The 10% Club: Opta’s Best Under-the-Radar Picks for FPL Gameweek 1

Ahead of the new Premier League season, we’ve crunched the Opta data to uncover five Fantasy Premier League gems being picked by fewer than 10% of managers despite their potential for strong statistical output.

GK – Dean Henderson | 5.0m | 5.5% Ownership

Dean Henderson may be in the form of his life, starring in Crystal Palace’s FA Cup win against Manchester City in May and their Community Shield success against Liverpool at the weekend. Despite that, he is still currently only the 10th-most selected goalkeeper on Fantasy Premier League.

Henderson returned the fourth-most points of any goalkeeper in FPL last season, behind Jordan Pickford, Mats Sels and David Raya, who have all been selected by at least 12% of managers in FPL for this season, while Henderson sits at just 5.5%.

This is perhaps because users are put-off by Palace’s opening fixture, which is away to Chelsea. If this is indeed a reason managers are looking elsewhere, they should reconsider their choice: using the Opta Fixture Difficulty Rating data, only Aston Villa have an easier opening five fixtures this season than Palace.

Henderson ranked fourth for clean sheets in the Premier League last season (11), and has shown he knows how to save a penalty.

He’ll need a career-year to stake a claim for England’s starting spot at next year’s World Cup – drop in him your squad before the opening matchday and keep him there all season.

DEF – Neco Williams | 5.0m | 7.4% Ownership

With the introduction of a new rule in Fantasy Premier League which awards defenders and midfielders with an additional two points should they reach a threshold for defensive contributions on a game-by-game basis, selecting these positions for your squad has become harder but much more interesting.

Neco Williams is one player who can be expected to pull in additional points with healthy regularity. Nottingham Forest are a team who defend deeply, and this results in a large quantity of tackles, interceptions, blocks and clearances for their defenders.

While Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo are both priced at 5.5m in the game, Forest’s go-to wing-backs, Ola Aina and Williams, are both half a million cheaper. Aina is currently selected by 17.0% of the game’s userbase, though Williams is down at 7.4%.

Using the new criteria alongside last season’s performances, Williams would have returned an additional two points in 25.7% of his appearances last season, while Aina would have done so in only 11.4% of his games.

With Williams also having strong underlying attacking data, with 3.8 expected goal involvements last season compared to 2.8 for Aina, the Welshman is the smart choice for access to a strong Forest defence.

MID – Cody Gakpo | 7.5m | 6.4% Ownership

Liverpool‘s Cody Gakpo is in 6.1% of teams on Fantasy Premier League right now, compared to 53.8% for Mohamed Salah and 34.3% for Florian Wirtz. Salah is of course a no-brainer in fantasy football given his historic domination of the format, and Wirtz is understandably popular given he’s the new kid on the block, but Gakpo is being seriously undervalued by fantasy managers.

With the sale of Luis Díaz to Bayern Munich, Gakpo should be favoured to start every game he’s fit for this season and will only benefit from the creativity added by the signing of Wirtz.

Gakpo averaged 0.65 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 minutes in the Premier League last season, a higher rate than Bryan Mbeumo (0.58), Cole Palmer (0.54) and Omar Marmoush (0.54), who are all priced higher than the Dutchman, and have all been selected by more users this season.

It’s also useful to know that our player stat prediction tool, which projects a players’ returns across multiple statistical categories for their upcoming game, has Gakpo as the second most likely fantasy midfielder to score for Liverpool in their opening game of the season, behind Salah.

MID – Yankuba Minteh | 6.0m | 1.4% Ownership

With the sales of João Pedro to Chelsea and Simon Adingra to Sunderland, additional minutes in forward positions should be available to Brighton & Hove Albion attackers this season and one player who should stand to benefit is Yankuba Minteh.

Minteh was only Brighton’s 11th-most used player last season with 1,838 minutes played, which was to be expected as the now-21-year-old winger was eased into his first campaign in the Premier League.

Despite that somewhat limited gametime, the Gambian still registered six goals and four assists, at a rate of 0.49 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 minutes. This put him in close proximity to other strong fantasy assets like Palmer (0.54) and Morgan Rogers (0.52), and ahead of Phil Foden (0.46) and Bruno Fernandes (0.45).

With Minteh now expected to make himself Brighton’s obvious choice on the right-wing, his selection by only 1.4% of the userbase despite a 6.0m price tag puts him among the most undervalued players in the game.

FWD – Jørgen Strand Larsen | 6.5m | 5.2% Ownership

While much of the focus was on Matheus Cunha last season, Wolves fans may argue that the consistency of Jørgen Strand Larsen was of equal importance in their successful battle to remain in the top flight.

In what was his first season in the Premier League, Strand Larsen scored 14 non-penalty goals, an impressive total for a side who were flirting with relegation for much of the campaign. Only seven players outranked the Norwegian in this category, with each of them having played in the division in seasons prior.

Strand Larsen finished last season in great form, with seven goals in his last nine games, which is why it’s a surprise to see him currently being selected by only 5.2% of the Fantasy Premier League userbase.

With Cunha joining Manchester United, Strand Larsen will be the man expected to have the final touch in a larger share of Wolverhampton Wanderers‘ attacks.

Coming in slightly cheaper than other mid-priced forwards like Jean-Phillipe Mateta (7.5m) and Evanilson (7.0m), the Wolves frontman offers great value for those trying to find some extra money to boost other positions.

*FPL player values and ownership data accurate as of 12 August 2025

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