Welcome back to the Fantasy Premier League and welcome back to FISO!
The 2024-2025 Premier League season has gone into the rich archives of English football as the season in which Liverpool FC won their 20th title in the topflight of English football. A record-equalling 20th title, we should say, because the Reds equalled the 20 titles of their archrivals Manchester United, who won their last one back in the 2012-13 season. And all of that in the very first season of Arne Slot, the Dutch manager who was brought in from Feyenoord in the summer of 2024.
While that was a beautiful story, the Premier League offered much more drama than that. What about the crumbling of the traditional top six, for example? With Manchester United the great disappointment as a result of their finish in 15th (!) place? Of course, Spurs did even worse, finishing 17th (!), but the Londoners deviated the embarrassment a bit by winning the 2024-2025 Europa League (against Manchester United in the final), thus qualifying for the Champions League Group Stage. Or what about Nottingham Forest qualifying for European football for the first time in 30 years, thanks to an impressive 7th-place finish?
In other words, it was a season full of ups and downs, spectacle and disappointment, but as the saying goes: we need to move on. The Premier League 2025-2026 is just a few weeks away at the time of writing, which means that FPL preparations are in full swing for millions of fantasy managers. And there are a few important changes to take into account, once again:
Chips: Fantasy managers will have four chips at their disposal this season, namely the Bench Boost, the Free Hit, the Triple Captain and the Wildcard. Last season’s Assistant Manager chip has been removed from the game. Instead, all four of the previously mentioned chips will be available twice this season: once in the first half of the season and once in the second half.
Defensive points: Outfield players will earn points for defensive actions this season. These include clearances, blocks, interceptions and tackles for defenders, while forwards and midfielders also get points for ball recoveries on top of that. A defender gets 2 extra FPL points for every 10 defensive actions, while forwards and midfielders get 2 extra FPL points for every 12 defensive actions.
Bonus Point System changes: This season, goalkeepers now get 3 (instead of 2) bonus points for saved shots from inside the box, while a penalty save is now worth 8 bonus system points (down from 9 bonus system points). A scored penalty is now worth 12 bonus system points for the scoring player, instead of 18 or 24. Goalline clearances from outfield players have gone up in worth, from 3 to 9 bonus points. Finally, every successful tackle is now worth 2 bonus points.
Assists: For assists that took a deflection off a defender, assists will now be awarded regardless of whether the assist reached its intended target, providing it only took one touch off a defender and was received by the goalscorer inside the penalty area. Unforced defensive errors will also now lead to an assist being given by the player whose pass led to it, as long as the defensive error in question is not a misplaced pass. Players will now also earn an assist if they earn a penalty or free-kick that is scored via a handball, regardless of whether it was forced or unforced.
AFCON transfers: The Africa Cup of Nations will take place between Gameweek 16 and Gameweek 22 of the 2025-2026 FPL season. Fantasy managers receive five free transfers at the start of Gameweek 16 to deal with that.
The Premier League 2025-2026 season is set to kick off on Friday, August 15th, at 20h00 (UK time), when champions Liverpool host Bournemouth at Anfield.
In the build-up to gameweek 1, we will be taking an in-depth look at each of the 20 teams competing in the Premier League this season, including a general team preview, a tactical preview and some FPL recommendations per side. In this fourth part of our Season Preview series, we’re taking a look at Chelsea and a Crystal Palace side coming fresh off the first-ever trophy win in the club’s history.
CHELSEA – General preview for 2025/26
To say that Chelsea have been a bit of mess since the £4.25 billion takeover by BlueCo in 2022 would be a bit of an understatement. Despite investing hundreds of millions of pounds in players, the Blues struggled to find a fitting manager, which in turn led to a bloated squad without a solid foundation. That is, until the club announced the signing of manager Enzo Maresca last summer. The Italian had just impressed with Leicester in the Championship prior and bringing Chelsea back to the top of the Premier League became his next challenge.
There was definitely some scepticism surrounding Maresca’s appointment and the opening day defeat at home against Manchester City did not help. What followed though, was a run of sixteen games with just a single loss that suddenly put the Blues on the map as potential challengers for runaway leaders Liverpool. It would not come that far eventually, as a streak of subpar performances around the middle of the season turned the campaign into a fight for European football for Maresca and his men. A victory over Nottingham Forest in the final Gameweek of the season sealed fourth place and thus a spot in this season’s Champions League.
Although the Blues secured their most important objective of the season with that win against Forest, their season was far from over. In fact, the most exciting part of the season was still to come, because Chelsea would go on to win the UEFA Conference League against Real Betis on May 28. That, in turn, meant qualification for the new and vastly revamped FIFA Club World Cup, which the Blues went on to win, with Cole Palmer crowned as best player of the tournament and Robert Sanchez as its best goalkeeper.
Chelsea: Tactical preview 2025/26
One thing that Maresca managed to do, contrary to the other big-name managers in the BlueCo era, is implement his preferred style of playing quickly on his young squad. The Italian’s core philosophy revolves around possession, building out from the back and controlling games through quick short passes. Together with a high press and the use of inverted wing-backs, Chelsea want to overload the midfield to gain control of the centre of the pitch. At the same time though, if and when the ball is recovered higher up the pitch, they will not shy away from a quick transition and counterattack. Maresca’s preferred 4-2-3-1 defensive shape allows for both playing styles.
More than predicting Maresca’s tactical approach though, the main question is Chelsea’s lineup. By now, BlueCo has spent well over £1.3 billion and counting. This summer window alone, they have splashed more than £200 million with more to come still. As a result, Chelsea’s current FPL roster consists of no less than 33 players, and we counted those manually. It is, of course, not impossible to get an idea of Maresca’s preferred starting lineup. After all, the Italian said himself last season that he will not work with all the players on Chelsea’s payroll and that he prefers working with a smaller squad. It remains to be seen what that core squad will look like exactly and the threat of rotation (from a fantasy point of view) is above average at Stamford Bridge at the moment.
CHELSEA – Potential FPL picks
Chances are that there will be an abundance of Chelsea fantasy assets in Gameweek 1 squad come the deadline on August 15th. Thanks to an opening set of fixtures in which they do not face a single top-seven side from last season in their first six games, they have one of the best starts of all teams, on paper. As a result, we would not be surprised to see Cole Palmer (£10.5m) in a lot of squads, though being in the ultra-premium price bracket with the likes of Salah and Haaland might diminish his inclusion a little. Still, with an opening run consisting of Crystal Palace at home, West Ham away, Fulham at home, Brentford, Manchester United (both away) and Brighton at home, we are wondering if a wise fantasy manager can really go without Palmer from Gameweek 1 onwards. The Man City academy graduate is Chelsea’s star player and a proven FPL asset by now. No other Chelsea player had more shots or more created chances than him, which further explains why he scored 79 more FPL points than any of his team-mates. If Palmer manages to continue the form that he maintained during the Club World Cup, and which he has been displaying for two seasons now, he could very well and very quickly turn into one of the early season must-haves.
One of the players to largely survive the Chelsea rotation last season was Enzo Fernandez (£6.5m), who showed a surprisingly productive side of himself. In 2,943 minutes of Premier League action, the Argentinian midfielder recorded 6 goals and 8 assists, turning himself into an absolute bargain after starting last season with a £5.0 price tag. With 135 FPL points, he actually ended the season as Chelsea’s second-highest points scorer, so it’s not surprise that his price was raised by £1.5m for this season. Despite that, we still feel that Enzo could be a smart transfer, on the condition that Maresca keeps deploying him higher up the pitch. In a Chelsea side that should be more settled after its first full season under Maresca, we feel that Enzo could be a great bargain once again and what’s more, a differential as well, at least if we go by the current squad selection stats. The Argentinian world champion currently finds himself in just over 4% of all Gameweek 1 squads, despite his budget-friendly price and last season’s performance.
Budget-friendly is not the term that comes to mind when it comes to Marc Cucurella (£6.0m) this season. The Spanish left-back has been moved into the premium defender bracket by FPL towers after his excellent 2024 – 2025 campaign. On top of 9 clean sheets in 33 league starts, he also registered 5 goals and 2 assists over that same run. The resulting 133 FPL points installed Cucurella firmly in the top ten of highest-scoring defenders in the entire game. In reality, the only potential downside to the Spain international as a stand-out FPL pick is the recent signing of Jorrel Hato. The Dutch super talent was signed from Ajax Amsterdam for around £35 million plus add-ons, after more than 120 official games for the Dutch giants, including 25 games in the Europa League. We doubt whether the 19-year-old will get a lot of minutes in the Premier League this season though, especially with Cucurella having settled in London now.
CRYSTAL PALACE – General preview for 2025/26
The upcoming 2025 – 2026 Premier League campaign will be the second full season for Oliver Glasner as manager of Crystal Palace. Ther German was brought in to replace Roy Hodgson in February of last year, after which he led the club to a 10th place finish. This was only he second time that the Eagles managed to clinch a top-10 finish in the Premier League era, after their 10th place in the 2014 – 2015 season, and they did so with a club-record 49 points. The best from Glasner, though, was still to come…
That is because on May 17th 2025, one week before the end of the 2024 – 2025 Premier League season, Crystal Palace won the first major trophy in the club’s 119-year-long history. A solitary Eberechi Eze goal in the FA Cup final against Manchester City was enough to seal the victory and a spot in this year’s Europa League. Due to the UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules though (Palace’s owners also own French side Olympique Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League), Palace were demoted to the Conference League. Palace’s appeal to this decision will be heard by the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) on August 8th.
Slightly missed, perhaps by FA Cup glory, is the fact that Glasner and his men also managed to set a new club record in terms of points in a single Premier League season. Despite finishing in 12th place, the Eagles managed an impressive 53 points, surpassing the previous record by 4 points. And they achieved that despite a worrying run at the start of the season in which they won just one of their first 13 fixtures. Crystal Palace are definitely on cloud nine since the arrival Glasner and it will be interesting to see if they can keep it up this season, when they will have to combine domestic football with European football for the first time in their history.
Crystal Palace: Tactical preview 2025/26
Last season, Oliver Glasner started with a back-five in a majority of the games. In most cases, the starting lineup took up the shape of a 3-4-2-1 formation, which would often convert into a 5-3-2 out of possession. This approach allows the wing-backs to push forward often, which in turns gives the midfielders the opportunity to play right in support of the lone striker. As a result, the likes of right-back Daniel Muñoz, attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze and lone striker Jean-Philippe Mateta thrived last season, also in FPL terms.
At the moment of writing, there is still a month of summer transfer window action to go. In other words, anything can still happen, but so far, it is looking good for Palace. The Eagles have managed to hold on to their key players until now, which undoubtedly has to do with the prospect of European football as well. On top of that, they have brought in Croatia international Borna Sosa from Ajax Amsterdam for a bargain £2 million and PSV goalkeeper Walter Benitez on a free. As a result, we don’t see any reason to assume that Glasner will make to make changes to the team and tactics that brought Crystal Palace historic successes last season.
CRYSTAL PALACE – Potential FPL picks
With the likes of Jarrod Bowen (who is listed as a forward this season), Chris Wood and Yoane Wissa, the mid-price forward category is quite stacked at the moment. As a result of that, and keeping in mind Crystal Palace’s difficult starting run of fixtures, we might not see too much of Jean-Philippe Mateta (£7.5m) in the upcoming Gameweek 1 squads. At the same time, the Frenchman is now a proven Premier League striker and FPL asset. In the 2023 – 2024 season, he recorded 16 goals and 7 assists for 165 FPL points in a side that finished 10th, while he ended last season with 14 goals, 2 assists and 150 FPL points. While we agree that Chelsea away (GW1), Nottingham Forest at home (GW2) and Aston Villa (away) is far from appealing for the Palace striker as a fantasy asset, he is firmly on our radar from Gameweek 4 onwards, when Sunderland visit Selhurst Park.
Next on our list of potential Crystal Palace picks for the 2025 – 2026 season is Daniel Muñoz (£5.5m), who was brought in from Belgian side RC Genk for around £7 million back in January 2024. He immediately established himself as a nailed-on starter under Glasner, racking up 16 league starts, 5 clean sheets and 4 assists in the second half of that season. Last season, he showed that it was no fluke, as the Colombian right-back started 37 league games in which he recorded 11 clean sheets, 4 goals and 6 assists. Incredible numbers for a defender that have quickly turned him into a potential FPL favourite. Muñoz’ dynamic style of play and his unquenchable thirst for joining in attack make him a perfect fit for the kind of football Glasner likes to play. To top it all off, his underlying stats last season showed that his attacking output was far from an anomaly, as he recorded an expected goal involvement ratio of 8.38. No other defender in the official fantasy game came even close.
Amongst the Crystal Palace, Eberechi Eze (£7.5m) will forever be remembered as the scorer of the goal that brought the club its first major trophy ever. The 27-year-old Englishman performed at a high level throughout most of last season though, as he did the two seasons prior as well. In 2022 – 2023, he scored 10 goals and gave 5 assists in 30 league starts, in 2023 – 2024 he scored 11 goals and provided 5 assists in 24 league starts, and last season, a total of 8 goals and 8 assists in 31 league starts resulted in 148 FPL points. In a formation that is built on defensive solidity, Eze is the essential spark of creativity in Glasner’s team, together with the equally appealing (and considerably cheaper) Ismaila Sarr. It will be interesting to see how he will hold up when European football starts mixing with domestic league and cup obligations, but as far as we are concerned: if Crystal Palace want to have any hope of continuing their upward trajectory under Glasner, Eze will have to be in top shape as one of their key performers.
For further discussions have a look at FISO’s FPL forum.