Ultimate FPL cheat sheet: Everything we know so far
Pre-season knowledge condensed
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The goal of this article is clear—to gather all knowledge from this pre-season and condense it into one actionable guide, which will help you draft your Gameweek 1 team.
We’ll review:
How to work with defensive contributions
How important are the other changes this year
Best fixtures
Best picks, and who to avoid
Chip strategy
What to watch until the deadline
Important injuries and caveats
Possible transfers
Final pre-season games
Let’s do this:
Defcons framework for defenders
Defenders now earn points for their defensive contributions. In other words, the number of clearances, blocks, interceptions, and tackles (CBITs)—if they reach 10 of these actions, they earn 2 points. If they rack up more, nothing changes, as these two points are capped.
It expands the pool of available players, but you still can’t pick anyone. There’s good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad one: assessing in which individual games your defender meets the threshold for his defensive contributions is quite difficult, and timing matters.
And the good one? Fortunately, the set of “rules” for picking defenders is quite simple.
❗ My general advice would be—don’t consider defensive contributions in isolation.
Always aim to find someone who offers a good balance of all defensive pillars:
clean sheet potential
final product
defensive contributions
(I would also say bonus points, but North Korea’s political system is more transparent than that, so…)
To be even more extreme, in most cases, assess clean sheet potential AND attacking upside first, and only then consider defensive contributions.
An archetype of a good pick is someone proactive, has some goal/assists threat, and plays for at least a semi-decent team. Think of players like Nikola Milenkovič, Virgil van Dijk, Nathan Collins, or James Tarkowski from last season.
When it comes to fullbacks, they need to deliver a significant final product. Similar to Daniel Muñoz, for instance.
Then there are unicorn fullbacks, who can both defend and attack, and that includes Antonee Robinson, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and Neco Williams, but such players are rare. Next season, someone like Michael Kayode could fit that role.
Defenders who don’t offer much in terms of final product, but whose defensive activity is so high that it offsets this, are rare. The typical example is Murillo, who could serve as a set-and-forget defender.
Defcons framework for midfielders
Your midfielders can also earn Defcon points. The only change is that they are also rewarded for ball recoveries—therefore, their threshold is set at 12 defensive actions to receive their 2-point bonus.
While attacking contributions remain essential for midfielders, versatile players are increasingly becoming viable options. Youri Tielemans, Elliot Anderson, Mikkel Damsgaard, and Adam Wharton are all on the early watchlist.
The player with his own category is Bruno Fernandes, who provides an exceptional mix of creative threat, penalties, defensive contributions, bonus points, and occasional open-play goals. He’s the one who complicates many GW1 decisions.
❗ Many defensive contributions without any final product at all don’t seem very appealing for MIDs.
3 more chips to play in GWs 1 to 19
In the upcoming season, we will have 3 more chips, and these will be active between gameweeks 1 and 19 (we already had two wildcards in the previous season).
You have two options for how to approach this:
Build your initial draft with some of the chips in mind, and adjust your GW1 team selection accordingly
Build your best team, then reevaluate as the seasons unfold and more information emerges
I believe both approaches are feasible.
In any case, you should be aware of the FPL landscape between GWs 1 and 19:
See which teams have decent/poor fixture runs at the start of the season
See where the major fixture swings are
Explore some options for when you might potentially play your chips
Have in mind you will receive 5 free transfers in Gameweek 16 before the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) begins
You should always stay one step ahead.
Your current actions lay the groundwork for your future moves.
For example, you should know that there are fixture swings in GW7 for Arsenal, Newcastle, Brighton, and Crystal Palace. When GW5 arrives, Wolves will face three newly promoted teams within five gameweeks. Additionally, GW13 features massive swings for City, Liverpool, and Newcastle.
It’s perfectly okay if you don’t know your exact chip strategy right now. Staying flexible is actually preferable.
If you haven't decided yet, don’t be too hard on yourself. Being aware of what might happen and continuously planning your moves is enough.
At the start of the season, you should think about extra chips as a way to help you earn extra points, not something that harms your game.
As for the other updates, the five free transfers top-up in GW16 is the most crucial addition apart from defensive contributions and new chips.
Changes to the awarding assists and bonus points system are only marginal.
The best fixtures and picks (updated)
Fixtures are a traditional pre-season topic that isn’t getting much buzz.
One reason is that they are quite tricky to interpret this season. There aren’t many standout runs to target, and if you want to gain an advantage, you need to look much deeper.
Nevertheless, some stand out more than others.
The following list highlights teams with a favourable set of fixtures and picks that I favour the most (along with those that I do not).
Note: Later in the article, there are sections on “injuries” and “what to monitor until GW1,” where I discuss events that could potentially alter some of the recommendations. So, create a mental image of this overview before proceeding further.