Deadline: Saturday 10 October, 11:00 BST. Arsenal host Leeds ninety minutes later, the first game of the round.
The short version:
- Captain Bruno Fernandes. We project 8.5. Man Utd are at home to Spurs. Erling Haaland projects 8.3. The gap is 0.2 points, inside our 2.0-point average error, and both of our squads captain Fernandes with Haaland as vice. Haaland asked to come off for Norway on Sunday 4 October, which our number can't see.
- João Pedro, owned by 64.8%, is 75% to play, and we don't project anyone who's flagged. That removes 108 players from our numbers this week, Cole Palmer and Alexander Isak among them. Flags are as at Tuesday 6 October.
- The squad costs £99.8m and projects 72.6 points from a 5-4-1. Bukayo Saka is in. Gabriel, our top-projected defender, isn't.
Every projection here comes from our model run on Tuesday 6 October, 15:48 BST, looking at Gameweeks 6 to 13, with five gameweeks played.
Who should I captain in Gameweek 6?
Bruno Fernandes, 8.5 projected. Man Utd host Spurs on Saturday 10 October at 17:30 BST. FPL rates United's fixture 2 and Spurs' 4.
Erling Haaland projects 8.3, the second-highest of the 277 players we project. Man City are away at Liverpool, the only game where FPL rates both sides 4.
The gap is 0.2 points. Our average error is 2.0. Last week we called 7.3 against 7.1 noise and captained Haaland. He returned 6, doubled to 12. Fernandes returned 2. That doesn't make this flip a pattern. It's one fixture and one number.
What does separate them is ownership. 38.4% own Fernandes and 73.9% own Haaland, so the Fernandes armband is the contrarian one.
The one thing our model can't see is Haaland's minutes. He asked to be substituted after 67 minutes of Norway's 2-1 defeat by Portugal on Sunday 4 October. Norway's coach put it down to fatigue and no injury has been confirmed. FPL shows no flag on him as at Tuesday 6 October. Our model reads FPL's flag, so 8.3 assumes he plays his usual 88 minutes. Fernandes carries no such question.
What is the best £100m squad for Gameweek 6?
Fifteen players, real rules: 2/5/5/3, £100.0m, three per club maximum. Best starting eleven across Gameweeks 6 to 13.
£99.8m. 72.6 projected points for the Gameweek 6 eleven, captain doubled. 5-4-1.
| Pos | Player | Club | Price | Owned | GW6 projection | GW6–13 projection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GKP | James Trafford | LEE | £5.0m | 5.5% | 4.3 | 35.2 |
| DEF | Marc Guéhi | MCI | £6.0m | 18.1% | 5.0 | 45.5 |
| DEF | Maxim De Cuyper | BHA | £5.0m | 28.0% | 4.7 | 37.2 |
| DEF | Silva | BOU | £5.0m | 0.4% | 4.6 | 42.6 |
| DEF | Leif Davis | IPS | £4.0m | 7.0% | 4.6 | 33.0 |
| DEF | Bobby Thomas | COV | £4.0m | 8.5% | 4.4 | 36.1 |
| MID | Bruno Fernandes (C) | MUN | £11.9m | 38.4% | 8.5 | 61.0 |
| MID | Bryan Mbeumo | MUN | £7.9m | 20.5% | 7.5 | 53.3 |
| MID | Bukayo Saka | ARS | £9.6m | 14.1% | 7.4 | 54.4 |
| MID | Marcus Tavernier | BOU | £6.1m | 6.8% | 4.9 | 41.0 |
| FWD | Erling Haaland (V) | MCI | £15.6m | 73.9% | 8.3 | 69.7 |
Bench in order: Dan Bentley (COV, £4.0m, goalkeeper), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (LEE, £6.0m), Joshua Zirkzee (MUN, £5.3m), Will Hughes (CRY, £4.4m).
Gabriel projects 6.6, the highest of any defender, and he isn't in the squad. A £4.0m defender returns 4.6 on our numbers. The best midfielder at £4.5m or under projects 2.6. That's why the money sits in midfield.
Haaland is the only forward in the eleven. The next-best forwards are Igor Thiago at 4.9 and Gonzalo García at 4.8. Calvert-Lewin, owned by 24.7%, projects 3.4 and is on our bench.
Build the same squad for Gameweek 6 alone and 8 of the 15 stay. That squad projects 74.8 against 72.6, and it captains Fernandes too.
One thing we can't see: 282 players have too few minutes for a number, and 95 of them have played. Nobel Mendy (HUL, £4.1m) has 25 points, Jannik Schuster (BRE, £4.5m) has 21 at 0.3% owned, and Ainsley Maitland-Niles (EVE, £4.5m) has 21.
Building from scratch with a Wildcard instead? Our Gameweek 6 Wildcard draft gets its team-news update on Thursday 8 October. Or build your own on the Team Planner.
What do the Gameweek 6 fixtures look like?
Difficulty is FPL's own rating, 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest), from each side's point of view.
| Kick-off (BST) | Home | Away | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 10, 12:30 | Arsenal | 3 | Leeds | 5 |
| Sat 10, 15:00 | Aston Villa | 3 | Brentford | 3 |
| Sat 10, 15:00 | Chelsea | 3 | Bournemouth | 4 |
| Sat 10, 15:00 | Ipswich Town | 2 | Fulham | 2 |
| Sat 10, 15:00 | Sunderland | 3 | Brighton | 3 |
| Sat 10, 17:30 | Man Utd | 2 | Spurs | 4 |
| Sun 11, 14:00 | Crystal Palace | 3 | Nott'm Forest | 3 |
| Sun 11, 14:00 | Hull City | 3 | Everton | 2 |
| Sun 11, 16:30 | Liverpool | 4 | Man City | 4 |
| Mon 12, 20:00 | Coventry City | 3 | Newcastle | 2 |
Leeds at Arsenal is the only 5 on the board, and Liverpool v Man City is the only game where both sides rate 4. Coventry v Newcastle is on Monday 12 October at 20:00 BST, so Bobby Thomas plays after everyone else in our eleven.
The full season grid is on Fixtures.
Who are the best-value players in Gameweek 6?
Leif Davis, £4.0m, 4.6 projected: 1.14 points per £m, the best rate of any player we project.
| Player | Club | Pos | Price | Owned | GW6 projection | Points per £m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leif Davis | IPS | DEF | £4.0m | 7.0% | 4.6 | 1.14 |
| Bobby Thomas | COV | DEF | £4.0m | 8.5% | 4.4 | 1.10 |
| Malick Thiaw | NEW | DEF | £5.0m | 2.2% | 5.1 | 1.02 |
| Riccardo Calafiori | ARS | DEF | £5.9m | 50.5% | 5.9 | 1.00 |
| Sven Botman | NEW | DEF | £5.0m | 0.7% | 4.8 | 0.95 |
Defenders fill 13 of the top 15 places on this list. Price compresses defence far more than it compresses attack.
The game's biggest buys of the break aren't on it. Among the players we project, the four most-bought so far this gameweek are Pascal Groß (+840,322 net, owned by 29.6%), Kevin Schade (+404,056), Charalampos Kostoulas (+326,891) and Maxim De Cuyper (+302,765). We project them at 4.4, 4.5, 3.2 and 4.7.
Every price and projection is sortable on Players.
How did the model do in Gameweek 5?
We beat the crowd by our widest margin and still lost to the average manager. Both are true.
| Ranking by… | GW1 | GW2 | GW3 | GW4 | GW5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our model | +0.413 | +0.376 | +0.426 | +0.476 | +0.557 |
| Ownership — what the crowd picked | +0.360 | +0.394 | +0.414 | +0.414 | +0.329 |
| Average error, points per player | 2.05 | 1.99 | 2.02 | 2.19 | 2.00 |
| Hauls (6+ points) in our projected top 20 | 6/20 | 9/20 | 7/20 | 10/20 | 4/20 |
Our ranking led ownership by 0.227. Our eleven scored 36 with the captain doubled, and the average manager scored 48. That's the second week running that the ranking improved and the squad fell further behind. The full Gameweek 5 review has the misses, including João Pedro not playing a minute.
Tell us where this is wrong
- Show us your Gameweek 6 draft and why. Build it on the Team Planner, share the link, and name the one pick you'd defend against the model.
- Tell us when a number looks wrong. This player, this figure, here's why. That's the most valuable message we can get.
- Which armband did you play, Fernandes or Haaland? We'll score that split in the Gameweek 6 review, and your answer tells us whether the 0.2 changed anything.
Send it through the feedback form for anything specific, or join the Discord if it needs a conversation. Both get read every day.
Next: the Gameweek 6 review. Until then: Players for every projection, Fixtures for the difficulty grid, Team Planner to build your fifteen, and My Team to score your squad against ours.