These eight players will help you win FPL

Have you settled on your Fantasy Premier League team yet, or are you still at the tinkering stage?

Either way you may want to consider one of these players in your team, according to our FPL experts.

Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool, defender, £6m

Picking defenders in FPL has always been about three things – clean sheet potential, attacking threat and reliability of starting consistently. The new rules around defensive contribution points gives us an important fourth aspect to consider.

Van Dijk starts almost every game and Liverpool kept the most clean sheets in the league last season. But it’s the defensive contribution points where the Dutchman also shines. Of all the defenders priced at £6m this season, he would have gained the most defensive contribution points (22) in 2024-25.

Attacking threat? He has that too. Last season, Van Dijk was joint-top among defenders for headed efforts (21) and joint-sixth for shots in the box (23).

He is the perfect ‘set and forget’ defender to enable using the free transfers elsewhere.

Dominic Solanke, Spurs, striker, £7.5m

New Spurs manager Thomas Frank has history of setting his team up to ensure his leading striker gets big chances consistently. Ivan Toney and Yoane Wissa hit 20 and 19 goals respectively in recent seasons.

Add to this the fact that Son Heung-min’s departure has left a big gap of goalscoring duties and potentially penalties for Solanke to fill. It doesn’t get better than a home game against the promoted Burnley in gameweek one.

Bruno Fernandes, Manchester United, midfielder, £9m

Fernandes is a great option this season for his consistent output and durability – he’s rarely injured and usually plays 90 minutes. In a struggling Manchester United team last season, he still combined goals (eight) with assists (12) and he should improve on those numbers this campaign.

The Portuguese midfielder has many routes to points – penalties, set-pieces, open-play assist threat and decent goal threat too. This season we can also have defensive contribution – he would have earned 22 extra points last season.

Iliman Ndiaye, Everton, midfielder, £6.5m

Ndiaye is an exciting budget pick this season – he’ll be looking to beat last season’s Premier League goal tally of nine.

Priced at £6.5m, he offers excellent value with Everton’s favourable early fixture run. Five of their opening seven fixtures provide Ndiaye with the potential for attacking returns as they face Leeds, Brighton, Wolves, West Ham and Crystal Palace.

Importantly, Ndiaye has been reclassified as a midfielder this season – but his role in the team will be to support the centre-forward as much as possible.

He’s also on penalty duty for the Toffees, which is hugely important in FPL.

Chris Wood, Nottingham Forest, striker, £7.5m

Wood looks like he could be great value once again this season, with Nottingham Forest having excellent opening fixtures against Brentford, Crystal Palace and West Ham.

Promotion to the Europa League means no midweek fixtures for his side in August, and keeping Morgan Gibbs-White, one of Forest’s best creators, in this window is another key positive.

Wood scored 20 goals last season, making a fast start to the campaign. A full pre-season will help him, after injury hampered the latter stages of 2024-25.

Morgan Rogers, Aston Villa, midfielder, £7m

Rogers has increased in price this season but should remain great value after amassing 19 goal involvements last campaign.

He is a reliable player, who regularly completes 90 minutes. Villa have enticing early fixtures, extending across the opening eight gameweeks.

Murillo, Nottingham Forest, defender, £5.5m

Both Nottingham Forest centre-backs are excellent options again this season and, even with price rises to £5.5m, they no doubt will both reward owners early on with their favourable fixture run.

While Nikola Milenkovic has the higher ceiling with his greater goal threat, Murillo has the higher floor. The Brazilian is better than his team-mate for both bonus points and the new defensive contribution points, where based on last season he would pick up the addition two points in over half his games.

Only a handful of defenders in the league can match Murillo’s combined totals for tackles, blocks, interceptions and clearances.

Florian Wirtz, Liverpool, midfielder, £8.5m

The German is the new chief creator at Liverpool and has impressed pre-season, playing as the number 10. He’s combined well with Mohamed Salah and appears to be on all set-pieces other than penalties.

In the past two seasons in the Bundesliga he’s picked up an impressive 46 goal contributions (21 goals, 25 assists) in 63 matches, and has equally impressive stats in the Champions League and at international level.