The model’s best players for Gameweek 1
Single-week expected points for opening weekend, off the 10 August model run. Mbeumo tops the board, Haaland is fourth at 74% ownership, and two of the biggest names carry minutes doubt.
Photo: Declan Rice, Emirates Cup 2024 — Timmy96 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
We're eight days from kick-off. The season opens on Friday 21 August with Arsenal against Coventry at 8pm, a fixture the model regards as barely a contest.
Everything below is single-week expected points for GW1 alone, taken from the 10 August run (odds-backed team rates, 10,000 simulations per player). It isn't six-week value and it isn't a season plan, so read it as a note about one round of fixtures and nothing more.
The week hangs on three fixtures
λ is the model's expected goals for each side, and the gap between the two λs is about the cleanest one-number summary of a fixture you can get. Opening weekend is unusually top-heavy by that measure: three games carry a real edge, while the other seven sit close to coin flips.
| Fixture | Home λ | Away λ | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal v Coventry | 2.71 | 0.47 | +2.24 |
| Man City v Bournemouth | 2.49 | 1.10 | +1.39 |
| Hull v Man Utd | 0.77 | 2.10 | −1.33 |
| Everton v Crystal Palace | 1.52 | 1.14 | +0.38 |
| Nott'm Forest v Leeds | 1.48 | 1.19 | +0.29 |
| Brighton v Aston Villa | 1.66 | 1.44 | +0.21 |
| Brentford v Spurs | 1.56 | 1.45 | +0.11 |
| Ipswich v Sunderland | 1.29 | 1.34 | −0.05 |
| Fulham v Chelsea | 1.38 | 1.70 | −0.32 |
| Newcastle v Liverpool | 1.42 | 1.84 | −0.42 |
GW1 expected goals by side, 10 August run. Edge is home λ minus away λ, so a negative number means the away side is favoured. Coventry, Hull and Ipswich are promoted and their ratings lean on priors.
Seven of the model's top ten players for the week come from those three games, which is less a modelling insight than common sense with a number attached: good players in soft fixtures tend to score.
The captain question
Most managers will hand Haaland the armband and get on with their weekend, and the model doesn't consider that a scandal — it has him fourth. It does have a clear first choice though, and for once it isn't a striker.
Top of the board on expected points, and the haul odds aren't close either: 0.25 of simulated gameweeks end with him on ten or more, against Haaland's 0.16. Hull are expected to concede 2.10 and score 0.77, he's second in line for penalties behind Bruno, and only Haaland beats his 0.40 goal probability. At the very least, give the armband some genuine thought before defaulting it elsewhere.
Third overall, still ahead of Haaland, with penalties, free kicks and the best start probability of anyone in the top five (0.90). There's nothing exciting left about Bruno as a pick, which is sort of the point — he'll play the full ninety at Hull and he takes everything.
Home to Bournemouth is a good fixture rather than a free hit: City are expected to score 2.49, and those goals now get shared with Semenyo and a functioning midfield. The key number is the 73.9% ownership. At that level he works more like insurance than a pick — you hold him so his goals can't wreck your rank, which is a perfectly sensible reason to own a footballer without making him the best captain on the board.
Arsenal at home to Coventry
The model makes this one 2.71 expected goals to 0.47. Seven Arsenal players sit in the top twenty, and the two highest are defenders — the usual outcome when a side is expected to have the ball for an hour.
Second overall, and his 0.545 clean sheet is the best of any defender on the board. What lifts him clear of the rest is that he's a real goal threat as well (0.129, third-best among defenders) on top of an expected BPS of 17.7 that puts him in the bonus conversation every time Arsenal keep one out. 26.6% is heavy for a defender and still barely a third of Haaland's number.
Two and a half million cheaper than Gabriel for 4.63. The catch is whether he plays: 0.70 to start, with Hincapié and Mosquera in the same conversation.
More the safest Arsenal midfielder than the best one: 0.87 to start, and his 0.550 clean sheet probability is somehow the highest of any outfield player in the round, Gabriel included. For a midfielder that's close to a free point in any week he plays.
United at Hull
The best away fixture of the round by a distance: United 2.10, Hull 0.77. Mbeumo and Bruno are covered above. Two more are worth a look if you're stacking rather than dipping in.
The third United attacker inside the top twenty, owned by 13%. You get the same fixture as Mbeumo and about two-thirds of the projected output, without the early price-rise pressure.
Owned by three percent of the game. £5.0m, 4.13 xP, 0.78 to start, and the best defensive fixture on the board. Nowhere in GW1 is the gap between what the model thinks of a player and what the field thinks wider, and the only explanation I can offer is that nobody has looked.
The best value in the game on points per pound (0.90), and no longer anyone's secret — ownership has climbed from 11% in July to 24%. He remains the right buy at £4.5m; you just won't gain anything on the field by making it.
City, and the case against spending £15.5m
Fifth overall at £6.5m, one place and 0.23 points behind a teammate who costs nine million more — which more or less settles the argument by itself. Attacking full-back, soft home fixture, 0.84 to start.
Everywhere else
Seven players clear 4.3 xP without one of the three big fixtures to lean on. Four of those seven are owned by under 13% of the field.
Eleventh on the board at under 10% ownership. Everton at home to Palace is only a modest edge (+0.38), so the appeal here is minutes and floor rather than the fixture: he's 0.88 to start, and defensive contribution points give him a base most defenders at his price can't match.
Ninth despite being away at Brighton, so the model rates him without any help from the fixture. Ownership has drifted down to 12.7% over the summer and nothing in his numbers explains why.
Forest at home to Leeds is only a +0.29 edge, so you're betting on the player here more than the matchup. Tenth overall on 11.6% ownership, and the 0.87 start probability is well earned — he started 35 of 38 last season on his way to 188 points.
Sixth on the board with the highest start probability in the top ten (0.92). Newcastle away sounds harder than the model finds it — Liverpool are 1.84 to 1.42 favourites, the fourth-best edge any side has this week. The catch is that the rest of the game spent the summer reaching the same conclusion: 32% owned in July, 44.8% now, so whatever advantage there was has mostly been arbitraged away.
Florian Wirtz is the other Liverpool name, thirteenth on 4.39 at 13.8% owned, and Enzo Le Fée at Sunderland sits fourteenth on 4.34 for £6.0m. They're both worth owning over a longer horizon; as pure GW1 plays they're less compelling, but that's a subject for a different note.
What I'd do this week
- Pick one stack — Arsenal's defence or United's attack — rather than trying to own both. Chasing every soft fixture leaves you with a balanced, expensive squad you'll be ripping up by GW4.
- Mbeumo for the armband. He leads the board on expected points and haul odds, and at 22% ownership a big week moves you up the rankings instead of keeping you level with everyone else.
- Leave Gyökeres and Saka until the Friday teamsheet. The doubt is over minutes, and minutes get announced an hour before kick-off.
- Dalot at £5.0m and 3% ownership is the best differential in the round.
- Raya in goal. 0.58 clean sheet, the highest of any keeper, at home to Coventry.
Filter by club or position, open any player deep-dive for fixture-level xP.