Manchester City have agreed a £125m deal with Chelsea for Enzo Fernández. The Argentine has been given permission to undergo a medical, and the fee matches the British transfer record — the same amount Liverpool paid Newcastle for Alexander Isak last summer. The window closes today at 23:00 UK.
For us this closes a story we covered three weeks ago. And it is a lesson in what waiting costs.
Waiting cost City five million
In our transfer round-up of 14 August we reported that Chelsea had given City an ultimatum: an offer by 17:00 on Friday, valuation £120m. City did not bid. The next day we added an update noting the matter was closed, but that the club could return before 1 September — only they would be starting from scratch.
That is exactly what happened. City accelerated talks in the last 48 hours and paid £125m, five million more than Chelsea were asking in August. Enzo only ever wanted one destination — at the Etihad he is reunited with Enzo Maresca, his former Chelsea manager.
What it means in Fantasy
Enzo Fernández is not a random name from our point of view. He rates 85 with a “buy” verdict on just 3.5% ownership — we have repeatedly flagged him as a differential, most recently in our Gameweek 2 pieces.
The move changes two things the price tag does not show. The first is fixtures. In Gameweek 3 Manchester City host Coventry, rated difficulty 2 and one of the easiest games of the round. Chelsea, in the same window, travel to the Emirates, rated 5. That is a huge swing, and it works in Enzo’s favour.
The second is competition. City’s midfield is crowded, and the club also signed Bouaddi for €100m this summer. A £125m player usually plays, but a starting place is not a given.
In the game’s database Enzo is still listed as a Chelsea player — FPL should fix that before Friday’s deadline, and our rating will then recalculate on its own, because it accounts for club and fixtures.
Who you can already buy, and who you cannot
This is the practical part, because the game adds transfers gradually. As of today:
| Player | Club in game | Price | Our rating | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bradley Barcola | Liverpool | £8.0m | 21 | already in |
| Allan | Man City | £6.0m | 21 | already in |
| Daniel Muñoz | Nott’m Forest | £5.4m | 78 | club updated |
| Enzo Fernández | Chelsea | £6.9m | 85 | not moved yet |
| Matias Fernández Pardo | — | — | — | not added yet |
Barcola, who we covered last week, is now available at £8.0m. Allan, City’s Brazilian winger, costs £6.0m. Both rate 21 with a “sell” verdict, and that needs an honest explanation: it is not a judgement on their quality, it is the consequence of zero Premier League minutes. The model rewards proven appearances at this level. Once they start playing, the ratings will climb on their own — as they have for every newcomer.
Muñoz to Forest — and a demonstration of how our model works
Daniel Muñoz has joined Nottingham Forest from Crystal Palace for £22m (£20m plus £2m in add-ons, a three-year deal with an option), reuniting with Oliver Glasner, his manager at Selhurst Park. He is owned by 6.9% of managers, so this is not a niche move.
What happened next on our side is the interesting part. The game moved him to Forest, and our rating dropped by itself from 84 to 78 — because the model also weighs upcoming fixture difficulty, and Forest’s run looks different from Palace’s. Nobody adjusted anything by hand.
Check whether you own someone who has left the league
The game has flagged several players as departed. The one that matters most: Ollie Watkins has a confirmed move to Al Hilal — and is still in 5.8% of squads. That is a guaranteed zero every week until you sell him.
In our Gameweek 2 review we wrote that on Watkins the crowd was right and our model was wrong — the market sold him while our rating stayed high, because the model reads statistics, not transfer reports. The game has now formally confirmed it. Others to have left include Marc Guiu (Chelsea to RB Leipzig) and Stefan Bajcetic (Liverpool to Celta Vigo).
What to do before Friday
The Gameweek 3 deadline is Friday 4 September at 18:30 UK. The window shuts today at 23:00, but clubs have a further two hours to file paperwork, so some deals will only be confirmed tomorrow morning — and will reach the game’s database later still.
- Check your squad for players marked as departed, starting with Watkins.
- Do not buy someone who has just changed clubs on the strength of their current rating — it describes their old situation and will recalculate after the update.
- Do not buy Premier League newcomers before they have played any minutes, however much they cost.
- Come back to your squad on Thursday or Friday morning, once the game has processed today’s moves.
Current ratings are in the AI Rankings, the difficulty run in the Fixture Ticker, and a ready-made fifteen in the Recommended Squad.
The Enzo Fernández transfer is agreed between the clubs and the player has permission for a medical, but it had not been officially announced at the time of publication. Our ratings are generated by an AI model from official FPL data, refreshed hourly; the numbers are from Tuesday 1 September.