Best Value FPL Players 26/27, Ranked by Position

Only two players in FPL 2026/27 launched above £9.5m — Haaland at £15.5m and Bruno Fernandes at £12.0m, down from five premiums last year — so the best value this season isn't at the top, it's in the £6.0–8.5m band of proven attackers and nailed defenders. This is the picks layer: the underpriced players worth owning at each position, and why. Prices quoted here are launch prices, and plenty have moved since the Gameweek 1 deadline: for every current price in one place, the full sortable list lives in our FPL 2026/27 player prices guide, and the nightly movers are on the risers and fallers lists. This page is the shortlist that came out of the launch market.

How we judge value

Value in FPL isn't "cheap" — it's points per £m, judged within a position. A £4.5m keeper and a £15.5m striker are never competing for the same slot, so we rank each player against the others who play his role. A defender is good value if he beats other defenders on returns for the money; a forward is good value if he outscores other forwards per million. Sorting the whole squad by raw price tells you nothing; sorting each line by output-for-cost tells you everything.

To go beyond last season's totals we lean on our expected points model, which projects what each player is likely to score per match from his shots, chances created, expected minutes and fixtures — see expected points explained for how it works. The numbers quoted below are a snapshot of how it ranked the pool at the start of the season; the live the next gameweek predicted points for every player are free on the player list and in the planner. A single-gameweek score above 5 is elite, and captaincy doubles it. The one thing no model nails is minutes, so treat every projection as a filter, then trust your own eye on who actually starts.

Best value goalkeepers

The goalkeeper rule this year is simple: pay £4.5m, not £6.0m. There were eight first-choice keepers at £4.5m or under at launch, so there's no reason to tie up premium money in the sticks. Kinsky is the standout — an undisputed number one with Vicario as backup, the best nailed-minutes keeper under £5.0m — and Verbruggen is his mirror image at Brighton. Pair either with a £4.0m non-playing keeper and you've spent £8.5m on the position instead of £10.0m.

If you'll stretch to £5.0m for a bit more ceiling, Lammens at Manchester United topped our model's budget-keeper board at launch and Roefs at Sunderland faces enough shots to profit from the new save bonus points. The one premium worth debating, Raya, gets his own line in the traps section below.

Best value defenders

Defence is where FPL moved the goalposts: no defender who scored 20+ defensive-contribution points last year launched under £5.0m, so the very cheapest specialists got a price bump. That makes the ones still priced low genuinely valuable. Tyrick Mitchell was the best sub-£5.0m defender in the game last season (135 points) and is the model enabler. Up a rung, Guéhi at £6.0m was the clearest bargain on the whole line — our model had him at 5.08 for Gameweek 1, with a Manchester City clean-sheet ceiling behind him — and Muñoz is the attacking wing-back differential everyone keeps circling.

Below that, every defender from the three promoted clubs is priced at £4.0m, so role and fixtures are the tiebreaker, not price — Leif Davis creates like a midfielder; our model treated promoted players as cold starts at launch, but they now have Premier League minutes behind them, so check the live projection and the fixtures page for Ipswich's run. See the promoted teams guide for who's actually nailed, and the budget enablers guide for how these £4.0–4.5m picks fund the rest of your squad. Tarkowski (£6.0m, a reliable 88 expected minutes at launch) is nailed but no longer cheap — a floor pick, not a steal.

Best value midfielders

Midfield is the value engine of 26/27. Semenyo (£8.5m, now at Manchester City) topped our expected points model for Gameweek 1 among affordable midfielders at 5.92 — the caveat being he over-performed his underlying numbers last year, so mind some regression. Gibbs-White brought 15 goals last season at £8.0m, and Morgan Rogers, now at Chelsea, launched roughly £2m cheaper than Palmer for a similar profile.

The penalty-taker cluster is where the real bargains sit. Szoboszlai (£7.0m) is nailed for 90 minutes, takes free-kicks and corners, and went into the season as favourite for Liverpool's spot-kicks while Isak's fitness was in doubt — check who has actually taken them. Ndiaye (£6.0m) is Everton's number-one penalty taker and the best all-round option under £7.0m. And if you want the cheap defensive-contribution route to points, Ampadu (£5.5m, Leeds), Stach (£6.0m, Leeds) and Caicedo (£5.5m, Chelsea) are hard-running mids who clear the defensive-contribution threshold more weeks than not. Foden (£7.0m) is the wildcard — his cheapest price since 2020/21 — but our model flagged rotation risk at 58 expected minutes at launch, so he's a punt, not a lock; the predicted lineups show whether he's starting.

Best value forwards

Strikers had a poor collective season, which means the cheap ones are unusually good buys. Igor Thiago (£8.0m, +£2.0m) scored 22 goals and finished Golden Boot runner-up, and our model rated him 5.22 for Gameweek 1 — the standout mid-price forward at launch. At the budget end, Calvert-Lewin (£6.0m) is the safe haul: he's on Leeds penalties, our model gave him 4.43 for the opener, and he's been at Leeds since 25/26, so he's a known quantity, not a gamble. Welbeck (£6.0m) shares Brighton's spot-kicks and lands close behind.

For a bit more, João Pedro (£7.5m) is stable value off a 20-goal-involvement season — he's lost Chelsea's penalties to Palmer, so it's open-play output now — and Gyökeres (£7.5m, −£1.5m) looks like an over-reaction to a price drop, with the caveat that he shares Arsenal's penalties rather than owning them. One to watch: Watkins (£8.0m) was our model's top forward for Gameweek 1 at 6.36 — he barely featured at the World Cup so he came in fresh — while the community consensus stayed cautious amid summer transfer links. With the window shut, judge him on his minutes and form.

Traps at every price

Value cuts both ways — some of the most-discussed names are priced above what they'll return:

• Raya (£6.0m) is the first £6.0m goalkeeper in five years. The clean sheets are real, but the consensus reads it as a trap when £4.5m buys you a nailed number one and £1.5m elsewhere.
• Kroupi (£7.5m) jumped £3.0m on a forward-to-midfield reclassification, but Bournemouth's penalties looked like Kluivert's first at launch, with Kroupi only in the mix — his role isn't the settled one his price implies.
• Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) launched as the consensus vice-captain and has penalties, but £12.0m for a midfielder is a genuine "overpriced?" debate, especially if you also want Haaland.
• Isak (£9.0m) dropped £1.5m after an injury-hit season and could take Liverpool's pens — but our model gave him just 46 expected minutes in Gameweek 1. He's a fitness punt, not a set-and-forget; check the injuries page and his live minutes first.

Turn the picks into a squad

The shape this points to is familiar: two premiums at most, a mid-tier stacked with penalty-takers, one of the well-priced forwards, and £4.0–4.5m enablers soaking up the rest. Shortlist the names above in the player pool, then build and compare drafts in the planner — it prices every combination against our expected points model so you can see, before you commit, whether the value actually adds up.