Bruce Dias 
If you are new to the Fantsay Premier League (FPL) game, you may be unsure how to assemble a team that can compete at the top of the standings.
With that in mind, read on as we offer some handy tips which will help you make the most of the £100 million budget allocated at the start of the game.
Spending your Budget
Seasoned FPL managers will understand the difficulties associated with shoehorning the 15 players they want to sign into their squad at the start of the game.
Picking two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards sounds easy, but the pricing structure undoubtedly makes life difficult.
The primary considerations when selecting your squad include form, fixtures and previous history, while insights from FPL experts are worth taking on board.
Choosing the players predicted to perform the best each week or who are rated by Spreadex Sports as value picks in FPL 2025/26 is a great way to build your squad.
Pay Attention to the Fixtures
While the final outcome of FPL is not decided until the end of the season, it is important to ensure you make a positive start to the campaign.
The Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR) tool is an excellent way to determine whether a team is likely to string together a winning run over their upcoming games.
For example, based on the sliding one to five scale, Tottenham Hotspur’s schedule from Gameweek 3 to Gameweek 11 is relatively favourable.
On that basis, including the maximum of three Tottenham players in your starting XI will likely garner plenty of points for your team during that run of games.
Don’t Overspend on Your Bench
While £100m may seem like a healthy budget to build a winning FPL team, new players will soon recognise that it presents some difficulties.
For example, if you want Erling Braut Haaland and Mohamed Salah in your squad this season, they will cost £28.5m combined.
If this is the route you choose to go down, your options on the bench need to be bargain basement players who you will only use in emergencies.
This tactic comes with risks attached, as an injury to a top player could force you into replacing them with an unsuitable option.
Pick Players Strategically
The transfer system in FPL allows you to make changes to your squad every week, which is a great feature to have if your initial plans fail to deliver.
However, it is important to strategically structure your initial squad to ensure you can to any developments without resorting to multiple transfers.
For example, Chelsea and England midfielder Cole Palmer is a hugely popular pick in FPL 2025/26 despite his hefty £10.5m price tag.
By starting with Palmer in midfield, managers need to use just one transfer to replace him after he picked up a groin injury before the recent game at West Ham United.
Don’t Panic
Having spent time researching which players to include in your FPL squad, it can be disheartening if they fail to deliver many points after the first couple of weeks.
However, patience can often be a virtue in FPL and taking an axe to your squad by using the Wildcard chip is a move which you should not take lightly.
With the new rules allowing managers to bank up to five free transfers, it is much easier to make subtle changes that can deliver the desired results.
Short-term thinking rarely works in FPL, so make sure you resist the temptation to make knee-jerk decisions if at all possible.
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