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In this piece I (James) will be looking at the three premium players in Fantasy Premier League for the 2026/27 season.
All three are super expensive in comparison to the rest of the players in their positions. So, it begs the questions:
Last year, I think the trendy move was to get both Salah and Haaland. It was commonly thought that having both was sensible because its always easier to sell them than buy them. That’s pretty much established FPL logic.
Some very wise/lucky people like myself went with just Haaland and it worked out super well. So, whilst most of us have immediately slotted Bruno Fernandes and Haaland in our team, we really need to think hard about whether that is the optimal move.
So, let’s take a look then.
Yes. But it’s very tight.
I’m assuming you’re having another big defender. I’ve got Tarkowski because I think he’s probably the best and most consistent 6.0 in the game because he is ELITE at DefCons. Maybe he is Mosquera and you save 0.5 and get a great double Arsenal defence. Then its two 4.0 defenders on the bench and 0.5 in the bank if you wanted to upgrade one to a better player.
In the midfield, I think you start to see the problem. Sangare is the natural successor to Anderson in the Forest team but they also have over 100mn to spend and are apparently in the market for a DM. Otherwise, we grab some popular and good picks in Szobo, Ndiaye and Dango but there isn’t enough money to grab anyone over 7.0.
Up front, you have the same issue. Mateta could be Sesko if he is fit and we spend that extra 0,5 but you can’t have an Isak or a Watkins or someone like that.
You’re also not getting a bench boost out of this because Sanagre isn’t nailed. We would have to upgrade him to a 5.5 for this to work. Again, we have 0.5 but we can’t use it on all these slots.
Overall, I don’t actually hate this draft and I thought I would. There is a lack of flexibility in here but there are a great set of cheaper guys that we can utilise. I think the key problem is to make any upgrades we need to sell one of our premiums so we will need to wait until gameweek 3 if we want to sell Gabriel for a midfield upgrade without taking a hit.
So, my overall verdict on a triple premium strategy is that I don’t love it.
This is the meta-trend at this point in pre-season (i.e. about 4 weeks away from the start.
Gabriel is viewed with some scepticism for reasons I set out in our opener – TL;DR Saliba is injured, bonus point changes, possibly unsustainable DefCons and wild overperformance on assists last year. Plus, Bruno has two great opening fixtures which always tempt FPL managers.
So, here it is.
This is very much a bench boost gameweek 2 draft with triple Coventry on the bench. I think it also means an early wildcard (somewhere between GW 4 and 6). There is no money left over here.
With this draft we can cover all the price points apart from premium keeper – who cares – and Gabriel – of course.
We get to triple up on United for the two early fixtures with Mbeumo and Shaw. And, we get more options with a 5.5 mid – Caicedo is in this draft but Ampadu, Gross and others are available.
At the back, we have Virgil instead of Gabriel – a guy capable of similar attacking threat as Gab if not the same on clean sheets or DefCons.
This was pretty much my first draft because I like the conventional wisdom. I really like targeting bench boost gameweek 2 just to get rid of it and I think Hull are by far the worst team in the league so I can make money stretch a bit with two 4.0 defenders.
I am happy to wildcard early (which I think most people should also do) so I don’t really care about that as a concern.
This is certainly a less popular draft and one that may be being overlooked.
Here we have another viable gameweek 2 bench boost team.
And, like the Bruno plus Haaland draft, we have more money to play with so we can get a guy like Semenyo and even have some more money to play with that we can get a Neco Williams too – he could be Maguire if we want the triple United and we probably should want that but its boring to show you the same team over and over again.
I think the other key difference is that we don’t need to shop in the 5.5 mid bracket – hence Le Fee makes an appearance here.
It’s another draft that I thought I would hate but I actually don’t. In this one, I am only one move away from everyone apart from Bruno and Isak – two good players but you can’t have everyone.
The one question I really have is the Semenyo slot. Yes, I could downgrade him to Cunha and upgrade Le Fee but I am not sure I want to double up on the 6.5 slot – a lot of these guys are appealing but they aren’t THAT good. I can’t quite get to Saka or Palmer or even Pedro without saving a million and thats either Dango to a 5.5 which I don’t love or get rid of Gabriel…
I really can’t entertain any draft that doesn’t have Haaland. He’s so much better than all the other forwards and you HAVE to have at least one playing forward and three forwards in your squad. So, I am not going to consider a just Bruno or just Gabriel build which means this is my one-mium build.
Okay, its another gameweek 2 bench boost team (can you tell how much I like that strategy?).
In this one you can afford triple United, Saka/Palmer and Joao Pedro too. Saka could be a 7.5 and Sesko could be Isak.
Again, you have A LOT of flexibility but obviously miss a reliable guy like Bruno or Gab.
If you want to take some risks at the start of the season – something I am increasingly feeling like doing because there is no way to gain at the end of the season with everyone playing chips in the meta way – then I like this team.
Well, that’s the question isn’t it…
My personal view is that you really can’t afford all three premiums. It takes too much out of the rest of your squad.
So, it’s either two or just Haaland. If you go with Bruno+Haaland I think that’s safe and good. If you go with Gabriel, I think there are more questions to be concerned about. Ultimately, if you have either of these guys though you are hoping they can match career bests and I doubt they can. Of course, you don’t need to hold them all season though so maybe you want to do the normal FPL thing and play safe to get your 100k rank and be done.
For me, I am increasingly leaning towards just Haaland, triple United, bench boost gameweek 2, free hit gameweek 4 (because my team looks bad at that point and I will want triple Chelsea against Hull) and wildcard in gameweek 5 or 6.
I really like the risk early on and if/when I fuck it up I have time to make it up.
What are you thinking and have any of my drafts (or others) made you think?
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