The players whose value is going up and down in the Fantasy Premier League after Gameweek 1 - and our expert’s advice on who to sign and who to sell.
The first weekend of Fantasy Premier League action is in the rear view mirror already – and it can quite fairly be described as a bit of a weird one. Big names struggled and points came from seemingly unlikely sources. It’s the kind of gameweek which makes less experienced managers panic.
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An awful lot of players are going to get jittery about their teams and trigger happy with their transfers. In a moment, I’ll be taking a look at some FPL assets whose value is going up or down due to their performances and circumstances in the hopes of helping you to buy and sell the right players – but before all that, a warning from a player who’s been playing this game from the very start.
Don’t make panic transfers. Ideally, don’t make any transfers at all unless you absolutely have to. Certainly don’t use your wildcard, because you’ll most likely get a lot more value from that later on. Every year, bad FPL players get nervy, make knee-jerk moves because Gameweek 1 went badly, and regret it.
Before you start fussing about bad scores from your players and high scores from guys you don’t own, ask yourself this: Do you think that Erling Haaland will never score again? Will Bruno Fernandes blank every week for the rest of the year? And if the answer to both is no, then why are you getting tempted to sign Jack Hinshelwood as though he’s going to score twice in every single game just because he did on Sunday?
Try to stay calm and remember that for the most part, the players you thought would be good will be good, and those you thought were bad will probably be bad. We’ll all be wrong about some players, of course – perhaps Haaland or Fernandes will be this season’s Mohamed Salah - but one weekend does not provide enough data to disprove any of our pre-season assumptions. Stay the course. Don’t make any transfers if you can avoid it. Those resources are precious.
But if you absolutely must make some transfers, then our stock report offers up the best players to sign and sell right now. You won’t see any knee-jerking here, and I won’t be recommending players who had a great week but who may well wind up on the bench in a couple of weeks – in other words, I won’t recommend Christos Tzolis – just players on the path to scoring more or less points than we might have reasonably expected before the season finally began.
Stock Up: Brentford, Brighton & Arsenal stars among FPL transfer targets
Mamadou Sangaré enjoyed a sensational debut for Brentford in their 3-0 win over Spursplaceholder image
Mamadou Sangaré enjoyed a sensational debut for Brentford in their 3-0 win over Spurs | Getty Images
Mamadou Sangaré: I had enough Gameweek 1 misses myself that I won’t be doing too much ‘I told you so’ stuff today, but I did see Sangaré coming – indeed, I wrote a whole article explaining why he was likely to be a great FPL asset before the season started. That’ll break down the reasons why you should probably pick him up at some stage, but don’t panic buy if you can help it – his potential is fantastic for his price, but he won’t be picking up two assists or scoring 14 points very often based on his previous performances. Those defensive contributions should keep coming, however, and he’s probably going to be a bargain at just £5.5m.
Maxim De Cuyper: Brighton haven’t had much luck signing the wingers they desperately need this summer, and that means that left-back De Cuyper has gone into the new season as first-choice wide forward – meaning that his scoring potential is skyrocketing past otherwise sensible pre-August projections. I won’t recommend buying ahead of Gameweek 2 in case the Seagulls snap someone up who will take De Cuyper’s place – but if he’s still a cheap defender who’s actually a winger after the deadline, then he could become an amazing asset.
Cole Palmer: After a dismal, injury-stricken season, Palmer was a pretty solid wait-and-see player heading into the 2026/27 campaign. Judging by the way he’s started, however, he may be worth snapping up swiftly. Xabi Alonso’s system seems to suit him, which probably shouldn’t be a shock - Palmer not only scored one goal and created another during Chelsea’s 3-2 win over Fulham, but tallied up five shots and three key passes. Keep up anything like that kind of volume, and he’ll score very freely indeed.
Ezri Konsa: Enough people got wind of the £55m deal that took Konsa from Aston Villa to the Emirates in time for Friday’s deadline that his ownership is already well into double figures. It’s impossible to overlook a chance to get a starting defender from Arsenal for just £4.5m and he’s almost certainly going to be a great signing until William Saliba comes back over the winter. I strongly doubt that Konsa starts before Gameweek 3, so don’t go crazy just yet, but bear him firmly in mind when you start planning your moves.
Stock Down: Man Utd, Spurs & Villa stars to think about selling
Bryan Mbeumo failed to score against Hull from four shots worth 0.5xGplaceholder image
Bryan Mbeumo failed to score against Hull from four shots worth 0.5xG | Getty Images
Cristhian Mosquera: The flip side to the Konsa coin. Arsenal kicked their season off a comfortable clean sheet which made everyone who invested heavily in their defence feel quite clever – but the 6.1% of players who kept Mosquera in their squad by the time the deadline rolled around probably messed up. The signing of Ezri Konsa suggests that Mosquera will be on the bench by Gameweek 3 or 4 – but Konsa didn’t get a full pre-season and hasn’t played since the World Cup, so don’t panic just yet. Wait another week.
Bryan Mbeumo: An awful lot of players quite reasonably bet on Mbeumo to have a good start to the season, but he sank without trace in Hull on Saturday along with most of his team-mates. Mbeumo’s failings were especially worrying, however, because he played on the wing rather than as a centre-forward, as was widely expected in the absence of Benjamin Šeško. There’s no chance I’d sell him ahead of a home game against Ipswich, but that’s a worrying data point for a player I picked out as having low long-term value a few weeks ago.
Ollie Watkins & Dominic Solanke: A bonus two-for-one here to wrap things up (and one which may as well include the entire Aston Villa squad at the rate they seem to be going) – with Watkins looking likely to leave for Saudi Arabia, and Solanke both unfit and liable to get buried behind Omar Marmoush in the Spurs squad, I would be getting ready to sell either before too long. Keep an eye on price changes here, and remember that the FPL website now carries warnings as to when players’ prices are set to move up or down. Worth noting that Watkins returned to training on Monday, so there’s some chance that he stays put - transfer deals fail to take place for all sorts of reasons, so either of this pair could end up being perfectly solid holds. Try and be patient if possible, but be ready to pull the trigger to avoid taking losses.