GW 10: “Big at the Back” Redefined

For as long as the FPL Fortress has been in existence, the go-to formations in FPL have been 3-4-3 or 3-5-2. Three at the back—simple as, no questions asked. It would have been insanity to play more than three defenders on a regular basis; the midfielders and forwards were just far too lucrative. But times are a-changin’, and managers are flocking towards £5.0m DEFCON defenders at rates never before seen, going as far as filling up all five defender slots with this new archetype. “Big at the back” is back—and it’s not in the form of premium attacking fullbacks anymore. João Cancelos of this world, step aside; Tarik Muharemović and co., it’s your time to shine.

When the second-most-owned player in the game gets injured, things are bound to get shaken up a little. In this episode, we consider the list of potential João Pedro replacements, using the opportunity to also discuss more broadly Bournemouth, Villa, and Spurs, three teams whose fixtures look quite friendly in the short to medium term. Does the Spursiness of Spurs serve to dissuade us psychologically from believing in their assets? Might we be more bullish if they were named “London North” instead? As for captaincy, despite how abysmal the situation seems to be at Man United, it seems imprudent to back a João Pedro-less Chelsea attack, so alas, perhaps Haaland will simply get the nod once again.Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

Although we are still fresh off a three-month-long summer break from the Premier League, the international break that began three weeks ago has somehow felt even lengthier. We’ll be the first to admit that FPL has faded into the far recesses of our minds, which means we spend this episode refreshing ourselves on the state of our respective teams and considering how we might jumpstart them headed into five straight weekends of Premier League action.Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

The heart of this week’s episode lies in the question of class. With Konsa seemingly a given, which combination of players from the following “classes” of defenders offers the best way to complete your backline: a premium playing for a good team with high clean sheet odds, a Vušković-type DEFCON magnet that’ll tick along over the course of the season, or an explosive attacking fullback whose returns fluctuate depending on their fixture run? We extend this structural analysis to the midfielders with a social scientific bend—Bruno sits at the top, monarchical; the Palmer-Saka class of aristocrats follows; after that, the £7.0m–£8.0m bourgeoisie; then, the working class, comprised of DEFCON warriors like Alex Scott and Mamadou Sangaré; and finally, the (with all due respect) peasant-like bench fodder. One must wonder, how would Marx have played FPL?Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

The Fortress is thrilled to return for our 7th year, awakening from a World Cup-filled summer slumber feeling energized and ready to tackle whatever the 2026–27 season throws our way. The big talking point ahead of Gameweek 4 is Chelsea’s home fixture against Hull City—and though a quick glance at the table might suggest that it’ll be a titanic battle where an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, a closer look at Hull’s xGA reveals that managers might be wise to invest heavily in JPMorgan—that is, João Pedro, Cole Palmer, and Morgan Rogers. We also discuss how such an investment could coincide with a larger-scale reshuffling of one’s portfolio of players in the form of a Wildcard, which would enable managers to optimize their Arsenal assets and refine their team structure after now having a few weeks’ worth of valuable information. Finally, in our Captaincy segment, we address the question that gives this episode its name: is it too reckless to go as far as captaining one of JPMorgan instead of Haaland, or are they too big to fail?Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

Everyone stop what you’re doing—yes, yes, the rumors are true, the Fortress has released our 2025/26 Season Review! We might be a little embarrassed that it’s been nearly two months since our last episode, but we’re far more excited to finally bring to you our reflections on this past year of Fantasy Premier League. Overall, although it’s been an underwhelming campaign for both Jacob and I, we still have a great time discussing our nominations for this season’s superlatives (for better or for worse), standout XIs (for better or for worse), and highlight moments (for better or for worse). For this year’s lessons learned, both of us have decided, independently of one another, to frame them as questions instead of statements—perhaps a salute to the idea that there is no single “correct” way to play FPL. And yet, at the end of the episode, we resolve to set a few rules for ourselves next season, in an effort to formalize our attempts to strive asymptotically along the path of constant betterment.Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

This past gameweek, big things happened at both the top and bottom of the Premier League table, with Arsenal taking a massive step toward that elusive title and Tottenham pulling themselves out of the relegation zone. Is it time to similarly shake things up in our FPL teams? Ahead of the final double gameweek of the season, we revisit the question of how many Crystal Palace players to invest in, as well as whether moving Semenyo to Cherki would form the ideal Man City triple-up. Perhaps as exciting as the prospect of hauls from our Man City players is the opportunity to boot Cole Palmer from our teams, after Chelsea lost their sixth consecutive league game. Unable to look past Man City for captaincy this week, we end the episode by wondering if we’ll have the courage to put the armband on Cherki—or even Nico O’Reilly—instead of Haaland.

If you’re like us, you’ve just used your Wildcard, Bench Boost, and then Free Hit, back-to-back-to-back, thereby exhausting all of your chips for the season (and hopefully having moved significantly closer to your rank target!). Now that the dust has settled, it’s back to good ol’ standard chipless FPL for the final four gameweeks of the season. With Crystal Palace set to double in Gameweek 36, we consider which of their players (presuming everyone is already tripled-up on Man City) might be the most desirable, as well as which assets who are currently in our teams from the Wildcard might be the most well poised to make way. Captaincy feels closer than usual—Everton away looks potentially tricky for Haaland, while Bruno could benefit from an open game against Liverpool at home—especially keeping in mind that he’s certainly gunning for that illustrious, elusive record of 20 assists in a single season.Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress

Double Gameweek 33 was truly one for the ages, with both Jacob and Jiayang finishing on a whopping 124 points. The very teams that served us so well last week, however, have no fixtures this upcoming week, meaning most active managers will need to activate their Free Hit. Accordingly, we spend the bulk of this episode evaluating the best teams and players to target, in the hopes of building the best draft possible. Along the way, we foray into the virtues of one Glenn Murray, as well as the addictingly alliterative nature of names such as Pedro Porro—who we discover may actually be the sauciest player in the league?

It’s a bit of a quiet week in FPL, but here at the Fortress, we’re committed to producing insightful content—week in, week out, no matter the circumstance. To that end, after reviewing Gameweek 32 and then briefly discussing single-gameweek players to consider for the upcoming double, we meditate on the general rigidity of the current template. We think that this phenomenon is largely due to the “death of the premium,” which has lifted the budgetary constraints that managers had to face in past years when juggling multiple firing big-hitters. But what other factors could be contributing to the homogenizing of teams—for instance, how has the implementation of DEFCON shaken up the meta for defenders?Follow us on Twitter: @FplFortress