Who to Buy With Your 5 Free Transfers

The Africa Cup of Nations is starting soon, so FPL decided to bestow us with 5 FTs. The only issue is, no one going to AFCON is even highly owned…? So, and I never thought this would even be possible, but it appears as if FPL has created Fantasy Football Inflation (™).

But we’ve got you covered. Let’s disregard the more “obvious picks” in Erling Haaland, Bruno Fernandes, Bukayo Saka, and Jurriën Timber, and instead focus on how best you can derive value from these free transfers.

David Raya’s the obvious pick here. The only issue is he’s more boring than water in your meal deal.

So why not buy Caoimhín Kelleher instead? For just £4.5m, you can get a goalkeeper in a top-half defence who faces a lot of low-danger shots (which bodes well for save points) and has some really good fixtures ahead: LEE, WOL, BOU, TOT, EVE, SUN.

2025-26’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, Daniel Muñoz, needs knee surgery and is out for a few weeks. Considering how highly owned he is, everyone could do with a defender transfer?

Nico O’Reilly seems to have nailed down a starting spot in that City defence and is putting up ridiculous underlying numbers, with an npxG+xAG/90 of 0.38. Plus, his next four fixtures (CRY, WHU, NFO, SUN) are ridiculously good. His upside is huuuuge and City’s defence is good enough that his floor is pretty decent too.

Similar to Kelleher, Brentford’s Nathan Collins is a pretty shrewd pick. Brentford’s defence is decent, Collins has some attacking threat, and he averages over 10 DEFCONs a game, meaning his floor is effectively 4 points to start with.

Speaking of DEFCON magnets, James Tarkowski is a good buy assuming you bench him for his next two fixtures. After that? Well, he plays BUR, NFO, BRE, WOL, AVL, LEE, BHA, FUL, and BOU. Talk about set and forget, eh?

Recommending Man United MIDs feels like masochism at this point, but hey, the fixtures are there to target. While Bruno is the obvious pick, Matheus Cunha should get some decent minutes as United’s main CF in the absence of Benjamin Šeško, and should see more attacks go through him while Bryan Mbeumo’s off to AFCON.

For a less volatile pick, how’s about Dominik Szoboszlai? He’s nailed on for 90, has begun taking up more attacking positions, has good open-play threat and DEFCON potential, and even took a penalty for Liverpool in the Champions League.

Now, this is not to say that he’s not on 4 yellow cards and is one away from a suspension and may not take penalties with Isak on the pitch, but my word, is he a good pick.

I wouldn’t worry too much about not getting him this week though, because GW 18 is a decent entry pick for the Hungarian, straight into a plum fixture against Wolves (H).

For a more attacking option, how about… Antoine Semenyo. I know, I know. He’s been more disappointing than Arne Slot, according to Mo Salah recently. And his fixtures really aren’t that great. But Semenyo’s still a nailed-on 90-minute man, who loves shooting the ball, is quite high up in the penalty hierarchy, and faces Burnley (H) next week. A two-week punt, anyone?

Igor Thiago is the new flavour of the week, and for good reason. Whew, talk about a menacing name. And then you find out he plays for Brentford, and he gets a lot less menacing.

Where Thiago’s non-penalty data isn’t necessarily inspiring, he’s Brentford’s talisman for a rather good fixture run and should only grow in importance when Dango leaves for AFCON.

Now, the issue here is that Dango is a rather effective penalty winner, so that is not ideal for Thiago’s xPens, but playing as the striker for a top-half attack means you’ll see a decent chunk of chances fall your way, and I have faith in the best striker to ever come out of Brazil to convert them.

But if the modern-day R9 doesn’t inspire, how about Raúl Jiménez? He’s nailed on in the absence of Muniz, takes penalties, is cheap (£6.2m), is putting up decent underlying data, and has really good fixtures coming up: BUR, NFO, WHU, CRY.