From Arsenal to Fulham: Complete guide for the 26/27 FPL season, part 1

10 Premier League teams analysed from an FPL standpoint

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Alright, reader.

We’re only a week away from the new Premier League season, so it’s the right time to start thinking more deeply about our Gameweek 1 drafts.

Following last year’s tradition, I want to explore all 20 teams in detail to see:

• Their strengths and weaknesses

• How appealing their opening fixtures are

• The best picks

• The picks I don’t like and other potential caveats

• What we need to pay attention to

It will be a two-part series, with each club reviewed in alphabetical order.

The purpose of this one is to provide a broader macro perspective. Next week’s content will be more data-heavy.

❗ It’s annoying that there will be another round of friendlies over the weekend, which will provide more information, but it is what it is.

Let’s do this:

Arsenal

Although I’d like to kick off this series with some groundbreaking idea, simple is often right, especially at the start of the new season:

💡 The most obvious place to extract value from Arsenal is defence, despite William Saliba being set to miss the start of the season, with his return date uncertain.

For quite some time, the Gunners have been the best defensive unit in the world, averaging 0.74, 0.92, and 0.75 xG conceded p90 over the previous three seasons.

That’s insane, given how competitive the Premier League has become lately.

Even if we account for some sort of “Saliba penalty” and adjust it so it’s closer to the 2024/2025 value, it’s still enough clean-sheet potential. Not to mention, 33% of Arsenal’s xG came from set-pieces last season.

Their xG per corner was through the roof – that’s the best metric for evaluating their efficiency. As for the xG per corner conceded, it was also among the best.

Unless you’ve lost faith in Arteta’s system. 

I didn’t. Having at least some coverage is a sound decision.

• Cristian Mosquera (£5.5m): Unless they go for another centre-back, he should start regularly, though predicting DEFCONs and attacking threat is tricky. Historically, he hasn’t provided much of either – you’re buying a way into ARS defence, and anything else is just extra. Rumours about Ezri Konsa's arrival are strong, though. Monitor that.

• David Raya (£6m): Similar to Mosquera. For me, it’s a Raya vs Lammens vs Kinský vs Verbruggen decision in GW1, depending on your strategy, of course (some have two of them).

• Gabriel (£8m): Despite being priced at £8 million, he’s in almost 27% of teams. It’s really just a question of structure and your chip strategy. In those no-Haaland or/and no-early-BB teams, he’s fine to own. If he doesn’t fit, I’d suggest covering with other ARS def(s).

Anyway, this Copilot’s overview is quite something…

[Insert “I fear no man. But that thing… it scares me” meme]

• Riccardo Calafiori and Ben White (both £5.5m): Both look super enticing – and both might give you hauls that few will own – until you realise things can go south very quickly. There’s always Pierro Hincapié lurking behind. Timber is “weeks away” from starting, which could mean anything, including that you may need to transfer out White fairly soon.

Bit meh, right?

To continue the list of players whose xMins are questionable:

• Bukayo Saka (£9.5m) and Declan Rice (£7.5m), both recovering from gruelling, World Cup-affected seasons.

• Kai Havertz (£7.5m) and Viktor Gyökeres (£7.5m) – with those two, you likely want to see some dynamics first.

You can add Christos Tzolis (£6.5m), who is coming off a season in which he scored 17 goals and provided 23 assists at Club Brugge.

Even with the heavy Belgian league tax, averaging 3.60 shots, 0.51 xG, and 0.47 xGA per 90 is absurd. However, he has competition for his spot, and Arsenal might still buy a new winger.

As a reminder, the summer transfer window will close after Gameweek 2.

The good news is that, even though things are somewhat disorganised at the moment, a favourable run of fixtures should offset this:

They may be a bit slow out of the blocks and not seem super dominant, but as the season progresses, things will click again.

One reason is the signing of Bruno Guimarães (£7m).

Even though I don’t think he’s an FPL pick in Gameweek 1, largely because of uncertainty (sorry, I’ll say this a lot today), having both Declan Rice and him at their best is scary.

At Newcastle, the Brazilian did a fair share of ball progression, controlled the tempo, and regularly played line-breaking passes from both half-spaces and zone 14 (the central zone close to the box). When you pair him with a runner like Rice… well, let’s say their possession % in the final third and control in the middle of the pitch could be through the roof.

It’s not particularly interesting from a direct FPL perspective, but you want to know your picks will play for a dominant side.

These are default Solio’s xPoints for the opening 6 GWs:

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🔋 Current status: Largely wait-and-see, but I’d bet the defence will still work out well. It’s a matter of system

✅ Viable GW1 picks: David Raya, Gabriel, and Cristian Mosquera. Christos Tzolis only if there’s a clear signal

❌ Picks to avoid: All the xMins risks I listed above

📆 Fixture swing to attack: They are fixture-proof

Things to watch:

🥇 Rumours about Ezri Konsa and a new left winger
🥈 How quickly Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice will be eased back
🥉 The dynamics between Declan Rice and Bruno Guimarães

Aston Villa

The Villans will face Brighton and Arsenal in the opening two Gameweeks, which makes it difficult to include their players in Gameweek 1:

• These are two strong defences

• You’d need to hedge AVL picks with players like Verbruggen, Raya, or Mosquera

After that, the fixtures look much better. That GW3+ run includes Hull (a) in Gameweek 3*, but even if you’d want to use some precious transfers on Villa players, you likely won’t see enough over those two opening Gameweeks to be 100% confident you want them long-term.

*You can perhaps Free Hit them in, if that’s your strategy.

Also, Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne have all left the team.

In other words, Villa lost two players who were the most influential in build-up and final-third creativity.

Digne also caused some damage in the final third.

You know that I praised the arrivals of Johan Manzambi, Alejandro Garnacho, and João Gomes several times on Data Dribble, because I think all of them might pan out as fantastic moves, but it won’t happen overnight (apart from Gomes – he’ll be just fine right away).

Manzambi is a fantastic player, but he needs time to adapt (and is currently injured).

Everyone coming from the Bundesliga has to, unless their name is Haaland. Plus, we don’t yet know where he’ll play – his most natural role is number 8, but he has the skillset to deputise as a number 10 if needed. 

I believe the general idea should be to play Garnacho on the left wing, Buendia as #10, and Manzambi behind them in the double pivot, but only Unai Emery and a few others know for sure. It’s totally possible that it will be Gomes and Kamara in the double pivot, with Manzambi as number 10.

Also, this assumes that Garnacho will hit the ground running. 

I’m still convinced he could be an excellent FPL pick, but it’s far from certain:

Morgan Rogers and Alejandro Garnacho could be great picks if…

All in all, these new dynamics don’t make Ollie Watkins at £8 million an overly enticing pick ahead of GW1.

As for the others… I don’t see the appeal yet.

Edit after the Super Cup final: Well, Brian Madjo (£5.5m FWD) will certainly eat into Watkins’ minutes at some point, right? Apart from that, the line-up didn’t tell us much. Villa played well, but PSG probably weren’t too fussed.

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🔋 Current status: Fade completely – too much uncertainty and a poor start to the season fixture-wise. But I like their transfer business and will monitor them closely

✅ Viable GW1 picks: None?

❌ Picks to avoid: Probably all of them

📆 Fixture swing to attack: There’s Hull in GW3, but the first proper fixture swing is on Gameweek 11, maybe in Gameweek 9

Things to watch:

🥇 What role will Johan Manzambi play, and when will he be back fit
🥈 Will Alejandro Garnacho become a preferred LW?
🥉 Minutes for Brian Madjo + monitoring Nicolas Jackson rumours

Brighton

Now we’re talking.

I spent the second half of the previous season praising Brighton’s defence wherever I went. At first, everything was fine, but soon the receptionist at my gym started giving me weird looks.

After Gameweek 19, they:

• conceded just 23 xG, the second-lowest, behind Arsenal

• allowed the fewest shots

• and recorded the 5th-lowest xG per shot conceded – which is great when you have one of the best shot-stoppers in the Premier League in Bart Verbruggen (£4.5m).

Let’s not pretend losing Jan Paul van Hecke isn’t a big thing, but they signed Luka Vuškovič, Pascal Struijk, and Michael Svoboda, players who will help them improve in the air, which was clearly a goal this transfer window.

So, what now?