The Community Shield gave us the final answers we needed before the start of the season. Arsenal beat Manchester City 3–0, several of the most interesting FPL names delivered, while Erling Haaland looked like a player still short of rhythm after a brief pre-season.
That makes the assessment ahead of Gameweek 1 clearer.
Our approach is not to collect as many big names as possible. It is about finding players who have both a role we can rely on and fixtures that make us genuinely want to use them from the first kick of the ball.
For us, that means Bruno Fernandes and Gabriel are the two premium players we most want to start with. Haaland remains the obvious danger if we go without him, but £15.5 million is a lot to tie up in a player we will not necessarily want to captain in either of the opening two gameweeks.
Bruno and Gabriel offer the security we want
It is hard to look past Bruno Fernandes.
Manchester United open against Hull and Ipswich, and Bruno combines an excellent fixture list with penalties, set pieces, secure minutes and an attacking role that makes him our preferred captain early in the season.
That is also precisely what makes the Haaland debate interesting.
If we end up captaining Bruno in both Gameweek 1 and Gameweek 2, we will not get maximum value from Haaland's enormous price tag. Ideally, a premium player costing £15.5 million should not just be good. He should be the player whose points you want to double.
Gabriel, meanwhile, is difficult to go without.
Arsenal head into their league opener on the back of a 3–0 win over Manchester City and face Coventry at home. It is almost a textbook example of a fixture in which Gabriel could deliver across the board: a clean sheet, defensive contributions, set-piece threat and bonus points.
This is the type of fixture where a double-digit haul is not just possible, but where the ceiling could be as high as one of those classic 15–17-point hauls if everything falls into place.
That is why we prefer the combination of Bruno and Gabriel to Haaland from the start.
Haaland can wait – but must not be forgotten
Haaland played 53 minutes in the Community Shield, and we expect him to start the league opener against Bournemouth.
It is not his starting place that concerns us.
It is his rhythm.
City looked less ready than Arsenal, and Haaland still looked like a player lacking that final bit of sharpness. After a shorter pre-season than usual, that is not particularly surprising.
It makes it easier to go without him at £15.5 million.
But this assessment has a very short shelf life.
Haaland needs one match. Two goals against Bournemouth, a few big chances and a City side suddenly finding their flow again, and the debate could be over by Saturday evening.
That is why a team without Haaland must be built with a route back to him. Our initial plan is to bring the Norwegian in from Gameweek 3, but we are prepared to react earlier if the signs change.
In our view, starting without Haaland is a defensible decision. Backing yourself into a corner where it takes four transfers to bring him in is not.
Arsenal have several players we want
The Community Shield made Arsenal even more interesting.
Riccardo Calafiori went from being an intriguing option to looking like one of the most tempting defensive buys in the game. He started, scored and was part of a side that kept Manchester City goalless.
Pairing Gabriel and Calafiori against Coventry is therefore no longer a strategy we consider unnecessarily aggressive. It could actually be an excellent way to attack Gameweek 1.
The problem – a nice one to have – is that the third Arsenal slot has suddenly become valuable too.
Martin Ødegaard and Christos Tzolis both cost £6.5 million and were outstanding against City. Ødegaard looked far more direct than we often associate with him in FPL terms, while Tzolis showed exactly the kind of attacking end product you want from a player in this price bracket.
Tzolis provided two assists in the 3–0 win, while Ødegaard scored. That means the choice between them is more about profile than price.
Ødegaard feels like the safer option. Tzolis feels like the player with the more explosive FPL profile.
Both are now genuine candidates if you want to fill all three Arsenal slots.
Saka, on the other hand, remains a player we are happy to wait on. He got important minutes in the Community Shield, but is taking longer to reach match fitness than several of his team-mates. With Arsenal also offering Ødegaard and Tzolis at £6.5 million, there is no need to pay £9.5 million for Saka as early as Gameweek 1.
Palmer becomes even more attractive without Haaland
Cole Palmer is another major reason why we like a structure without Haaland.
He has had a much better pre-season than Saka and looks like the safest additional premium player after Bruno. Chelsea's attack should still run through him, and if you save the money on Haaland, it is possible to own Palmer without having to dismantle the rest of the team.
That is perhaps the biggest advantage of leaving out Haaland.
You are not just swapping one superstar for a cheaper striker. You are freeing up enough money to upgrade two or three other positions at the same time.
Palmer, Gabriel, Calafiori and an additional Arsenal midfielder could collectively deliver more than one expensive Haaland slot and several compromises around him.
Liverpool are the team we do not want to overlook
There is one more club we believe should be represented from the start: Liverpool.
The fixture list is simply too good to ignore. Liverpool face Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Ipswich and Fulham in the opening four gameweeks, and the Premier League's own Fixture Difficulty Rating ranks their opening schedule as the best in the league over the first five gameweeks.
That makes the question less about whether to own a Liverpool player and more about which one.
Szoboszlai, Wirtz and Isak are the three we like best.
Dominik Szoboszlai is the safest choice in terms of team structure. He was Liverpool's highest-scoring midfielder or forward in FPL last season with 160 points, and new manager Andoni Iraola has already used him centrally in pre-season. He costs £7.0 million, while Wirtz is priced at £7.5 million and Isak at £9.0 million.
Szoboszlai is therefore the straightforward route in. His price is affordable, his role looks secure and, in our view, he carries less risk if you want Liverpool coverage without using too much of your budget.
But the other two feel as though they have a higher ceiling.
Wirtz has the qualities to become far more central to Liverpool's attacking play this season, particularly following Salah's departure. Isak, meanwhile, is the natural goalscorer up front and is described by the Premier League's Scout as virtually nailed on to start while Hugo Ekitiké is out.
Pre-season has also provided positive signs. Both Isak and Wirtz scored against Monaco, while Szoboszlai was involved in the link-up play leading to Isak's goal.
For us, the nature of the choice is therefore quite clear:
Szoboszlai is the safe option. Wirtz and Isak are the options if you want to pay for a higher ceiling.
Either way, we would ideally have at least one of them from Gameweek 1.
Maguire is hard to overlook at that price
Harry Maguire remains one of our favourite defensive options.
£5.0 million gets you a lot of player for your money.
Manchester United open with two very attractive fixtures, and Maguire has more to rely on than just clean sheets. He is one of the team's biggest set-piece threats and can also earn defensive contribution points.
That adds another dimension if you already own Bruno Fernandes. A Bruno corner against Hull or Ipswich could suddenly deliver points at both ends of your team.
We do not need United to become the league's best defence for Maguire to be a good buy. We just need him to start, get on the end of set pieces and give us a way to attack the opening two fixtures.
We believe he does that.
The budget players make the premium strategy possible
A good FPL team is not built solely around the players you most want to own. It is also built around the players who make the rest of the team possible.
Pascal Groß is one of our favourites in that category. Set pieces and a potential penalty-taking role give him more routes to points than most players in the same price bracket.
Trai Hume is similarly interesting in defence. If Sunderland continue to use him high up the pitch, you are effectively getting a player with an attacking role who is still classified as a defender.
Maxim De Cuyper perhaps has even greater attacking upside, but also greater uncertainty over his minutes. That makes him more of an aggressive punt than a player we feel we have to own.
Aston Villa's 17-year-old Brian Madjo is a name we are still monitoring, but not a player we are basing our GW1 plan on. For now, he remains on the watchlist.
Our conclusion ahead of Gameweek 1
We think the outline of a good GW1 team is starting to become clear.
Bruno Fernandes and Gabriel give us the combination of security and value we most want from our premium slots. Bruno can be captained through the opening two gameweeks, while Gabriel's home fixture against Coventry is too good for us to risk going without him.
Haaland can be left out.
Not because we think he has suddenly stopped being FPL's most feared player, but because £15.5 million is difficult to justify when he is still a little short of rhythm and the captain's armband can go to Bruno anyway.
In our view, Arsenal should be heavily represented, with Calafiori an increasingly tempting defensive double-up alongside Gabriel and Ødegaard or Tzolis a possible third player.
Palmer is the premium option we like if the Haaland money is freed up.
Maguire is one of the best mid-priced defenders.
And Liverpool should not be forgotten. Their opening fixtures are so good that we would ideally have one of Szoboszlai, Wirtz and Isak in the team from the start. Szoboszlai offers the safest and cheapest route in, but Wirtz and Isak have the higher ceiling in our view.
That is also the essence of the entire strategy:
We are not trying to own all the best players.
We want to own the players who give us the most in the fixtures that are actually being played now.
And for Gameweek 1 specifically, we think the money can work harder spread across Bruno, Gabriel, Arsenal and Liverpool than tied up in Haaland.
The only caveat is also the biggest:
Haaland can make this entire assessment outdated in a single match.