FPL 25/26 Preview - Best Goalkeepers

  In this piece I will look at the best goalkeepers in FPL at each price bracket and answer the age old question: how much should you spend on keepers in FPL? After looking at team defensive stats and the individual goalkeeper stats we dive in and decide the best FPL goalkeepers at the budget, mid-price and premium tiers.. This is the second of our position by position deep dives and we have already looked at defenders. If I am sensible enough to remember, I will put the links to the Midfielders and Forwards here too. If not, then head over to Full90FPL.com for your content fix. Right, let’s get into it.

What Does the Data Say About FPL Goalkeepers?

In this excellent piece about stats from the 24/25 season we ranked defences, and here is what we said:

Defensive Team Data

Looking at defensive team data we see another five tranches emerge:

• Arsenal and Liverpool have the best defence
• Newcastle, Everton, Chelsea, Fulham, Man City, Bournemouth, Forest, Palace and Villa are all in that second tranche
• Brighton, Man United, Brentford, Wolves and West Ham are in the third tranche
• Spurs sit alone in the fourth tranche
• The promoted/relegated teams are in the fifth tranche.

Team	GC	xGC	Δ
ARS	34	35.07	-1.07
LIV	41	38.7	2.3
NEW	47	46.33	0.67
EVE	44	46.91	-2.91
CHE	43	47.97	-4.97
FUL	54	48.16	5.84
MCI	44	48.48	-4.48
BOU	46	49.31	-3.31
NFO	46	49.56	-3.56
CRY	51	50.33	0.67
AVL	51	50.76	0.24
BHA	59	55.1	3.9
MUN	54	55.14	-1.14
BRE	57	56.12	0.88
WOL	69	58.66	10.34
WHU	62	60.6	1.4
TOT	65	64.39	0.61
LEI	80	73.27	6.73
IPS	82	74.37	7.63
SOU	86	87.18	-1.18
	1115	1096.41	18.59

As I said in the defenders piece, ideally we want goalkeepers from the teams with the better defences

Individual FPL Goalkeeper Stats

Okay, let’s look at some individual player stats.

This Year’s Price			Appearance Stats 24/25			Per 90 Stats 24/25			If per 90 over 38
	Name	Team	App	Starts	Mins	Clean Sheets	Saves	FPL points
4.5	Kelleher	LIV	10	10	900	0.40	2.70	4.50	171
4.0	Dubravka	NEW	10	10	900	0.50	2.90	4.40	167.2
5.5	Ederson	MCI	26	26	2317	0.39	2.10	4.31	163.78
5.5	Pickford	EVE	38	38	3420	0.32	3.21	4.16	158.08
5.5	Alisson	LIV	28	28	2506	0.36	2.80	4.02	152.76
5.0	Sels	NFO	38	38	3420	0.34	3.16	3.95	150.1
5.0	Sanchez	CHE	32	32	2880	0.31	3,00	3.94	149.72
5.5	Raya Martin	ARS	38	38	3330	0.35	2.35	3.84	145.92
N/A	Flekken	BRE	37	37	3272	0.19	4.29	3.80	144.4
5.0	Pope	NEW	28	28	2520	0.29	3.14	3.64	138.32
5.0	Onana	MUN	34	34	2970	0.27	2.73	3.64	138.32
5.0	Henderson	CRY	38	38	3420	0.29	2.76	3.55	134.9
4.5	Kepa	BOU	31	31	2790	0.26	3.13	3.42	129.96
N/A	Ramsdale	SOU	30	30	2700	0.10	4.20	3.23	122.74
4.5	José Sá	WOL	29	29	2610	0.24	2.45	3.21	121.98
5.0	Martinez	AVL	37	37	3195	0.23	2.85	3.13	118.94
N/A	Fabianski	WHU	14	13	1152	0.16	3.91	3.05	115.9
5.0	Leno	FUL	38	38	3420	0.13	2.97	3.03	115.14
4.5	Verbruggen	BHA	36	36	3240	0.19	2.53	2.86	108.68
5.0	Ortega Moreno	MCI	13	12	1107	0.24	2.68	2.85	108.3
5.0	Vicario	TOT	24	24	2160	0.17	2.88	2.75	104.5
4.5	Areola	WHU	26	25	2269	0.16	3.25	2.74	104.12
N/A	Muric	IPS	18	18	1620	0.06	3.94	2.72	103.36
N/A	Stolarczyk	LEI	10	10	900	0.20	2.80	2.50	95
N/A	Hermansen	LEI	27	27	2385	0.04	3.92	2.38	90.44
N/A	Palmer (Alex)	IPS	13	13	1170	0,00	3.54	1.69	64.22

Unfortunately for us, FPL Towers seems to have looked at this table and pretty much decided the price of all the keepers from it. This is any keeper that played 10 or more games in the PL last season (and their prices from this year). So, that means it is very hard to find someone who will outperform their price with two exceptions…      

The Best Value (4.5) Goalkeepers in FPL

Kelleher (BRE) is the Best Pick at 4.5

Coming in at 4.5, Kelleher is the best value pick at goalkeeper in FPL at the moment. His stats are obviously outliers given he only played 10 games and outperformed everyone in the league. However, it does show that he is somewhat capable. More interestingly for us, he just replaced Flekken at Brentford. Brentford’s defence is nothing to write home about but we know they concede a lot of shots which means opportunities for saves. And Flekken led the league in saves per 90 last year. This means that Kelleher should have an additional route to points outside of clean sheets.

Petrovic (BOU) is Second Best Pick at 4.5

Neto has barely played in over a year and Bournemouth just signed Petrovic from Chelsea’s keeper farm for £25mn so we think he is nailed. He played 1986 mins for Chelsea a few years ago and got 5 clean sheets from 22 appearances with 3.4 saves per 90. He was deemed surplus to requirements and most recently he competed in Ligue 1 for Chelsea affiliate Strasbourg were again his saves were strong.  Most importantly, he slots into a defence that was better than Notts Forest purely on xGC numbers. If they didn’t play Liverpool in the first game he would be in far more teams. The only trouble is that Bournemouth have lost Huijsen and Kerkez. I still think the defence is good and I am not as panicked as some people on Reddit who keep yelling at me. But the point is correct, the defence is probably a bit weaker this year. These two actually rotate reasonably well too…I know that’s not trendy but it’s fun and a small differential.

The Rest

I would definitely avoid any promoted teams keepers because promoted teams tend to get destroyed in the PL these days. Just look at all the shit at the bottom of the table above. This point of view is certainly not helped by James Trafford being 5.0 and now moving to Man City as he was actually good. So, the three left that play for okay (not good) defences are Verbruggen, Sa and Areola. All of those teams performed worse than their xGC and those three had the worst xG prevented of everyone in the league apart from Alex Palmer last year. Hardly inspiring.

The Best 5.0 Keepers to Start the FPL Season With

Sels and Sanchez are the obvious options here. Both play for good defences with good fixtures and then you can re-evaluate on wildcard and maybe grab the better one of the 4.5s to save money. I personally like both Henderson and Leno and I think Fulham’s defence is underrated but they don’t have the greatest fixtures to start the season with. If you don’t think you will wildcard early then they are fine. But, I’d still rather have Sels and Sanchez because chances are that you will wildcard early. You can’t have Martinez because he is banned and I doubt Trafford or Ortega starts. I’m not sure if Onana or Bayindir start but they also don’t have a nice start with Arsenal and Man City in the first four. Similarly with Pope, I don’t know if he is number one now with Ramsdale there. And just don’t buy Vicario. I don’t trust Spurs at all. They have conceded pretty much the same goal tally two years in a row and its been super bad. Let’s wait and see.

The Best 5.5 Keepers to Start the FPL Season With

There is only four so lets go one by one. Raya plays for the best defence in the league so there is clean sheet upside but Arsenal play United, Liverpool, City and Newcastle in their first six – I don’t think you want that. Everton’s defence is actually really good and I think Pickford would be a great pick because he makes saves too. The reason he is a bad pick is because he is the same cost as Tarkowski who will get better points because of DC. Still, I like the opening fixtures. Ederson is a hard avoid until I know he is the number one pick. I think he still is but Trafford coming back to City is enough to make me slightly nervous. A. Becker is the best of the bunch then because he is nailed and cheaper than the defenders from his team.

How Much Should You Spend on an FPL Keeper?

As little as possible. This is the lowest scoring position in FPL and it also has the smallest range of outcomes so even if you have a crap keeper its rarely worth switching to a better one. That has been true for a long time now but it’s even more true this year. The addition of defensive contributions means defenders are worth even more relative to keepers than they were last year. The challenge this year is that so many keepers are 5.0 and there aren’t many options at 4.5. That’s why we are seeing so many drafts with a 5.0 in them. Personally, I am pretty set on two 4.5 for a bench boost and I like the retro feel of a rotation strategy until I wildcard and we know who the good pick is (one always emerges). However, I am very open to a 5.0 set-and-forget plus a 4.0 bench fodder keeper. I don’t think any of the 5.5 keepers are worth paying for. You would be better off spending 5.5 on a defender with high upside or DC.      

That’s It.

I hope that was useful in picking your FPL Goalkeeper for the 25/26 season. It’s quite a hard position this year which is a bit annoying but I certainly had more fun writing this than I thought I would.