Who are the players to add to your Fantasy Premier League team for Gameweek 12 of 2025-26? We assess the Opta data to reveal our top under-the-radar picks.
The Premier League is back following the international break with several high-profile matches. The north London derby is clearly top of the bill but Newcastle against Manchester City is usually entertaining too. But how will these games affect your Fantasy Premier League team?
We’ve crunched the Opta data to identify five players you should consider owning on your Wildcard, despite them currently being picked by fewer than 10% of FPL managers.
GK – Emiliano Martínez | 5.0m | 2.6% Ownership
Anyone who saw Emiliano Martínez’s performance at Anfield a few weeks ago will wonder how he could be a good FPL option. He passed directly to Mohamed Salah, gifting the Egyptian King only his second goal in the last two months.
All goalkeepers make the occasional howler though. Aston Villa’s shot-stopper is otherwise having a decent enough FPL season, and it should be about to get even better.
Martínez sits joint-seventh among goalkeepers for points in 2025-26, but he missed two games. Only three men lead the Argentine on a points-per-start basis, two of whom will eat up more of your transfer budget.
Only one of Villa’s next five opponents is above 11th in the league table as things stand. Granted, the exception is Arsenal, but they are not the most free-scoring league leaders we’ve ever seen.
Premier League fixture difficulty next five games
If you don’t want to look that far ahead with your selections, Villa’s next two matches are against Leeds and Wolves, two of the three lowest scoring teams in the top flight. Only three clubs have conceded fewer goals than Villa and Martínez can help them improve further in the defensive rankings. He’ll help your FPL team too.
DEF – Matheus Nunes | 5.3m | 0.8% Ownership
Arsenal come into MD12 with a four-point lead over Manchester City. The fixture lists for each side suggest that advantage could get whittled down over the next month. Based on average position in the current Premier League table, City have the joint-weakest batch of opponents over the next six gamedays.
With the Gunners facing three of the top six in their next four league matches, City’s time to advance could be now. Their fixture list looks particularly favourable from their defensive standpoint.
City’s next three games are against clubs currently sat in the bottom seven: Newcastle, Leeds and Fulham. The first and last of that trio are away, but those three teams are collectively averaging just one goal per game, with none of the next six sides that Pep Guardiola’s men face scoring at an above Premier League average rate for 2025-26.
Any City defender is therefore a valid candidate here, they’re all owned by under 10% of FPL managers. None of them are reportedly injured either.
Rúben Dias has been the most frequent starter, only missing one of the 11 games so far. That makes him the safest pick, though five of his defensive teammates are averaging more points per start as he rarely delivers much at the other end of the pitch.
While Nico O’Reilly has the best points per start average, he played twice for England in the break. Matheus Nunes only got 17 minutes for Portugal, plus an assist against Liverpool last time out, so he should be relatively rested and confident.
DEF – Adrien Truffert | 4.5m | 2.4% Ownership
Bournemouth have a very strange defensive record this season. Only five teams have conceded more goals in the Premier League, suggesting their defenders are best avoided in FPL.
Everything depends on the venue though. While Burnley (18) are the sole club who have let in more goals on the road than Bournemouth (16), only Arsenal (1) have conceded fewer in home games than they have (2). As three of the Cherries’ next four matches are at the Vitality Stadium, Bournemouth’s defenders suddenly look rather more appealing.
Their home clashes with West Ham, Everton and Chelsea are interspersed with a trip to Sunderland. The newly promoted side might be doing much better than anyone would’ve imagined but they don’t score many goals.
Andoni Iraola’s top scoring defender is Marcos Senesi, but he is not eligible here thanks to being in 26% of FPL teams already. Bournemouth’s other ever-present in their backline is new boy Adrien Truffert.
The main difference between the two is that Senesi has collected 12 more Defensive Contribution points (DEFCON). These are amassed by making at least 10 combined clearances, blocks, interceptions and tackles in a match.
Truffert will likely be in direct competition with Jarrod Bowen, Iliman Ndiaye and Pedro Neto in the next three home matches. They are all among their club’s top point scorers so the Bournemouth left-back could easily pick up extra DEFCON points in this run of games.
MID – Yéremy Pino | 5.8m | 0.1% Ownership
Yéremy Pino has a goal and three assists for Crystal Palace, a decent return for a young player who is experiencing English football for the first time in 2025-26.
However, his goal contributions have all occurred in cup competitions, against Dynamo Kyiv in the UEFA Conference League and Liverpool in the Carabao Cup. In the Premier League? Tumbleweeds.
The Spaniard’s luck should turn for the better. Only three players in the division have had more shots without scoring this season than he has (12). Pino’s rate for combined non-penalty xG and expected assists per 90 minutes (0.47) matches the figures posted by Jack Grealish and Bukayo Saka. He’s clearly doing plenty right in an attacking sense.
Yéremy Pino Premier League Shots
Three of Palace’s next four matches are against teams currently in the bottom six. Even though those games are all away from home, Wolves, Burnley and Fulham do not represent overly daunting road trips. Among likely starters, Pino is predicted to be the likeliest man on either side to get an assist in the game at Molineux too.
With Manchester United at Selhurst Park completing the quartet, the Eagles are the only team whose opponents in the next four matchdays are all conceding at least 1.5 goals per game. Pino will rarely get a more favourable opportunity to break his Premier League duck.
FWD – Igor Jesus | 5.8m | 0.7% Ownership
Much of what is written for Yéremy Pino also applies to Nottingham Forest striker Igor Jesus. He has scored five times in cup games but has not yet found the net in the Premier League.
Jesus is also one of the three players in the division who has taken more shots without scoring than Pino this season (along with David Brooks and Anthony Gordon, if you’re curious).
But among players with at least 300 minutes this term, only Erling Haaland (4.27) and Jacob Murphy (4.10) are averaging more shots per 90 minutes than Jesus (3.57). Across the last two matchdays, nobody tops the Brazilian’s tally of eight goal attempts.
Igor Jesus xG 2025-26 Premier League
Forest travel to Anfield this weekend. A tough game on paper, but Sean Dyche will be licking his lips having seen the problems that teams have given Liverpool with long throws, long balls and set pieces in recent weeks. He will have a plan to exploit these issues that could work out very nicely for Jesus.
Whatever happens there, Forest then host Brighton before travelling to Wolves and Everton. That’s a trio of opponents who are all currently in the bottom half and all conceding at least 1.2 goals per game.
Jesus has been having chances without the luck to convert them. That could easily change in the near future.
*FPL player values and ownership data accurate as of 19 November 2025
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