Welcome back to the Fantasy Premier League and welcome back to FISO!
Compared to the build-up to last season, this summer has been an oasis of calm. No EURO 2024 and no Olympics meant that there has been a lot less to take into account for fantasy managers this year. Sure, there was the controversial Club World Cup, Gianni Infantino’s creation/abomination, but that tournament finished on July 13th and included just two Premier League sides: Chelsea and Manchester City. The latter were eliminated, rather shockingly, by Al-Hilal after penalties in de Round of 16 on June 30th, but the former made it all the way to the final. They faced Paris Saint-Germain there on July 13th and beat the French side in convincing fashion (3-0) to become the first official winners of revamped Club World Cup.
And now, we can look forward to more serious business, namely the start of the 2025 – 2026 Premier League season. We are kicking off this Friday with champions Liverpool hosting Bournemouth at Anfield for what should be an entertaining encounter with, potentially, a lot of goals. Other Gameweek 1 fixtures that stand out, either from a fantasy point of view or for the neutral spectator, are Aston Villa’s home game against Newcastle, Chelsea’s home game against surprise FA Cup & Community Shield victors Crystal Palace and, of course, the clash between Manchester United and Arsenal at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Don’t forget, the deadline for Gameweek 1 is set at 18h30 (UK time) on Friday, August 15th, 2025.
Most transferred in/transferred out players (as per August 13th, 2025)
| TRANSFERS OUT | TRANSFERS IN | POSSIBLE REASONS | |
| GK | N/A for GW1 | Dubravka (BUR), Sanchez (CHE), Sels (NFO), Kelleher (BRE) | Season start |
| DEF | N/A for GW1 | Frimpong (LIV), Wan-Bissaka (WHU), Konsa (AST), Van de Ven (TOT) | Season start |
| MID | N/A for GW1 | Palmer (CHE), Salah (LIV), Wirtz (LIV), Kudos (TOT) | Season start |
| FOR | N/A for GW1 | Pedro (CHE), Gyökeres (ARS), Watkins (AV), Haaland (MCI) | Season start |
*transfer stats heavily influenced by Gameweek 1 full squad creation
Premium pick
The top three of most selected players in the official fantasy game at this moment contains two players that we considered straight off the bat for our first premium fantasy pick of the 2025 – 2026 season. Cole Palmer and Chelsea are facing Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge, while Mo Salah (£14.5m) and Liverpool are hosting Bournemouth in the season opener. We expect both names to turn up in our premium category very often this season and we have decided to go with Salah this week. Liverpool’s Egyptian talisman, who extended his contract at Anfield towards the tail-end of last season, was simply unstoppable last season as he went on to score 29 goals and provide 18 assists. That way, in the process of clinching the Premier League title in manager Arne Slot’s first season at the club, he also clinched the Premier League Golden Boot and the Premier League Player of the Season award. By doing so, he joined a very select group of players who managed to win that last award twice, consisting of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin de Bruyne, Nemanja Vidic and Thierry Henry. Despite the concerns about how new signings Wirtz and Ekitike will impact on Salah’s role, you know it makes sense to get Salah into your Gameweek 1 team and spend the rest of your time optimising the remaining £85.5m of your budget.
Non-premium pick
Nottingham Forest was probably last season’s biggest surprise in a positive sense, as the club finished in 7th place, marking their return to European football for the first since 1995. A big part of their success was thanks to striker Chris Wood (£7.5m), who proved to be the perfect focal point of the Tricky Tree attack. As the strong man up front, the New Zealand international scored a fantastic 20 goals and provided 3 assists for a total of 200 FPL points. It remains to be seen, of course, to what extent Forest can replicate their exceptional 2024 – 2025 campaign, but at least they have managed to keep most of their team together so far. Out of the real key players, only Anthony Elanga was sold, for around £52 million to Newcastle. Their opponents in Gameweek 1 though, Brentford, experienced a wholly different summer. Besides losing their head coach to Spurs, they also saw star player Bryan Mbeumo move to Man United, captain Christian Norgaard to Arsenal and goalkeeper Mark Flekken to Bayer Leverkusen. While the Bees have realised some interesting incoming transfers, we have a feeling that the visit to Nottingham Forest is still a bit too early for them. As a result, we see a possibility here for a comfortable victory for the home side, hopefully with Wood at the centre of the action.
The budget enabler
The build-up to Gameweek 1 provides a relatively unique opportunity to dive to the bottom of the budget fantasy category, as lots of managers will be looking for that cheap fifth midfielder or fifth defender to complete their squad. We have opted to recommend a player from the latter category, in the person of Maxime Estève (£4.0m). Every FPL season offers us at least one or two bottom-bargain defenders with a decent ceiling and the Frenchman might be one of them this season. He was about as nailed-on as they come last season, as Burnley impressed in the Championship, and he should be at the heart of their defence this season as well. Burnley’s start to the season in terms of fixtures is not the best, but then again, your £4.0m-defender should, in theory, be on your FPL bench most of the time. Having said that, a home game against Sunderland in Gameweek 2 could see him promoted to the starting lineup, especially now that the system for defensive bonus points in the official fantasy game has been changed (for the better for defenders).
The differential
A majority of the players can be classified as a differential at this point in the season, as we have no information yet on lineups, playing styles, team form and chemistries, etc. Generally though, we consider a player to be a differential fantasy pick when his overall ownership in the game is 5% or lower. Therefore, we are right now asking ourselves the question: will Jack Grealish (£6.5m) return to his Aston-Villa-best at Everton? The England international very recently confirmed his loan to the Toffees and considering his current 2% ownership overall in the official fantasy game, we figured we include him in the differential fantasy pick category straight away. Before he outgrows it, that is, because we do see big potential for the man who played an integral part in Manchester City’s treble-winning 2022 – 2023 season. It obviously remains to be seen how he will be deployed by David Moyes and to what extent he can adapt to the starkly different expectations (and football fundamentals) at Everton, but you can’t deny that this move is interesting. With Iliman Ndiaye probably nailed-on as Everton’s number ten, we expect Grealish to come in from the left. Considering Everton’s problems with creating chances last season (only the three relegated sides created less than the Toffees), the Man City loanee might just be exactly what they are looking for. Everton start at one of the promoted clubs, Leeds.
The captaincy
Our captain in Gameweek 1 is Mohamed Salah for Liverpool’s home game against Bournemouth. The Cherries have basically lost their entire starting defence this summer and we hope that Liverpool’s star man can benefit from that in a big way on Friday. The stand-out vice-captain, in our opinion, is Cole Palmer for Chelsea’s home game against Crystal Palace. Both players have over 50% ownership in FPL for GW1. Other potentially rewarding picks for the armband include Erling Haaland away at Wolves, Chris Wood at home to Brentford and West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen away against promoted Sunderland.
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.
