Saturday afternoon in Gameweek 5 turned into a rout of the favourites. Arsenal dropped points for the first time this season, Chelsea lost a third straight match, and a promoted side won away at the club our model had flagged as a lock. Meanwhile the gameweek is being won by players almost nobody owns.
Brighton 3-0 Arsenal — the perfect start ends
The champions arrived at the Amex with a full record and left dismantled. Pascal Groß opened the scoring on 31 minutes from outside the box, Charalampos Kostoulas produced a similar finish just before half-time, and Chema Andres headed in the third on 57.
For FPL this is two stories at once. Groß returned 14 points — goal, assist and all three bonus — and he was the third most-bought player in the game this week. The crowd got that one right, and so did we, having listed him in Friday’s round-up.
The second story went the other way: Saka was in our captain five and finished with two points. Anyone who handed him the armband lost the week.
Brentford 3-0 Chelsea — an 88-year wait
Brentford had not beaten Chelsea at home since 1938. On Saturday they did it emphatically, and all of it after the break: Jaidon Anthony headed in on 61 from a corner flicked on by Jannik Schuster, Igor Thiago added the second on 83 after a Kevin Schade break, and Fábio Carvalho finished it in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
And this is where Friday’s analysis held up. Five hours before the deadline we wrote, citing ESPN Brasil, that João Pedro probably would not play — even though the game still had him at 75% and predicted lineups had him starting. He did not get a single minute. The game has since changed his listing from an unspecified problem to a “knee injury”, which is exactly what we reported.
Danny Welbeck replaced him: 70 minutes, 2 points. Rogers, the most-bought player of the week with over half a million transfers in, also finished on two.
The FPL hero here is Schuster: 14 points at 0.2% ownership, for £4.5m. That is the same player we mentioned on Friday as the man who came in after Nathan Collins’s injury.
Forest 0-1 Coventry — and here we got it wrong
The most interesting match of the day, and the hardest one for us to write up.
Coventry won a Premier League game for the first time in 25 years. On 55 minutes goalkeeper Carl Rushworth launched a long kick, Jay Dasilva took it down in one touch and drove it past Sels. Forest thought they had equalised late through Igor Jesus, but referee Jared Gillett went to the monitor and ruled it out for a foul on Caleb Yirenkyi, having originally given the goal on the pitch.
For FPL: Dasilva, £4.0m at 0.7% ownership, scored 15 points and was Saturday’s highest scorer. His goalkeeper added 11 points with an assist — something you see a handful of times a season.
Now the honest part. Gibbs-White returned 2 points. He was our second “strong buy”, and on Wednesday and again on Friday we argued he had the same profile as Haaland for half the price and the easiest possible fixture — home to a promoted side rated difficulty 2. Forest lost that match. The argument did not hold, and there is no point dressing it up.
Saturday belonged to the cheap and the unknown
| Player | Club | Price | Points | Ownership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jay Dasilva | COV | £4.0m | 15 | 0.7% |
| Tarkowski | EVE | £6.1m | 14 | 14.5% |
| Schuster | BRE | £4.5m | 14 | 0.2% |
| Groß | BHA | £5.8m | 14 | 24.0% |
| Manzambi | AVL | £5.9m | 13 | 0.2% |
| Hall | NEW | £5.2m | 13 | 15.4% |
| Buendía | AVL | £5.9m | 12 | 0.9% |
| Rushworth | COV | £4.5m | 11 | 0.8% |
Four of the top eight are owned by under one percent. That is the third gameweek running where the top of the table looks like this — and the best argument there is for saving money in defence and on the bench rather than stacking more big names.
Worth noting Manzambi: a goal, an assist and 13 points at 0.2% ownership. He is the same player we covered in July when Aston Villa hijacked Newcastle’s move for him.
Our calls after Saturday
| Our call | Outcome | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| João Pedro will not play | 0 minutes | right |
| Groß among the most-bought | 14 pts | right |
| Barnes as a differential | 9 pts, 90 minutes | right |
| Gibbs-White a “strong buy” | 2 pts | wrong |
| Saka in the captain five | 2 pts | wrong |
| Rogers (most-bought) | 2 pts | wrong |
Three each way. We publish calls in advance precisely so they can be marked afterwards — including when they land badly.
What is still to come today
The gameweek is only halfway through. Haaland, Semenyo, Guéhi, Gvardiol, Tavernier and Calvert-Lewin are all still on zero minutes. Bournemouth host Liverpool, Leeds play Crystal Palace and Manchester City host Sunderland at 14:00, with Fulham v Manchester United at 16:30.
The gameweek average currently sits at 18 points and will climb — Sunday’s fixtures will bring it back to normal levels. Our full review, with the mini-league table, chips and a complete reckoning, follows once the game closes the gameweek.
Results and scorers verified against external sources; points data from the official game API, as of Sunday 20 September, morning. The gameweek average keeps rising after the final whistle, so these figures are provisional. This article was produced with the help of AI and reviewed by our editorial team. This is not betting advice.