With FanTeam’s Fantasy EPL game for 2026/27 now open for entries ahead of a Friday 21 August kick-off, attention is turning to pricing, squad structure and the small rule differences that separate FanTeam’s Season Game from the official FPL game. Here’s an early look at where the value sits and how to approach the opening gameweeks.
The budget looks generous
FanTeam’s floor prices this year sit at £4.0m for goalkeepers and defenders, £4.5m for midfielders and £5.0m for forwards, which means a bare-bones enabler spine of six or seven players can be assembled for roughly £30-35m, leaving £65m or more to spend elsewhere in the squad. Compared directly with FPL pricing, the gap is even clearer at the top end: Haaland comes in around £3m cheaper on FanTeam, Bruno Fernandes around £1.5m cheaper, there’s a run of credible goalkeepers between £4.5m and £5m, and no defender costs more than £6.5m.
At the top of the market, Fernandes (£10.5m), Saka (£10.0m) and Semenyo (£9.5m) stand out as the clear midfield premiums, with Fernandes’ price backed up by finishing as the league’s second-highest scorer last season. Haaland sits in a bracket of his own at £12.5m, £3.5m clear of the next forward — enough that a squad built around him is a genuinely different structure to one built without him, rather than a simple like-for-like swap.
Where the early value sits
Last season’s actual returns make a strong case for spending down at the back and up front rather than the other way round: goalkeepers offered the best points-per-pound of any position, defenders came second, and forwards were the weakest performers relative to cost despite being the most expensive line on the pitch. £4.5m goalkeepers Verbruggen and Petrovic both passed 150 points last season, level with keepers priced £1.5m higher, while £4.5m defenders Mitchell and Tarkowski outscored several options above £6m. Pickford (£5.0m) remains a low-maintenance goalkeeper option, and Daniel Muñoz (£5.0m) offers rare attacking upside for a full-back after four league goals last season plus two more at the World Cup.
In midfield, Palmer, Bruno Guimarães (£7m), Sarr (£6.5m, off the back of 21 goals across all comps and an assist in 43 games last season), Buendía (£6m, with a chance of penalties) and Barnes (£6m) all look like early value relative to the two clear premiums above them. Up front, where this season looks a little more generous than usual, Osula, Muniz and Rodriguez are worth a look at £5.5m, alongside Thiago (£8m) and Jesus (£6.5m, who scored five goals in five games under Glasner last season). On price moves elsewhere, Robertson and Brobbey look worth another look having strengthened their case, while Morgan Rogers, Gyökeres and Isak look less appealing purely on a cost-to-output basis.
A scoring system worth understanding before drafting
One detail worth building a squad around: FanTeam’s scoring doesn’t include FPL-style bonus points or defensive-contribution points. Instead, points come from goals, assists, clean sheets and saves, shots on target and completing 90 minutes, which means minutes, role and goal involvement carry more weight than the tackles-and-blocks totals that inflate some defenders’ scores in the official game. Defenders whose appeal in FPL rests mainly on bonus points are worth treating with caution here, and the same logic applies to rotation risks or players easing back from injury — an auto-sub at the wrong moment can be costly over a 38-gameweek season.
That scoring shift also strengthens the case for loading up in midfield rather than attack: with no true premium beyond Bruno Fernandes, a strong five-man midfield is affordable without breaking the budget, while forwards look comparatively expensive and tend to score less efficiently under FanTeam’s rules than they do in FPL.
Formation is an open question
There’s no single right answer on structure this early. A back five (5-3-2 or 5-4-1) has an obvious appeal given how deep the defensive value runs this season, while a 3-5-2 with a budget forward held in reserve makes sense given the value emerging up front. A more contrarian 4-4-2 is also worth weighing up, on the basis that the forward pool beyond Haaland doesn’t offer much to get excited about even in a standard 3-4-3. With pre-season and fixtures still settling down, it’s worth holding off on a final decision — including on clean sheet odds — until closer to gameweek one.
Wildcard timing
FanTeam’s rules allow one wildcard between Gameweeks 1-19 and a second for Gameweeks 20-38. The conventional approach is to sit on the first wildcard until closer to the Gameweek 19 cut-off, banking transfers in the meantime. But there’s a reasonable case for going earlier than usual this season: Manchester United and Liverpool both open with favourable 2026/27 EPL fixture runs worth attacking early, and a World Cup summer has left the usual pool of pre-season information thinner than normal, with late returns and new managers still bedding in at several clubs. An early wildcard offers a way to react to whatever team news and form emerges first, rather than waiting on data that may not firm up for weeks.
General strategy notes
A handful of broader principles are worth keeping in mind across the campaign. Staying transfer-active matters more than it might seem — missing even a couple of gameweeks can undo a season, and ownership percentages are a factor that deserves more attention than most managers give them. The draft itself is best approached as a search for mispriced value rather than a straight pick of the best available players: checking for role changes, newly-nailed starters, underpriced signings and whether premium prices are actually justified will shape a squad more than reputation alone. Fixtures should generally be used to settle close calls rather than dictate the whole squad, since a strong player with a tough run can still outscore a weaker one with an easy one.
One rule specific to FanTeam’s format is worth factoring in too: the maximum of 25 entries per manager. Those running multiple entries can start several squads with a similar core and split them into different strategies further down the line, while managers with a single entry are generally better off building a solid core first rather than chasing variance from gameweek one. Either way, the biggest edge over a 38-gameweek season tends to come simply from staying engaged, since plenty of rivals stop making transfers once the top prize looks out of reach.
What’s next
Further coverage — club-by-club reviews, bargain picks, overpriced picks to avoid, draft structures and full team reveals — will follow in the build-up to kick-off on Friday 21 August. Full details of the game format, including entry tiers, prize pools and the transfer and wildcard rules, are available in our earlier FanTeam EPL 2026/27 article. For more discussion visit FISO’s FanTeam forum.
FanTeam’s EPL Season Game is open to players aged 18 and over. Please gamble responsibly.