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We are back and we are looking at the Best FPL Forwards for the 25/26 season.
In this piece we are going to go by price tag and look at every forward between 14.0 and 6.5 (22 forwards) and a couple more cheaper guys. We will look at why Haaland is being overlooked, why Joao Pedro is being overhyped and who the potential 4.5 starting forward is.
In case you missed it, we already looked Goalkeeper, Defenders and Midfielders. And when you are done with all that we have tonnes more pre-season content like our draft rankings, chip strategy and fixture tickers for you to sink your teeth into.
Let’s get into it!
There are only two players in this bracket but it feels ridiculous to not consider them apart from the others because they are truly elite.
This man is so good that he has haul in his name (almost).
I have seen a bit of backlash against the 14.0 price tag for Haaland which I find bizarre. Last year many of us happily paid 15.0 for him and many avoided paying 12.5 for Salah. Now, everyone seems to lose their mind if you suggest that you pay less for Haaland than Salah!
Is this wisdom of the crowds or foolish groupthink?
I am an FPL player who has played for a long time. I LOVE SALAH. But you are not crazy to start the season without him and pick Haaland. Haaland’s stats speak for themselves. In his three seasons in the PL he has scored 36 goals, 27 goals and 22 goals in less than 2800 mins each time – a full season is 3420 mins. Wolves, Spurs and Brighton in the first few weeks? Yes please.
The only other guy at this price is Isak and we have no interest in him until it is clear where he is going to be playing football next year. If he stays at Newcastle I am a huge Isak fan because he is the main man, on pens and he is ELITE. If he goes to Liverpool then I am only a big Isak fan because he isn’t the main man and he loses penalties.
I am just going to repeat myself from our midfielders piece here:
“So now we have the question of how you squeeze them in.
I haven’t played around with team structures enough yet to say definitively but I don’t think you can have Haaland, Salah and Palmer/Saka. Of course, you can have them all but I mean that I don’t think your team will be very good. It leaves you with too little to get other good players and/or good price points.
The little tinkering I have done tells me that Salah and Palmer or Haaland and Palmer are very viable routes. There are lots of options for you to play around with you do this and its currently my preferred structure.
A Salah and Haaland structure does look viable but very tight. I think it closes you off from a good number of options and that worries me with flexibility. On the other hand, I started last season with both precisely because it gave me the flexibility to downgrade the one that wasn’t as good at one point in the future.
We will look at this more probably next week.”
In this bracket we have two newbies to the league and two golden oldies that play in claret and blue.
Let’s start with Gyokeres at 9.0. I am excited about this guy. He scored 39 goals in 31.2 90s last year. He overperformed his xG substantially two years in a row and that could mean he is really good or the Portuguese league is shit. I think you could happily take a bit of a punt on this guy if he is your risky pick. But don’t have him, Wirtz, Marmoush etc. all in one team unless you are very brave.
The safer option at this 9.0 price bracket is definitely Ollie Watkins. For 9.0 you get the nailed on starting striker for the 6th best team in the league. They might have been a fairly middling attack last year but he still managed 186 points across 2593 mins which is very, very good. And he broke 200 points the year before. A very good option.
By himself at 8.5 you have Ekitike. He is another exciting prospect but I think we can comfortably say – just get Wirtz instead. He is the same price and more nailed. This ongoing saga with Isak confuses me and I want to know what’s going on before I commit here.
Finally, we have Bowen at 8.0. We love Bowen here. Joe especially. I’m a little disappointed that I am now supposed to pay 8.0 for him as they have moved him to a forward so he loses some points that he would have got from being a mid. But, he is so nailed, so talismanic and just pretty damn reliable that you can see why Towers priced him a little higher than the rest of these guys. Good pick.
In the other position pieces I have been ranking the players at each price point. This feels a little ridiculous with only four but for reasons that I think I make clear above, I would rank them like this:
I favour the reliable, nailed guys going into the season. I think there is every chance that this changes as the season progresses but I think it’s the right decision at the time.
At the time of writing Sesko has not been given a price in FPL because he hasn’t signed on the dotted line… yet. But Fabrizio Romano says it is on.
I assume he will come in at 8.0 just because that matches Cunha and Mbeumo. If he comes in at 8.5 I would be surprised because I don’t think he is as good as Ekitike and United’s attack is definitely not as good as Liverpool’s. If he comes in at 7.5 I think that would be reasonable given the quality of some of the guys there.
It’s easy to start the season without him because of the awful fixtures but he could become an option as we get into the season. His numbers in Germany are far from phenomenal and I am nowhere near as excited about this guy as I am Wirtz. But, he seems like a competent young forward and should be playing with Bruno, Cunha and Mbeumo so I presume there will be a decent level of chance creation.
This is the biggest, funnest bracket of the forwards I think and I really think you should think again on Joao Pedro.
At the time of writing, Joao Pedro is the highest owned in FPL at 53%. Quite a bit of that is auto-picked teams I am sure but I think that is a crazy high number. I know he was good in the club world cup and he was good for Brighton when he played but I think we are overlooking some problems.
Firstly, he isn’t nailed. With Delap and N. Jackson there we don’t know if he starts the first game. It sounds like Chelsea are shopping Jackson around but it also doesn’t sound like anyone wants to pay the price tag they want for him. And then, even if he does start I don’t believe he plays 90 every week.
Secondly, he doesn’t have pens. This is the forward who scored the most pens per 90 last year (0.23). Five of his ten goals across the season were pens. The year before, four of his 12 goals were pens.
To be clear. I am not saying I hate him. He is a good player with good fixtures. But I think he is a bit overhyped.
Havertz is obviously not a better option as he is now competing with Gyokeres. Nor is Wissa with the current speculation over him. However, if Wissa settles on Brentford or Newcastle I think he good be a great pick.
But I think there are three better options at this price point.
Let’s start with Wood. I can hear you know. Ooh, edgy pick James – pick the forward who scored the most points last year.
Well, he’s not that good. I actually called him out for his ludicrous overperformance at the end of last year as a guy to avoid. And, I think Forest will regress as they already started to do so at the end of last year. And, and, they will be overwhelmed with European football.
BUT. Wood has excellent fixtures to start the season. He is on pens and he is nailed.
Next on the list we have Mateta. I think there is a tendency to overrate this guy because he goes on ludicrous runs of form. But he also has droughts. The thing is, he is super nailed and good value. I don’t love the opening three fixtures but GWs 4 and 5 are brilliant. I am slightly nervous about their fixture congestion because of the conference league but hope that won’t be an issue to start the season.
Finally, Solanke is probably just the best player in this bracket if we are talking real life. He is a proven premier league goalscorer across multiple seasons. The only reason he isn’t in my team right now is the injury worry.
At the moment, Solanke’s spot in my team is held by his replacement at Bournemouth – Evanilson. I would make him my bonus fourth pick here and I think he might be the best of the lot. He has incredibly good underlying numbers and plays for a genuinely good attacking team. Bournemouth may be a bit inconsistent but Iraola knows enough to get them ticking until injuries bite. Of course, a bad gameweek 1 but after that it is plain sailing for them in fixture terms. And the best part? He is 0.5 cheaper than all this lot. Probably because he doesn’t have a tonne of PL mins.
There are a lot of crap picks that are not nailed at this price tag:
If Darwin or Jackson made the leap to a different team and were nailed then I would be interested but not now.
So, the only options left to us are Welbeck, Strand Larsen and Raul. Two of whom I am not sure play 90 or week-in, week-out .
Strand is the most nailed because Wolves don’t really have anyone else. 14 goals from 2600 mins last year is very good for this guy on this shit team. I liked him when he joined the league and I am excited to see what he can do as the number 1 forward at Wolves this year.
Welbeck is probably the most nailed attacking player for Brighton but his manager loves to rotate. This is the largest squad in the league that doesn’t have European football and they just spent £30mn on a teenage sensation who I presume they will want to give at least some game time. I am okay with taking the risk week one but it is a risk.
Raul is a guy that I think is being a little overlooked. He has proven premier league pedigree and even managed 17 goals one season (although that was 6 years ago). He is probably the number one forward at Fulham and it looks like they are trying to ship Muniz to Leeds. But, he rarely makes 90. Still, I like his fixtures and I don’t see him as substantially worse than these guys.
Again, this is hard given how few options I have but here goes:
If the Wissa speculation dies he jumps straight into this list. Probably at 3 given how good he has been the past two years.
There isn’t much here so I am going quickfire:
From 5.5 and below, we aren’t looking at any of these lot for their quality but their price and their nailedness. Back to the quickfire:
If you have any opinions about what I wrote come and tell me on Reddit.
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