The Most Selected FPL Players 2026/27: Back or Fade?

The crowd's squad is already public. With the GW1 deadline on 21 August, these are the eight most-selected players in the game and the five most-selected in every position — each with a verdict: back the pick, or make it the place your season goes a different way.

High ownership exists because FPL is scored against the field. When a player owned by half the game hauls, owning him wins you nothing — it stops you losing; skip him and the miss costs you rank in one move. Misses hurt more than hits help, so selection piles into the picks nobody gets fired for making, and the crowd's team — the template — assembles itself. The corollary is that every fade is a bet: leaving a most-selected name out is the same position as buying a differential, and most managers take it by accident because they couldn't afford everyone. The point of reading these lists is to take it on purpose.

The Eight Most-Selected Players

The eight most-selected players in the gameLive

#Rank	Player	Club	Owned	Pts	Price	GW1–3
1	HaalandFWD	MCI	73.8%	239	£15.5m	BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageCOV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy
2	João PedroFWD	CHE	55.4%	177	£7.5m	FUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageBHA (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyARS (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 5: Very Difficult
3	B.FernandesMID	MUN	48.3%	235	£12.0m	HUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyIPS (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyEVE (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
4	SzoboszlaiMID	LIV	44.5%	160	£7.0m	NEW (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageNFO (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageIPS (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy
5	RayaGKP	ARS	31.0%	162	£6.0m	COV (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyAVL (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 4: DifficultCHE (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 4: Difficult
6	RogersMID	CHE	27.5%	169	£7.5m	FUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageBHA (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyARS (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 5: Very Difficult
7	GabrielDEF	ARS	26.7%	209	£8.0m	COV (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyAVL (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 4: DifficultCHE (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 4: Difficult
8	SemenyoMID	MCI	25.8%	202	£8.5m	BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageCOV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy

The top of the market is two forwards and the game's last premium midfielder. Haaland sits in nearly three squads in four at £15.5m — last season's top scorer on 239 points, its top goalscorer on 27, and City's first-choice penalty taker. João Pedro, in more than half of all squads, is the crowd settling its second forward slot: 177 points in his first Chelsea season at £7.5m. Fernandes, just under half, scored 235 — second only to Haaland — takes United's penalties, and is one of exactly two players in the game priced in double figures; the other is Haaland, and Salah — for years the default premium alternative — is not in the 2026/27 player pool at all. With the premium tier collapsed to a pair, that scarcity, as much as the output, is why neither share will fall far.

Szoboszlai completes the 40% tier, and his stake is a fixtures trade as much as a player trade: £7.0m for the club with the kindest opening run on the fixture difficulty planner — Liverpool's first five average 2.60 without a single fixture rated above 3. Below him the market drops to the names contested squad by squad: Raya, the top-scoring keeper; Gabriel, the top-scoring defender; and two midfielders whose totals travelled. Rogers' 169 points were all scored for Aston Villa before July took him to Chelsea; Semenyo's 202 — the fourth-highest total in the game — straddles a January move from Bournemouth to City. Points earned where the player still plays, or points carried in: that's the test every verdict below runs on.

Erling HaalandMan City · FWD

£15.5mAvailable

Back. The most-selected player in the game is also its most defensible pick — the real argument is the £15.5m of squad structure around him.

Pts

239

PPG

6.8

Form

0.0

Val

15.4

Sel

73.8%

xG/90

0.78

xA/90

0.08

GW1–5

BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: Average

CRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: Average

COV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy

MUN (A) gameweek 4, difficulty 4: Difficult

SUN (H) gameweek 5, difficulty 2: Easy

Ownership

30 Jul11 Aug

Full profile →

Goalkeepers

The five most-selected goalkeepersLive

#Rank	Player	Club	Owned	Pts	Price	GW1–3
1	RayaGKP	ARS	31.0%	162	£6.0m	COV (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyAVL (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 4: DifficultCHE (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 4: Difficult
2	DubravkaGKP	TOT	22.9%	96	£4.0m	BRE (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageNEW (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyNFO (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
3	LammensGKP	MUN	19.9%	109	£5.0m	HUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyIPS (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyEVE (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
4	KinskyGKP	TOT	19.5%	20	£4.5m	BRE (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageNEW (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyNFO (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
5	VerbruggenGKP	BHA	17.5%	130	£4.5m	AVL (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCHE (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 4: DifficultLEE (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy

Raya — back, with August priced in. The crowd pays £6.0m for the only keeper it treats as premium, and the record supports it: 162 points and 19 clean sheets, both the best of any keeper last season, behind a 4½-star defence. The catch is the calendar — Arsenal's opening five averages 3.20, the hardest of the top sides, with Villa away and Chelsea at home inside the first three. He's a season pick that may start slowly, not an August pick.

Dúbravka and Kinský — fade until Spurs pick one. Between them the two Spurs keepers sit in over four squads in ten, drawn by a gentle run (2.80) and gentler prices. But Dúbravka's 96 points were earned before he arrived this summer, Kinský started seven league games, and only one of them can play. Half of that combined stake is parked on a keeper who won't see the pitch — the market just doesn't know which half yet, and £4.0m–£4.5m of savings isn't payment enough for guessing.

Lammens — back. £5.0m for 109 points from 32 starts, every one of them in this United side after a September arrival last year, and United open at Hull then home to Ipswich — promoted opposition twice before anything difficult. He frees £1.0m against Raya at a far smaller drop in certainty than the price gap implies.

Verbruggen — back as a set-and-forget. He played every minute of all 38 league games last season for 130 points at £4.5m. The trade-off is the ceiling: Brighton rate 2½ stars and kept 10 clean sheets, so this is volume and save points, not a shut-out machine.

Defenders

The five most-selected defendersLive

#Rank	Player	Club	Owned	Pts	Price	GW1–3
1	GabrielDEF	ARS	26.7%	209	£8.0m	COV (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyAVL (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 4: DifficultCHE (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 4: Difficult
2	ShawDEF	MUN	24.4%	113	£4.5m	HUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyIPS (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyEVE (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
3	Pedro PorroDEF	TOT	23.3%	117	£5.5m	BRE (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageNEW (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyNFO (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
4	GuéhiDEF	MCI	23.2%	179	£6.0m	BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageCOV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy
5	O'ReillyDEF	MCI	22.3%	160	£6.5m	BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageCOV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy

Gabriel — back on merit. His 209 points made him the top-scoring defender in the game, behind only Haaland and Fernandes overall, with 18 clean sheets. The objections are the same as Raya's, because they're the same team: £8.0m buys the ceiling, and Arsenal's August is where it will be tested. Buy him for the season and accept the slow start if it comes.

Shaw — back as the enabler. £4.5m, started all 38 league games, and the cheapest door into United's soft opening. Be honest about the ceiling: one goal and one assist all season — he pays in clean sheets or not at all.

Pedro Porro — judge him on the run. Spurs open on a 2.80, and £5.5m into it is a fair August trade. The base is thinner than the ownership suggests — 117 points and nine clean sheets from 32 starts in a 3-star defence — so back him for the run and make him re-earn the slot when it turns.

Guéhi — fade. His 179 points were the second-best defender total in the game, and they straddle a January move from Crystal Palace to a City back line that rotates. The near-quarter of managers holding him are paying Palace-era certainty for City-era risk — the exact trade this list exists to catch.

O'Reilly — back, sized honestly. Of the three City names the crowd holds behind Haaland, he is the only one whose points are all City points: 160 from 29 starts, with five goals and four assists. The nine starts he didn't get are the trade-off — at £6.5m he's one of your five, not the spine of it.

Midfielders

The five most-selected midfieldersLive

#Rank	Player	Club	Owned	Pts	Price	GW1–3
1	B.FernandesMID	MUN	48.3%	235	£12.0m	HUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyIPS (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyEVE (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
2	SzoboszlaiMID	LIV	44.5%	160	£7.0m	NEW (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageNFO (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageIPS (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy
3	RogersMID	CHE	27.5%	169	£7.5m	FUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageBHA (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyARS (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 5: Very Difficult
4	SemenyoMID	MCI	25.8%	202	£8.5m	BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageCOV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy
5	MbeumoMID	MUN	22.9%	148	£8.0m	HUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyIPS (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyEVE (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average

Fernandes — back. Just under half the game owns last season's second-highest scorer: 235 points, United's penalties, and an opening soft enough to bank returns immediately. The cost is the cost — at £12.0m he and Haaland are the game's only double-figure prices, and owning both decides your squad's whole shape before you've picked a defender.

Szoboszlai — back what he actually is. More than four squads in ten hold the cheapest ticket into the league's easiest opening run — five Liverpool fixtures, none above 3, at 4-star strength. His 160 points are a good return, not an elite one; the fixtures are doing the heavy lifting in the ownership. Hold him for the run, then make him re-apply.

Rogers — fade until Chelsea show you the role. Every one of his 169 points was scored for Aston Villa; he moved to Chelsea three weeks ago. Over a quarter of the game has bought a £7.5m role that does not exist yet — no confirmed position, no confirmed penalty share — with a trip to Arsenal inside the first three. Buying him later costs a transfer; buying him now costs certainty.

Semenyo — fade at the price. The record is real: 202 points was the fourth-highest total in the game, with 17 goals. But it straddles the January move from Bournemouth, and at City he is third in the penalty queue in a side that rotates as policy. At £8.5m — the second-priciest midfielder the crowd holds — the price assumes a repeat that City's system has never needed from him.

Mbeumo — back: the quietest good pick on these lists. 148 points from 31 starts, all earned in this United side after last summer's move, second on penalties behind Fernandes, and the same kind opening. The trade-off at £8.0m is that his total is the lowest of the five midfielders here — you're backing the platform and the set-piece duty, not the raw number.

The strongest case against the two suitcase totals isn't abstinence — it's the midfielder who finished third at the position and never moved:

The inherited total vs the one that stayed homeFDR over GW1–5

Metric	SemenyoMCI · MID	Gibbs-WhiteNFO · MID
Price	£8.5m	£8.0m
Points	202 ✓ — best of this group	188
PPG	5.5 ✓ — best of this group	5.1
Form	0.0	0.0
Value	23.8	23.5 ✓ — best of this group
xGI/90	0.40 ✓ — best of this group	0.40
Minutes	3,200 ✓ — best of this group	3,101
FDR	2.80 ✓ — best of this group	3.00
Owned	25.8%	11.6%

Gibbs-White's 188 points — behind only Fernandes and Semenyo among midfielders — were all scored in the Forest side he still plays for, at £0.5m less than Semenyo and roughly one squad in nine against one in four.

Forwards

The five most-selected forwardsLive

#Rank	Player	Club	Owned	Pts	Price	GW1–3
1	HaalandFWD	MCI	73.8%	239	£15.5m	BOU (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageCRY (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageCOV (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy
2	João PedroFWD	CHE	55.4%	177	£7.5m	FUL (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageBHA (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyARS (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 5: Very Difficult
3	Calvert-LewinFWD	LEE	24.7%	142	£6.0m	NFO (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageBRE (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageBHA (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
4	BrobbeyFWD	SUN	17.6%	92	£6.0m	IPS (A) gameweek 1, difficulty 2: EasyFUL (H) gameweek 2, difficulty 2: EasyBRE (A) gameweek 3, difficulty 3: Average
5	ThiagoFWD	BRE	16.0%	181	£8.0m	TOT (H) gameweek 1, difficulty 3: AverageLEE (A) gameweek 2, difficulty 3: AverageSUN (H) gameweek 3, difficulty 2: Easy

Haaland — back, and have the real argument elsewhere. 239 points and 27 goals both led the game; he takes the penalties; City's only opening fixture above 3 is the derby. At nearly three squads in four he isn't a pick, he's the entry fee — a haul you don't own loses ground to almost everyone at once, and when the crowd's captaincy stacks on top, the swing doubles. The genuine question is whether £15.5m of structure suits your squad, not whether he'll score.

João Pedro — back for safety, but read on. Over half the game owns him, on 177 points and 15 goals from a first Chelsea season — real output, earned at the club, fairly priced at £7.5m. Just understand what the stake buys at that ownership: he defends your rank rather than moves it. He is the pick you make in order not to lose.

Calvert-Lewin — a fair bet, sized as one. 142 points, every one at Leeds, first on their penalties, £6.0m into a 2.80 run. The catch is the club: Leeds rate 2½ stars, and soft fixtures pay out less through a weak side. Back him as your third forward; fade him as your second.

Brobbey — fade. 92 points from 22 starts is the thinnest outfield record in these tables, at the same £6.0m as Calvert-Lewin, and Sunderland's gentle start — Ipswich away, Fulham home — runs into Arsenal and City by GW4–5. Nearly a fifth of the game has bought the price tag; the player hasn't yet given them a reason.

Thiago — back: the against-the-grain call of the summer. Only Haaland scored more league goals last season than Thiago's 22; only six players beat his 181 points; he takes Brentford's penalties; and nothing in Brentford's run is harder than a 3 until Chelsea visit in GW5. One squad in six holds him. The £8.0m price is £0.5m above João Pedro — for four more points, seven more goals and the penalty duty, at less than a third of the ownership. Same output class, entirely different leverage.

The crowd's second forward vs the one it walked pastFDR over GW1–5

Metric	João PedroCHE · FWD	ThiagoBRE · FWD
Price	£7.5m	£8.0m
Points	177	181 ✓ — best of this group
PPG	5.1 ✓ — best of this group	4.8
Form	0.0	0.0
Value	23.6 ✓ — best of this group	22.6
xGI/90	0.57	0.62 ✓ — best of this group
Minutes	2,658	3,282 ✓ — best of this group
FDR	3.00	3.00
Owned	55.4%	16.0%

When the safe pick and the leverage pick cost this close to the same, the ownership column is the argument.

Back the Crowd, or Take It On?

The lists sort into three tiers, and each asks for a different discipline.

Above 40%, follow — or have a trigger. Haaland, João Pedro, Fernandes and Szoboszlai are rank protection; fading one is the biggest single bet available in the game and needs a concrete reason — an injury flag, a role change, a fixture wall — not a hunch. If you're chasing, pick one fade, deliberately, and build the rest of the squad to survive being wrong. That's a differentials decision, not a default setting.

In the contested middle — roughly 20–30% — run the earned-points test. This is where most squads are actually decided, and one question does the sorting: were the points scored at the club the player is at now? Gabriel, Shaw, Pedro Porro, O'Reilly, Mbeumo, Calvert-Lewin and Lammens pass. Rogers, Semenyo, Guéhi and Dúbravka don't — their totals arrived in a transfer window. Backing the first group is buying evidence; backing the second is buying a projection at evidence prices, which makes it exactly the place to attack when you need to gain ground.

In the teens, the same test finds the edges. Thiago and Verbruggen pass it with room to spare; Brobbey fails it. Low ownership is only an edge when the record underneath is real — otherwise it's just an unpopular mistake.

Where you sit decides which discipline dominates. Protecting a lead means owning the 40% core and denying rivals leverage; chasing means keeping that core anyway and attacking the suitcase tier with one or two earned-output picks — the mini-league playbook covers when to cover and when to swing.

The Against-the-Grain Shortlist

Going against the grain properly means holding the unowned to the same standard as the owned: output earned at the current club, a run that supports the buy, and no more than one or two of them around a covered core — sized so a blank costs a bench slot, not a season. Run that filter over the full pool and a real shortlist falls out.

In goal, the sharpest case sits at the club everyone already owns outfield: Donnarumma kept 15 clean sheets for 135 points behind a 4½-star side and costs £5.5m — roughly a third of Raya's ownership, for a kinder opening run. Kelleher (143 points from a full Brentford season, £5.0m, about one squad in eighteen) and Pickford (135 points, started all 38, under 9%) are the budget versions. In defence, Tarkowski's 170 points at £6.0m sit under 10% owned, and Matheus Nunes is the cleanest arbitrage on the board: the crowd holds Guéhi at 23% and Nunes below 5% for the same £6.0m, the same City back line and the same rotation risk. Truffert is the find the top-five lists hide — 165 points from all 38 starts at £5.5m and under 5% — with the caveat that Bournemouth's opening is among the league's worst, City away first up.

In midfield, Enzo returned 157 points from 35 starts and sits under 6%, the trade-off being a Chelsea attack that has just added two of the game's most-selected players around him. Saka is the premium leverage play: 157 points from only 25 starts at £9.5m — elite output whenever he started — held by about one squad in nine in a field that spent its premium budget on Haaland and Fernandes. Up front, Watkins' 167 points sit in roughly one squad in eight, and Mateta — 114 from 25 starts, on Palace's penalties — under 7%. Isak, at £9.0m off 41 points and eight starts, is the rehabilitation bet the data can't underwrite yet: a flag, not a record.

The shortlist — earned output, low ownershipFDR over GW1–5

Player	Club	Price	Pts	Val	FDR	Sel
DonnarummaGKP	MCI	£5.5m	135	24.5	2.80	11.0%
KelleherGKP	BRE	£5.0m	143	28.6	3.00	5.7%
TarkowskiDEF	EVE	£6.0m	170	28.3	3.00	9.8%
Matheus N.DEF	MCI	£6.0m	154	25.7	2.80	4.7%
TruffertDEFValue pick	BOU	£5.5m	165	30.0	3.60	4.8%
Gibbs-WhiteMID	NFO	£8.0m	188	23.5	3.00	11.6%
EnzoMID	CHE	£7.0m	157	22.4	3.00	5.5%
SakaMID	ARS	£9.5m	157	16.5	3.20	10.7%
WatkinsFWD	AVL	£8.0m	167	20.9	3.00	12.7%

None of this will sit still between now and 21 August. Late drafts pour in, price rises drag managers toward whoever is being bought, and the gameweek transfer trends show the crowd's hand daily.

Before the deadline, sort the full pool by ownership in the player statistics table to see the complete picture these tables summarise — then settle your own back-or-fade calls, name by name, in the squad builder while the prices hold.