again in FPL: and today's game against Wolves would be a prime opportunity for him to do so! But I suspect that, this season, he will probably only contribute big FPL points in short 'hot streaks' - and we might find ourselves looking to move him in and out of FPL squads to take advantage of these, rather than relying on him as a long-term hold. Indeed, even when on such a hot streak - even when he's producing better than Palmer - we might still find ourselves able to do without him, because there are three or more Arsenal players who are even more worth having in those games.

I also think that Palmer will recapture his best form again at some point this season, possibly quite soon. And when he does, he'll probably be more worth having than Saka - or anybody else. But..... NOT YET. Wait and see.

It's NEVER a binary

 

Well, almost never.

Any time you think a selection decision comes down to a straight EITHER/OR choice - you're almost certainly being naive, superficial, way oversimplifying things.

You're probably missing something important - and perhaps relatively obvious; but you've somehow developed a blind spot for it!

Even if you think you've narrowed down the final decision to a choice between two alternatives, starting from a larger pool of options, there's a danger that you've dismissed some of those other options too easily, without giving them full consideration. And you've very likely to have overlooked some possibilities altogether.

We see this most commonly with the captaincy pick: people very often ask on online forums, "Should I give the armband to x or y this week?" And it should never be that simple. Even over the past few years, when Salah and Haaland have been so dominant, and mostly so consistent, that they have offered a strong captaincy option in almost every gameweek,.... they've actually fairly seldom been the best one. If you have a decent squad, there should almost always be at least 4 or 5 possibilities for your captaincy, often more; don't narrow your focus down to the 'big names' too quickly!

The field is usually even broader with transfers: there are almost always several members of your squad you might consider swapping out, and several new players you might consider to replace any of them. By all means, winnow these options down to a more manageable number; but don't be in a mad rush to do so. Keep your mind as open as possible, for as long as possible.

[Now, at the start of this season, we did seem to be faced with one clear binary choice: Haaland and Salah were the only two super-premium players in the game this year, but priced way too high for us to reasonably afford both of them (at least, at the very start of the season, when budget is a bit tight - and we all thought we'd want Saka, Palmer, Cunha as well,... and maybe even Watkins or Gyokeres,... and perhaps Isak too, before long....). But, given their propensity to both start the season really hot, we probably did regard having one of them as essential; and we had to choose between them.

That was a very rare example of a selection decision being a genuine binary. But..... even there, perhaps there were other possibilities we should have given some more thought to: maybe we could have tried to do without either of them??  maybe we should have done without Saka, Palmer etc. instead, and beggared the squad to squeeze in both of them??  I thought not; but I did give it careful consideration.]

A little bit of Zen (60)

 

"Sometimes, impatience is also a virtue."

GW

I usually stress the importance of patience in dealing with the challenges of FPL, but.... sometimes there is a case for moving swiftly to take advantage of an opportunity - being bold, decisive, trusting your gut.... (Thinking mainly about transfers here, though; and maybe even occasionally taking a 'hit' for one; not about chip play!!)

A little bit of Zen (59)

 

"All problems are important; but some are urgent, and some can wait."

Anonymous spokesman for the Vietnamese Communist government, shortly after Reunification in 1975

This is a somewhat ominous line, since it appears that the official here might have been intending to refer, at least partly, to the problem of internal dissent, and the Party's evolving plans for mass internment in 're-education through labour' camps. (In the first weeks after the fall of Saigon, the feared backlash against anyone associated with the government, military, or civil service of the former South Vietnam seemed not to be materialising, or at least not at anything like the rate or scale that had been widely anticipated. They took a couple of months on their planning before getting around to it....)

The general idea, though, has a broad applicability. A lot of FPL managers rush into drastic remedial action after only two or three 'bad' weeks, or even just one such week. They don't seem to realise how valuable that Wildcard will probably be a little later in the season, how wasteful is its early use (especially right at the start of the season!). They don't realise that it's very common to have a bad start to the season, when there are so many additional unpredictabilities about form and line-ups and results. They don't realise that two or three poor gameweeks back-to-back scarcely even counts as a disappointing 'run' - and that you can have several genuinely disappointing runs in a season, and will in fact be very lucky to get away with having fewer than 3 or 4 such spells. As I said at the end of that earlier post I just linked to: "A Wildcard is for emergencies; a bad Gameweek 1 (or even a bad opening three Gameweeks) is NOT an emergency."

Unless you find yourself in the rare, horrible condition of having made several obviously bad choices in your initial squad, already have several key players who are injured, or not getting the minutes you expected, or are just playing really, really badly (or are stuck in teams which are playing really badly, which is even more frustrating...),... then you should restrict yourself to isolated, 'essential' changes for now, trying to make do with your meagre ration of Free Transfers. And if you feel you really must make more changes than that, try to limit them to one or two, and bite the bullet on accepting the 'hit' - paying the points for the additional transfer(s).  Using the first Wildcard before the end of September (which is still early; only a few weeks after the end of the transfer window and the jarring interruption of the first international break: form and line-ups still haven't fully settled down....) is a sign of desperation, and almost always self-harming. DON'T DO IT - UNLESS YOU ABOLUTELY HAVE TO!!!

[I came across the above quotation last week in Andrea Pitzer's excellent book on the history of concentration camps, One Long Night - a grim read, but an informative and thought-provoking one.]

The LOTTERY

I've joked a few times recently in my weekly roundups that, because of cumulative fatigue, nerves, or complacency, form tends to get more ragged for just about every team in the last few weeks of the season, and game outcomes thus wildly unpredictable. Hence, trying to predict FPL points returns becomes even more of a lottery than usual.

Apparent fixture-difficulty is no longer much of a reliable guide to likely points returns. (We just saw Manchester City held to a goalless draw by [second] worst Premier League team ever, Southampton!) And, basically, any attacking player might produce something between 0 and 3 attacking contributions across a couple of fixtures - regardless of how 'hard' or 'easy' they ought to be. Few, if any, will get any more than that; quite a few of the most fancied options, the biggest names.... will probably blank twice.

With only 2 games left to play - within the space of 7 days (less than 5 days for Palace, City, Wolves, and Bournemouth!), it really is impossible to guess how most of the remaining fixtures are going to pan out. Hence, elective transfers - choosing to swap out a starting player for someone else - at this stage of the season are a huge gamble, particularly if they're to be made at the cost of a 'hit' (although there can be indirect costs even with a Free Transfer, if you then don't have that available to sort out a last-minute injury problem and have to use a 'hit' there instead). It's always very difficult to be confident of recouping that 4-point spend in just one gameweek; but you can sometimes justify it if you foresee likely additional value in the new player over the next 2 or 3 fixtures as well; at the fag-end of the season, that consolation is no longer available to you. You are simply betting that the player you're dropping wouldn't have scored anything, and that the player you're bringing in is bound to score something,.... and should produce more than 4 points more than the guy you're replacing. And that is a VERY BIG BET at any time, but especially amid this end-season climate of increased uncertainty.

The one small kindness the Fantasy Gods have shown us this year is that the final Saturday is full of very unevenly-matched fixtures, so there should be rather more predictability about results than usual then - and the prospect of some good points returns from several leading players. (It's actually looking rather a promising Gameweek to drop the Bench Boost or Triple Captain chips,.... if you've somehow forgotten to play them until now. Even without a chip for that last week, it's probably worth saving up transfers until then.) But even that apparently tempting prospect may turn out to be illusory, just a taunting mirage.

And making elective transfers this week??  GOOD LUCK with that!!

Always worth it to fill a points-hole

 

Many FPL managers seem to have a rigid superstition against taking 'hits' (paying points for an additional transfer), EVER. That is ridiculous and self-harming.

The architects of the game have shrewdly priced a 'hit' at 4 points (in some other Fantasy games, it's only 3 points!) - just enough to dissuade you from using them frivolously!

But you should expect to make on average at least 5 points per match from each member of your starting eleven. Of course, you may sometimes come up shy of that. And the returns are never evenly distributed: your keeper and defenders rarely get much more than 3 or 4 points, but you're hoping a few of your star midfielders or forwards might often chip in 8 or 10 points.

Nevertheless, it is a very modest gamble to spend 4 points filling a gap in your starting eleven. You should have a very good chance of making that back, even with a defensive player [UPDATE: that chance has probably been significantly improved in the 25/26 season with the introduction of additional 'defensive points']; you're risking usually no more than a 1 or 2 point loss, against the chance that they might show a 'profit' if they manage to keep a clean sheet or produce an attacking return. For an attacking player, the odds in your favour are much stronger - or a least, the 'upside', the points 'profit' you could make from a good return is likely to be far higher.

If the player you're replacing is likely to be out for a while, you'll get further value from your new transfer across subsequent weeks, which is a small further offset to the initial points-spend on him.

And if you defer making this needful change until the following week, you could just be storing up further trouble for yourself: you might get hit with another injury, and still have to spend the points to get back up to full strength.

Moreover, it you have a hole in your starting eleven, this implies that you've already emptied your bench; so, you're really in a major crisis - sooner or later, you're going to have to take the 'hits' to get things back on track: it might as well be sooner.

Purely elective transfers, swapping out a starter just because you fancy another player more - that's a whole different story. They are ALMOST NEVER worth spending a 'hit' on.

I honestly don't think I've ever found myself in the situation of even being tempted by it - because I don't hang on to players that I'm starting to hate, or fail to bring in players who are starting to show hot form. I can't see how someone finds themselves in a situation where they have a player who is so bad, and they covet a transfer who is so good, that that they can be really confident that the coveted transfer will outscore the despised incumbent by MORE THAN 4 POINTS. I mean, HOW is that possible???

An incumbent player in your team who is at least a starter is almost guaranteed to get a minimum of 2 points, and might well get more. So, the proposed transfer has to score at least 7 points to be worthwhile. That is very, very unlikely. There may be extreme cases - really hot player, really good fixture; and you see further value from him (over the guy you're desperate to dump) in the following run of games too - but that's going to be a rare, rare event; and even then, it's a risk.

To sum up, spending points to plug a hole in your starting eleven is ALWAYS worth the gamble.

Spending points just because the grass looks greener is ALMOST NEVER worth it.

Timing of transfers

 

It's one of the perennial controversies in FPL-land: should you make transfers early, to dodge possible price changes, or make them late, to avoid risk of a new signing immediately getting injured before he plays a game for you?

I veer very decidedly towards the former view. Price changes are indeed worth avoiding; but unlike injuries, they're fairly readily predictable (and also rather more common).

If the risk of an imminent price-rise on the player you covet (and/or of a fall on the one you're looking to offload) is not an issue, then, yes, of course you wait until shortly before the deadline, to be on the safe side. But the danger is not that the player you bring in will immediately get injured in training before he even plays for you (yes, that has happened to me; but not often - and I'm extremely unlucky; that kind of misfortune is super-rare); it's that another member of your squad may get injured, whose replacement becomes a higher priority. (But hey, that's what 'hits' are for.)

If, however, your desired change is price-sensitive, and a price change seems likely, then you should move fast to secure the deal.

Similarly, you have to avoid losing squad value on injured players. (Although FPL allegedly tweaks its algorithm to slow down the rate of price decrease on injured players, they do still drop value - often quite fast.) When I see a player of mine get badly injured in a game, I usually transfer him out immediately (before I forget!); I mean, really, while the match is still in progress.

The risk of injury during a single week - such that it could impact on a new transfer - is greatly overrated by most people. Curiously, even the European competitions (where you'd think that the additional stresses of air travel, and unfamiliar playing times, and often drastic changes of climate might add significantly to the injury risk) seem to produce a far lower rate of injuries than our own Premier League. And in international matches (which, even when 'competitive', are often against relatively weak opposition, and always far less intense than domestic league games; moreover, the training for them is also far less intense, and top players tend to get limited minutes), it's fairly negligible. 

Actually, in my experience, injuries in domestic training are far more common than in any matches outside the Premier League programme. So, I never have major worries about transferring in a player ahead of an international or a European game. (I'll avoid it if I can, but it's nothing to get your knickers in a knot over.)

Just as I said about the Wildcard last week, the mantra should be: Make your transfers as late as you can, but as early as you need to.