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 ninth part of our Season Preview series, we’re taking a look at Sunderland and a Spurs side that finished 17th in the league but also lifted the UEFA Conference League.
SUNDERLAND – General preview for 2025/26
With Sunderland AFC, we are welcoming the 4th placed team in last season’s Championship back to the Premier League. The last time the Black Cats were active at the highest level was in the 2016 – 2017 season, when they finished last. In the subsequent season, they finished last in the Championship as well, which saw the club drop down to the League One for the first time in their entire history. What followed were four seasons at the third level of English football, three seasons back in the Championship and now, Sunderland are back amongst the elite.
Apart from the first few weeks of last season, in which Sunderland was top of the table in the Championship, the Black Cats sat in fourth place. This is also where they would eventually finish after 46 league games, with 76 points, well behind Sheffield United (in third with 90 points), Burnley (in second with 100 points) and Leeds (champions with 100 points). This earned them a spot in the playoffs, where they beat Sheffield United 2-1 in the final. Sunderland did so with a positive goal difference of just +14 in the league, as a result of 58 goals scored and 44 goals conceded.
And now that they are back in the Premier League, Sunderland are determined to stay there. So far, the club has spent more than £130 million on about ten new players. These include central midfielder Habib Diarra (£30 million from RC Strasbourg), Brighton winger Simon Adingra (£21 million) and defensive midfielder Granit Xhaka (£17 million from Bayer Leverkusen), while the loan of AS Roma midfielder Enzo Le Fée was made permanent. Sunderland also managed to bring in Atletico Madrid left-back Reinildo, Besiktas left-back Arthur Masuaku and the talented Chelsea forward Marc Guiu for free. The club also lost two key players though, in the persons of midfielder Jobe Bellingham (£32 million) and left winger Tom Watson (£10 million to Brighton).
Sunderland: Tactical preview 2025/26
Sunderland are being led by Régis le Bris, the French manager who was brought in from Lorient last summer. He tends to prefer a flexible 4-4-2 formation that converts to a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 when building up their attacks from the back. Defensively, Le Bris likes to employ a low block, with the players on the sides especially tasked with carrying out fast counterattacks. When the side moves into transitional mode, they even sometimes line up in a fluid 4-2-4 formation with a solid block in the middle in order to press aggressively, which shows Le Bris’ extraordinary tactical ability.
As far as the Fantasy Premier League is concerned, it largely remains to be seen how Le Bris and his men will approach a majority of their games. Considering the manager’s tactical flexibility and certain level of pragmatism, we would not be surprised to see the Black Cats lean on a solid defensive setup more this season, with an enhanced focus on counterattacks. Last season, the side already showed a preference for building attacks through the side areas in order to create 3vs2 situations, which we might see more of this season in the Premier League.
SUNDERLAND – Potential FPL picks
Fixture-wise, Sunderland have a relatively favourable start of the 2025 – 2026 Premier League campaign, with West Ham at home in GW1, Burnley away in GW2, Brentford at home in GW3 and Crystal Palace away in GW4. Still, we do not expect too many Black Cats in a lot of Gameweek 1 squads, though they do feature a few potentially interesting budget fantasy picks. The first one on our list of potential FPL picks is their most expensive asset, Simon Adingra (£5.5m), who is one of the club’s star signings this summer transfer window. He was brought in for around £21 million from Brighton and is set to take up the starting spot on Sunderland’s left wing. The Ivory Coast international is bringing some much-needed Premier League experience to the side as well: 12 league starts (2 goals, 3 assists) for Brighton last season and 25 league starts (6 goals,1 assist) for the Seagulls the season prior. At the Stadium of Light, he will face the biggest challenge of his career so far in playing a key role in Sunderland’s battle for Premier League survival this season.
Central midfielder Enzo Le Fée (£5.0m), who often operates as an attacking midfielder as well, played on loan for Sunderland in the Championship last season. He featured in 28 games for the Black Cats, scoring 1 goal and providing 3 assists, which are no crazy numbers by any means, especially not as member of a promoted side. Sunderland feel like he is a key player for them though, converting his loan from AS Roma into a permanent contract, and it looks like the Frenchman will be occupying the number 10 spot this season. He is more of a box-to-box type of number 10 though, so we don’t expect heaps of goals and assists from him. The reason we have included him in this list of potential Sunderland FPL picks, for those really set on bringing in Sunderland assets, is thanks to the combination of a very budget-friendly price tag and a major share of set-piece duties, including direct free kicks and corners. Together with a spot in the starting lineup, Le Fée could feature as a useful fifth midfielder in your squad.
Our third and final potential FPL pick from the Sunderland roster is Reinildo Mandava (£4.0m), who finds himself in the elusive ultimate budget bracket. Every season, there are at least one or two players priced £4.0m who are starters for their team, therefore representing good value, and Reinildo might be one of them this season. The Mozambique international was brought in on a free transfer this summer from Atletico Madrid, after featuring in 30 games for the Colchoneros last season. He did not record any direct goal involvements in the form of goals or assists, but that is not what we are looking for in a bottom bargain defender, at least not initially. It looks like the 31-year-old will be starting at left-back under Le Bris this season, which makes him worth considering for the spot of fifth defender in practically any FPL squad.
SPURS – General preview for 2025/26
A football season can hardly be more made up of two extremes than Tottenham Hotspur’s 2024 – 2025 campaign. Let us start with the positive, because in the second season under manager Ange Postecoglou, as claimed by the Australian himself last summer, Spurs won their first major trophy in 17 years. In a final of questionable quality against Manchester United, the Londoners booked a 1-0 victory to clinch the UEFA Europa League. This represents the club’s first serious silverware since their League Cup victory back in 2008.
Now, that was one extreme. The other extreme, and the one which cost Postecoglou his job this summer, took place in the Premier League. Spurs finished in a shocking 17th place last season with just 38 points, avoiding relegation by one place and 14 points. This was the club’s lowest league finish since the 1976 – 1977 season and their lowest points tally in the entire Premier League era. Spurs actually ended the season with a negative goal difference of -1 and they would have undoubtedly been in much more trouble had the relegated sides (Leicester, Ipswich Town and Southampton) not been so sub-par for most of the season.
Brentford’s Thomas Frank was brought in to replace Postecoglou and while it will be difficult to do worse than the Australian in terms of Premier League performances, he will have to deal with a fanbase who just had an entire summer to celebrate their Europa League success. The Danish manager has plenty of experience at the highest level after being in charge as head coach there since October 2018. He started his tenure as the club was rocked by the then-recent death of technical director Robert Rowan, but eventually led the Bees to the Premier League in 2021. Under Frank, the club recorded 13th place, 9th place, 16th place and 10th place finishes in consecutive years at the highest level.
Spurs: Tactical preview 2025/26
As a result of his time at Brentford in the past four years, we have already got a pretty good idea of his preferred style of playing. A new club brings new challenges though, so it will be very interesting to see how Spurs will play under the Danish manager after two chaotic (but entertaining) seasons under Postecoglou. On top of that, he will also have to deal with some serious personal challenges, as Son Heung-Min has left the club, while playmaker James Maddison ruptured his ACL about a week ago. This is the same injury that kept the England international out in the final months of last season and he is expected to miss out the majority of the upcoming season.
As far as tactics go, Frank has mostly started with a 4-2-3-1 formation during pre-season, while occasionally deploying a 4-2-4 and a 5-2-3 formation as well, depending on the opponent and the particular match situations. Based on their friendlies and Frank’s time at Brentford, we expect important roles for the full-backs at both ends of the pitch, with the wingers cutting inside often to support the lone striker. We have seen similar tactics at Brentford (and at various other teams in the league). It also looks like the Danish manager will be building on a solid block of four central players at the heart of his side, consisting of the two central defenders and the two central midfielders right in front of them, though one of those midfielders will get the freedom to feed the team’s attacking moves as well.
SPURS – Potential FPL picks
We know, we often say that we are hesitant about picking new players in Gameweek 1, but can Mohammed Kudus (£6.5m) really be considered a new player? Sure, Spurs bought him this summer from West Ham for around £55million, but he has already got more than 50 Premier League games under his belt, on top of his Champions League experience with Ajax Amsterdam. The Ghana international was a key player for the Hammers last season, starting in 31 league games and recording 5 goals and 4 assists for a total of 106 FPL points. No crazy numbers, we agree, but Kudus is really a “see-it-to-believe-how-good-he-is” kind of player. Thomas Frank seems to agree as well, as he has given the attacking midfielder/winger plenty of game time during pre-season, lauding his qualities on several occasions. At Spurs, and especially with the long-term absences of James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski in mind, we have the feeling that Kudus could turn out to be a fantastic signing.
The 2024 – 2025 season was unlucky for Micky Van de Ven (£4.5m), who suffered absences due to injury on four different occasions. As a result, he got just 12 league starts under his belt last season, either at left back or as a central defender, in which he nevertheless managed to record 2 assists. More than a few pundits said that Postecoglou’s Spurs would have been a lot more solid defensively had the Dutchman been absent less often, as his blistering pace in combination with his physical strength would have suited the Australian’s all-out attack plans excellently. VDV did play in the Europa League final, in which he made a crucial goal line save to deny Man United the equaliser in the 68th minute, dubbed by many fans as “incredible”, “legendary” and “potentially trophy-saving”. The former Wolfsburg man has been excellent in pre-season so far and Thomas Frank seems to be counting on him as a key piece of his starting lineup as the left central defender. At a price of just £4.5m, Van de Ven could be a smart investment for those managers looking for a budget defender with a decent-to-high ceiling.
At a whole million more, Pedro Porro (£5.5m) could represent considerable fantasy value as well. He is nailed-on as Thomas Frank’s starting right-back at the moment, where he has shown his potential at both ends of the pitch last season. While Postecoglou’s team was far from solid in the back, conceding 65 goals in 38 league games, he was still part of 6 clean sheets and added no less than 2 goals and 6 assists to that for a total of 98 FPL points. The season prior shows that this was no anomaly for the Spaniard, as he got 3 goals and 8 assists for 136 FPL points over the 2023 – 2024 Premier League campaign. We are counting on at least a few more clean sheets for Porro under Thomas Frank, while we would not be surprised to see an uptick in his direct goal involvements as well. With James Maddison expected out for most of the season, the right-back will have even more set-piece duties, in particular when it comes to corners and direct free-kicks.
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.