Last updated on August 1st, 2024

With the 2024/2025 FPL season underway and over 2.6 million managers having already created their teams, it’s time to unveil my initial draft. I’ll also provide some reasoning and information to explain why I chose these players for my first draft.

Initial draft:

Goalkeepers:

Iversen could become whichever keeper is priced at 4.0, from the team you probably won’t need 3 players. Regarding Raya, although I believe that Arsenal’s fixtures are not great at the start of the season and that their defenders are not as essential as current ownership suggests, I hate making goalkeeping transfers. Since Raya offers the cheapest route (and most nailed) into the league’s best defense, for me this is just set-and-forget until the first wildcard.

Defense:

Defense features possibly the cheapest playing defenders from Liverpool and City (though I would bench Walker in GW1 and Konate could become Gomez or Quansah based on the expected first 11), Aina who’s been very attacking and impressive so far in pre-season, Mykolenko representing Everton’s solid back four and Barco who could end up being a real steal at this price (on set pieces and very attacking). Additionally, defenders from those teams rotate well for the first three-game weeks, so if you rotate them correctly, you would have:

GW1: ips, BOU, BRI

GW2: BRE, IPS, sou

GW3: whu, WOL, BOU

Midfield:

This part of the team could see significant changes before the first deadline, as I might look for a way to include Palmer, who I believe could continue his strong form from last season. Observing friendly matches, especially those close to the start of the league, will be crucial in answering several key questions, such as:

• How will Salah perform in Slot’s system?
• Is Nkunku a good alternative to Palmer?
• Can Bruno, or even Rashford, who I am also considering due to his reduced price and summer off, become difference makers?

Forwards:

The key question is obviously with or without Haaland. Currently, I am leaning towards the “WITH” option, and this is unlikely to change. A leaky Chelsea defense and the game against Ipswich in GW2 are compelling reasons to stick with the league’s best striker, at least at the beginning of the season. You don’t want to see your mini-league rival captaining Haaland against Ipswich at home while you don’t own him.

The second question was Watkins or Isak. I prefer Isak for two reasons: fixtures and preseason. Isak has far better fixtures in the opening two game weeks and has had a full preseason, while Watkins is yet to join Aston Villa’s team. Additionally, Villa faces West Ham under a new manager, whose teams don’t tend to concede many goals, and then hosts the league’s best defense in GW2 (although Watkins did make fun of them last time at the Emirates). 

The third striker is currently Muniz. Fulham’s new number 9 has the edge over Wood at the moment, but this could change if I drop CHO from midfield, as tripling up on Forest seems a bit excessive.

Key Notes:

This is the team that offers great rotation possibilities and does not require transfer until GW4, in of course ideal circumstances where no injuries or suspensions occur, and all players are starters. This would offer an opportunity to maximize new rules related to free transfer accumulations and enable additional mini wildcards later in the season. Another interesting note is that this team (with transfer after GW3) does not have a Fixture Difficulty Rating (based on Premier Fantasy Tools Planner) above 2.5 until GW8.

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