FPL Tilt · Team talk · Wildcard · Gameweek 7
Wildcarding in Gameweek 7? Read this first
Szoboszlai is a doubt, everyone is selling Bruno and buying Brighton, and Haaland costs half a team. The decisions a Gameweek 7 wildcard comes down to, with the numbers for each.
Team news at Anfield came out about an hour before kick-off on Sunday, and Dominik Szoboszlai wasn't in it. Not on the bench, not anywhere. If you own him, and nearly three in ten of us do, you probably found out the way most people did, from a group chat going off.
By Monday morning around 117,000 managers had sold him. Liverpool had lost 3-0 to Manchester City, Ryan Gravenberch had been sent off, and Erling Haaland had scored again, which is now five Gameweeks in a row. The two highest scorers in the whole game, meanwhile, are a defender and a 35-year-old midfielder at Brighton, and I'm not sure anybody had that in August.
So the wildcard is tempting. More than 760,000 managers played one in Gameweek 6. If you're thinking about it this week, I can't give you a team to copy, because I don't think there is one. What there is, is a handful of decisions that could each go either way, and it helps to see them laid out.
There's a video version of this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycu6ZAqmJXw
Liverpool first
Szoboszlai has a hamstring problem. Liverpool's head coach, Andoni Iraola, told Sky Sports before the match that he'd come back from international duty carrying an overload. "We will have to wait for Dom," he said.
He wasn't any more cheerful afterwards. Liverpool have four matches in ten days, and Iraola said it would be difficult to get injured players back during a run like that, the Evening Standard reports.
It doesn't stop there. Alexander Isak has a thigh injury and Cody Gakpo an ankle injury, both picked up on international duty, and neither has a return date. Gravenberch is suspended for one league match, and that match is Brentford away on Saturday.
Szoboszlai might play this weekend. He might not. If you're wildcarding anyway, you have to decide how much of a maybe you're willing to carry.
The four most people start with
Haaland, Bruno Fernandes, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel. On FPL Tilt's projected points for Gameweeks 7 to 11, each of them is top of his position. They also cost £45.0m between them, so that's nearly half the budget on four players before you've picked a goalkeeper.
The awkward part is that three of the four gave their owners nothing last weekend. And Fernandes has been at it for a month.
That's a hat-trick against Ipswich and then five blanks. About 160,000 managers have sold him since the last deadline and I understand every one of them.
What keeps him in the conversation is the fixture list. Manchester City are away in Gameweeks 8 and 10. In those same two weeks Manchester United are at home, to Bournemouth and then Aston Villa, and in both the projections have Fernandes ahead of Haaland.
Figures read on 12 October 2026. The projections are updated daily: Players shows today's figures.
If you own both, the armband more or less picks itself for five weeks. If you can't face Fernandes, Bryan Mbeumo plays the same matches for £4.0m less and is projected about three points behind him over the run. And if you'd rather stay away from United altogether, Cole Palmer has three home games in the next five.
Haaland
He costs £15.6m and three in four managers own him. If you go without, you lose ground every time he scores, and lately that's every week.
The other side is the money. Igor Thiago at Brentford is £7.8m, exactly half the price, and is projected for 21.6 points over the five Gameweeks against Haaland's 29.0. With the £7.8m you save you can go from Mbeumo up to Fernandes and still have £3.8m left over for the bench.
So you're choosing between a captain you never have to think about and a squad with more in it. I've built both versions a few times now and I still change my mind.
Brighton
Maxim De Cuyper and Pascal Groß are on 53 points each, which is more than anyone else in the game. They are also two of the three most bought players this week.
It's the next three matches that give me pause. Crystal Palace at home on Sunday looks fine. Then it's Liverpool away, and then Manchester City away.
Over Gameweeks 7 to 11, De Cuyper is ninth among defenders on projected points and Groß is fourteenth among midfielders. That's decent. It isn't first and second.
If you've owned them since the start, I can't see anything here that says sell. Buying them today is a different thing, because most of what made them worth owning has already happened. 720,000 of us just bought Brighton. Has anyone looked at the fixtures?
Arsenal at the back, and the cheap players
Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori and David Raya are the top two defenders and the top goalkeeper on projected points. If you take all three you can leave your defence alone for a month.
The catch is that three of Arsenal's next five are away, at Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Newcastle, and they've just conceded at home to Leeds. You could take two and save money with a £5.0m goalkeeper. You could take one, and use the difference on Manchester City's Marc Guéhi, since City are the side with the home matches.
Whichever way you go, the sums only work if somebody cheap is pulling his weight.
Silva at Bournemouth is £5.0m and owned by 0.6% of managers. Enzo Le Fée at Sunderland is £5.7m. Thomas at Coventry is £4.0m. On projected points all three are level with midfielders who cost £8m or more. One of them in your team is usually what lets you keep Haaland and Fernandes together.
What you end up with
When I put it all together I keep landing on three different teams.
The first is the one you'd expect: Haaland, Fernandes, Saka, as much of Arsenal's defence as you can afford, and a cheap bench. You won't fall far behind with it. You won't make up much ground either.
The second has no Haaland. Thiago goes up front, Fernandes, Saka and Palmer all fit in midfield, and the bench is full of players who start. It's the better squad. It's also the one that will have you watching City's score.
The third keeps Haaland and saves everywhere else, with Mbeumo, Silva, Le Fée and Thomas. You'd share very few players with the managers around you, and that works in both directions.
There's a fourth, which is not to play it. The first wildcard is good until the Gameweek 19 deadline, and I'd be surprised if this turns out to be the worst week of the autumn.
The Gameweek 7 deadline is Saturday 17 October.
Prices and ownership are from the official game. Projected points are FPL Tilt's estimates, read from fpltilt.com on 12 October 2026, before the last match of Gameweek 6. Team news is as reported that morning by the Evening Standard.
Figures read on 12 October 2026. The projections are updated daily: Players shows today's figures.