Free Hit week removes the budget conversation you normally have. With £107.4m to spend for one gameweek only, the only questions that matter are form, fixture and whether a player is actually explosive right now.
What matters this week
- Brighton’s fixture and form cluster: Groß (form 12.3, xP 6.03), De Cuyper (form 10.7, xP 5.60), Kostoulas (form 7.0, xP 7.15) and Vuskovic (form 7.3, xP 5.01) are all home to Crystal Palace, giving you a stack of high-floor, high-form assets in one fixture.
- Haaland’s ceiling: at £15.6m he is the most expensive player in the pool but also carries the highest xP by far, 10.25, at home to Ipswich.
- Price versus output: cheaper picks like De Cuyper (£5.0m) and Kostoulas (£5.6m) are outscoring expensive names like Saka (£9.6m, xP 4.55) and Palmer (£9.7m, xP 4.69) on both form and xP this week.
How to weigh it
On a Free Hit you are not protecting future value, so price should only matter as a signal of ownership and reliability, not as a budget constraint. That means the trade-off is really form versus fixture concentration. Loading up on Brighton assets gives you a strong single fixture but concentrates risk in one match. Haaland’s 10.25 xP is high enough to justify his price regardless of that logic, since no other forward in the data gets close. Where the data shows similar xP, like Groß (6.03) against Cherki (5.56), lean toward the player with the stronger recent form, 12.3 against 3.0.
Starting XI
Raya (GKP, £6.1m, xP 5.03), De Cuyper, Gvardiol, Vuskovic, Calafiori (DEF), Groß, Cherki, Palmer, Gomez (MID), Haaland, Kostoulas (FWD).
Bench order
1. Tzolakis (GKP, £4.7m, xP 4.84), 2. Gabriel (DEF, xP 4.94), 3. Saka (MID, xP 4.55), 4. João Pedro (FWD, xP 6.02, form 8.0, benched only due to the strength of the forward line above him).
Captain
Haaland is the clear captain choice. His 10.25 xP at home to Ipswich is more than three points clear of the next best option in this squad and his selection sits at 74.6%, reflecting how heavily he is backed this week.
Key fixtures
Brighton host Crystal Palace and supply four squad members. Arsenal travel to Nottingham Forest with Raya, Gabriel, Calafiori and Saka all involved. Manchester City are at home to Ipswich for Haaland, Gvardiol and Cherki. Chelsea are away at Everton for Palmer and João Pedro.
If you are unsure
Default to the Brighton cluster for floor, start Haaland and captain him without hesitation, and treat the rest of the XI as a straight pick of whoever has the best combination of xP and form in the data above.
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