Update (Tuesday 1 September). Gameweek 2 is complete. Aston Villa lost at home to Arsenal 0:1, and that single fixture moved more numbers than we expected — including one of our own calls.
The global average finished at 79 points, not 66 as we reported on Monday before the match. The highest score in the world is 161. The jump came from Arsenal’s clean sheet, because their defenders are very widely owned.
And here we have to correct ourselves. On Thursday we warned about Riccardo Calafiori — the fourth most-bought player of the week — writing that at our rating of 76 he was “a popular pick more than a data-driven one”. Calafiori returned 11 points (assist, clean sheet, two bonus) and was among the best players of the round. The crowd was right and we were not. That takes our pre-deadline record to three calls right and five wrong. We are not a betting service and do not pretend to be — we publish these calls in advance precisely so they can be checked afterwards.
Elsewhere for Arsenal: Bukayo Saka 11 points (goal and three bonus), Gabriel 8, Ben White 7, David Raya 6. The final top of the round reads: Bruno Fernandes 23, Cherki 14, Groß, Haaland and Gibbs-White on 13, Scott and Tarkowski on 12, then Calafiori, Saka and Mbeumo on 11.
Final league table after two gameweeks
The league is now 67 teams, and our Gameweek 2 average finished at 93.9 points against 79 globally — a gap of almost fifteen points. 53 of our 67 teams scored above the global average. There is also a new leader.
| # | Team | Manager | GW2 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Puszcza Niepołomice | Jakub Podgórski | 141 | 222 |
| 2 | AVERAGEJOE | Jóhann Örn Kjartansson | 117 | 216 |
| 3 | Pogoń Bydło | Szymon Żaba | 114 | 194 |
| 4 | Chelsea Champion | Champion Chelsea | 107 | 182 |
| 5 | Jajognioty | Maciej Konieckiewicz | 111 | 180 |
| 5 | Bartek’s Team | Bartek Sieqinhio | 120 | 180 |
| 7 | Dc OldBoy | Grzegorz Podgrodzki | 134 | 179 |
| 8 | Milek1910 | Miłosz Matillek | 111 | 177 |
| 8 | Team 11 | Damian Czapiga | 111 | 177 |
| 10 | Dzieci Ulicy | Kowalczyk Adam | 115 | 176 |
The new leader is Puszcza Niepołomice — 141 points in Gameweek 2, some 62 above the global average and the best score in our league. Jakub Podgórski played his Triple Captain chip on Bruno Fernandes — 23 points times three returned 69 points from a single player, almost half his total. That is the same player 165,000 managers had sold four days earlier. AVERAGEJOE, top after the opening round, drops to second. The full table with all 67 teams and squad previews is on the mini league page — clicking a team name expands its eleven.
One note for the rest of this article: the numbers below were taken before Aston Villa v Arsenal, so the league table and average further down are now out of date. The scorecard of our calls, the results and the list of top scorers stand, apart from the Calafiori case added above.
Gameweek 2 is nearly done — nine of the ten fixtures have been played. Aston Villa host Arsenal tonight at 20:00 UK, which will still move some of the numbers, so we will update this piece after the final whistle. But the headline is already clear: the global average jumped from 48 points in Gameweek 1 to 66, the highest score in the game is 158, and the star of the weekend is precisely the player thousands of managers were dumping four days ago.
Bruno Fernandes: three goals, one assist, 23 points
Manchester United beat Ipswich 5:2 and Bruno Fernandes scored a hat-trick and added an assist. A full 90 minutes, all three bonus points, 87 in the BPS table — 23 points, the single highest score of the round. With the armband, 46.
On Thursday, in our piece on the last 24 hours before the deadline, we wrote this: “Bruno Fernandes is among the six most-sold players — more than 165,000 managers moved him on after two points in the opening round. He still holds a rating of 89, the second highest in the game. Selling him the day before a fixture like that, after one poor performance, is the classic reaction to the last result instead of to the data.”
This is exactly the situation our model was built for. One bad match does not change a player — it only changes how people feel about him.
Marking our own homework
Honesty has to cut both ways, so here is every pre-deadline call we made, including the ones that missed.
| What we said before the round | How it went |
|---|---|
| Bruno Fernandes — don’t sell into the panic, rating 89 | 23 pts — best score of the week ✔ |
| Mamadou Sangaré — second most-bought, our rating 52 “sell” | 4 pts in 90 minutes ✔ |
| Ollie Watkins — “here the crowd is right and the model is wrong” | Left for Al Hilal ✔ (crowd) |
| Morgan Rogers — best captaincy profile (risk 37, ceiling 88) | 5 pts ✘ |
| Dominik Szoboszlai — the game’s only Strong Buy, rating 90 | 4 pts ✘ |
| Erling Haaland — only tenth in our captaincy ranking | 13 pts, two goals ✘ |
| De Cuyper and Kayode — “market and model agree here” | 0 and 2 pts ✘ (we were wrong alongside the crowd) |
That is three calls right, four wrong. The one that landed, though, was the loudest and the one affecting the most managers — nearly half the game owns Bruno.
Rogers stings most. We named him in Friday’s captaincy piece as the best risk-and-ceiling profile ahead of Chelsea’s home game with Brighton. Chelsea won 4:3, but Rogers returned five points and the star of that match was Cole Palmer. The model picked the right fixture and the wrong player.
That same piece argued Haaland had the lowest ceiling in our top ten and that Bruno’s profile was better. The first half did not hold up — Haaland scored twice. The second did: Bruno returned ten points more.
Gameweek 2 results
| Fixture | Score |
|---|---|
| Crystal Palace – Manchester City | 1:4 |
| Liverpool – Nottingham Forest | 2:2 |
| Bournemouth – Everton | 1:1 |
| Coventry – Hull City | 0:1 |
| Tottenham – Newcastle | 0:2 |
| Chelsea – Brighton | 4:3 |
| Leeds – Brentford | 1:1 |
| Sunderland – Fulham | 1:0 |
| Manchester United – Ipswich | 5:2 |
| Aston Villa – Arsenal | 0:1 |
Who else delivered
Next behind Bruno came Rayan Cherki — two goals in 81 minutes and 14 points in the 4:1 win at Crystal Palace. He is also the most-bought player of the week with almost 700,000 transfers in, and this is one case where our model agrees with the market: Cherki rates 85 with a “buy” verdict.
Then three players on 13: Pascal Groß (goal and assist), Haaland (two goals) and Morgan Gibbs-White — the last of those despite a knee flag and a 75% chance of playing, which made him the second most-sold player of the week.
On 12: James Tarkowski and Alex Scott (Bournemouth, owned by 1.7% — the differential of the round). Cheap defence paid again: Lewis Hall at £5.0m took 11 points, his Newcastle team-mate Dedić at £4.5m also 11, and Hull keeper Tzolakis at £4.5m added 10.
Our league beats the world again — by more than last week
The Fantasy PL Edge mini league is now 66 teams. Our Gameweek 2 average was 79.6 points against 66 globally — a gap of almost fourteen points, after 55.3 against 48 in the opening round.
One number explains it. In our league 27 of 66 teams (40.9%) captained Bruno and 24 (36.4%) went with Haaland — while across FPL Haaland is owned by nearly 70% and was the number one armband. We have no way of knowing whether anyone decided that after reading us, but the direction is exactly the one we argued all week.
| # | Team | Manager | GW2 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AVERAGEJOE | Jóhann Örn Kjartansson | 91 | 190 |
| 2 | Pogoń Bydło | Szymon Żaba | 103 | 183 |
| 3 | Wojciech’s Team | Wojciech M | 96 | 166 |
| 4 | Chelsea Champion | Champion Chelsea | 89 | 164 |
| 5 | HaHaHaHaaland | Daniel Filipowicz | 109 | 162 |
| 5 | Jajognioty | Maciej Konieckiewicz | 93 | 162 |
| 5 | Bartek’s Team | Bartek Sieqinhio | 102 | 162 |
| 8 | Dc OldBoy | Grzegorz Podgrodzki | 115 | 160 |
The best single score in our league belongs to Dc OldBoy — 115 points, 49 above the global average. Ten teams have already played their Bench Boost. The table will shift again tonight, since Arsenal and Villa are well represented here — two thirds of our teams own Calafiori alone.
What it means for Gameweek 3
The deadline is Friday 4 September at 18:30 UK. Three things worth checking now.
Prices have finally accelerated
On Friday we reported seventeen price changes. Today there are 67. Risers include Cherki (to £7.6m), Palmer (£9.6m), João Pedro (£7.6m), Gvardiol (£5.6m), Ødegaard (£6.6m) and both Newcastle men, Wissa and Elanga (£6.1m each). Eight of the fallers are Arsenal players — the market got nervous about the Villa Park trip before a ball was kicked.
Two new splits with the crowd
After Cherki, the most-bought players are Wissa (316,000) and Elanga (280,000), both after Newcastle’s 2:0 win at Tottenham. Our model rates them 66 (“risky”) and 76 (“hold”) — considerably less enthusiasm than the market shows. It is the same pattern as Sangaré a week ago: buying on one good match. Sangaré, for the record, followed his 14-point opener with four points, and now rates 57.
One injury that matters
Jean-Philippe Mateta (Crystal Palace, owned by 3.8%) has a hamstring injury and is not expected back until around 11 October — that is no longer a one-week risk call. Elsewhere Bruno Guimarães (Arsenal) and Moisés Caicedo (Chelsea) sit at 75%, Joe Rodon (Leeds) at 50%. The full list is in the Injury Centre.
The top of our ratings
After Gameweek 2 we have two Strong Buys: Bruno Fernandes and Szoboszlai, both on 90. Behind them on 89: Gakpo, Rogers, Mbeumo, Dewsbury-Hall and Semenyo. Note this: Mbeumo, on eleven points and a rating of 89, is the most-sold player of the week — the Bruno story from four days ago is trying to repeat itself.
Gameweek 3 is lopsided: Manchester City host Coventry (difficulty 2 against 5), while Arsenal host Chelsea in the only fixture rated hard for both sides. Check it all in the Fixture Ticker, current ratings in the AI Rankings, and a ready-made fifteen in the Recommended Squad.
Want to measure your score against our 66 teams? Join the mini league — code 3ix1cw. You can join at any point in the season and bring your full points total with you.
Our ratings are generated by an AI model from official FPL data, refreshed hourly. The numbers in this piece are from Monday 31 August and do not include the Aston Villa v Arsenal fixture played that evening. We will update after the final whistle.