Gameweek 1 of the 2025 – 2026 FPL season is behind us and it is safe to say that it wasn’t exactly one for the forwards. Or better said, for the highly-owned forwards, because despite many managers spending considerable chunks of their budgets on forwards in the hopes of goals and more goals, the three most-selected forwards did not get a single goal between them. Arsenal’s new star Viktor Gyökeres got just a single points thanks to a 59th-minute substitution, while Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins and Chelsea’s Joao Pedro had to make do with 2 FPL points each.
That does not mean that there were no points to be won with your forward line in Gameweek 1. On the contrary, Spurs’ Richarlison, Nottingham Forest’s Chris Wood and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland all bagged a brace and 13 FPL points, and a subsequent spot in the Gameweek 1 Team of the Week. The honorary title of Player of the Week went to Sunderland defender Daniel Ballard, who recorded an impressive 17 FPL points against West Ham, courtesy of a clean sheet, a goal and 3 bonus points. Second place was for Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo with 15 FPL points, while third place was shared by Arsenal’s Ricardo Calafiori and the previously mentioned three forwards, all with 13 FPL points.
Don’t forget, the deadline for Gameweek 2 is set at 18h30 (UK time) on Friday, August 22nd, 2025.
Most transferred in/transferred out players (as per August 20th, 2025)
| TRANSFERS OUT | TRANSFERS IN | POSSIBLE REASONS | |
| GK | Alisson (LIV), Sels (NFO), Kelleher (BRE) | Raya (ARS), Sanchez (CHE), Dubravka (BUR) | |
| DEF | Gvardiol (MCI), Konsa (AST), Frimpong (LIV) | Ballard (SUN), Aït-Nouri (MCI), Cash (AST) | Gvardiol injury, Konsa red card, Ballard haul |
| MID | Wirtz (LIV), Palmer (CHE), Marmoush (MCI) | Reijnders (MCI), Semenyo (BOU), Kudus (TOT) | All most-transferred-in midfielders hauled and impressed |
| FOR | Isak (NEW), Pedro (CHE), Bowen (WHU) | Ekitiké (LIV), Wood (NFO), Haaland (MCI) | Isak issues with club, Ekitiké goal + assist on debut, Wood and Haaland braces |
Premium pick
One of the premium players who failed to record a return in Gameweek 1 was Bukayo Saka (£10.0m) in Arsenal’s 0-1 victory at Old Trafford. He played the full 90 minutes though, and he showed flashes of sharpness throughout the game. The reason we are going with Saka as our premium fantasy pick for Gameweek 1, instead of for example Haaland (who is coming off a brace and is now facing Spurs at home) or Cole Palmer (who blanked in GW1 but is now visiting a seemingly leaky West Ham side), is that Arsenal are playing their first home game of the season, at home to Leeds. The Whites did great on their return to the Premier League by overcoming Everton 1-0 at Elland Road, but we feel Arsenal at the Emirates will be a bit too much for them. It should be taken into account though, that after Leeds at home, Arsenal have got their work cut out for them for a few gameweeks in a row with visits to Liverpool and Newcastle and home games against Nottingham Forest and Man City over the next five. Then again, Saka is a key player for Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and it’s exactly in those kind of games that they count on him to make the difference.
Non-premium pick
We don’t have a lot of information and data regarding form to go on in Gameweek 2, but going by Gameweek 1 performances, Antoine Semenyo (£7.1m) looks like a good non-premium fantasy pick. We already mentioned his 15-point haul away to Liverpool in Gameweek 1, thanks to 2 goals and 3 bonus points, and Bournemouth are playing Wolves at home this week. While we do not expect the Wanderers to be as leaky in the back as they were in the first half of last season, they did concede four to Manchester City at Molineux last weekend and they are now facing a Bournemouth side that left a more than decent impression at Anfield in GW1. Semenyo will be coming into this game full of confidence and we feel that if the Cherries want to take anything from the Wolves visit, the Ghana international will likely be involved. It may feel a bit like chasing the points, but keep in mind that we just have a single Gameweek behind us so far (and last season Semenyo got 11 goals and 7 assists in 36 league starts).
The budget enabler
For our Club Preview series, we identified a few very interesting £4.0m fantasy picks, but Chelsea’s Josh Acheampong (£4.0m) was not one of them. And with Gameweek 1 behind us, he may end up being one of the stand-out bargain gems of the 2025 – 2026 season, if he keeps his spot, that is which after a few mistakes in GW1 he’ll need to learn from them quickly to do so. In the absence of the injured Levi Colwill and Tosin Adarabioyo, the teenager teamed up with Trevor Chalobah to form Chelsea’s central defensive duo and they managed to keep a clean sheet against Crystal Palace in the first league game of the season. This, plus 3 bonus points, meant that Acheampong came away with 9 FPL points. If Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca’s words after the game are anything to go by, we will be seeing considerably more of the England U21 international over the coming weeks, which means an away game against West Ham this weekend, followed by a home game against Fulham and an away game against Brentford.
“They [the Chelsea central defenders] played very well, they didn’t concede anything”, said Maresca after the game against Palace, “Josh [Acheampong] did well, he is very young and he is going to be a good player for this club.”
The differential
We know, we know, in modern FPL lore, Lucas Digne (£4.5m) is known as the ultimate FPL troll. He hauls with a display of his signature attacking wing-back play, you bring him in and he blanks (or worse) in his equally-signature way. We can’t shake the feeling though, that the Frenchman simply represents good value at this early point in the season, especially for FPL managers on the lookout for a differential fantasy pick. Digne recorded a clean sheet for 6 FPL points against Newcastle in Gameweek 1, in which he completed the 90 minutes at left-back, and is now set for an appealing run of fixtures. This weekend, Villa will be traveling to Brentford before hosting Crystal Palace, visiting Everton and Sunderland, and then hosting Fulham and Burnley. We would not be surprised to see the Villans rack up a few more clean sheets over that run and with Digne on some set-pieces on top of his attacking tendencies, we would hope for one or two attacking returns as well. At the moment of writing, the France international finds himself in just 2.2% of all FPL squads, which makes him an interesting differential fantasy pick in our opinion.
The (vice-)captaincy
We did not pick him as our premium fantasy pick for Gameweek 2, but if you have Mohamed Salah, you should probably captain him (as we did like many in GW1). Liverpool visit Newcastle on Monday, which will be far from a walk in the park for the Reds, but if anyone can deliver against them, it’s Salah. Especially after kicking off the season with a goal and a bonus point for 8 FPL points at Anfield against Bournemouth last weekend.
A good alternative to the Egyptian superstar is Cole Palmer for Chelsea’s visit to West Ham, as well as Bukayo Saka for Arsenal’s home game against Leeds. Riskier picks for the armband include Antoine Semenyo at home against Wolves, Chris Wood for Nottingham Forest’s visit to Crystal Palace and Lucas Digne for Aston Villa’s visit to Brentford.
For further discussions have a look at FISO’s FPL forum where you can also see the FPL mini-leagues and FPL side-games available.