Nobody has had a pre-season.
The World Cup final was on 19 July. What followed was not a pre-season, it was three weeks of players trickling back. That — not the scorelines — is the thing that decides Gameweek 1.
The minutes problem
Days of first-team preparation before the Gameweek 1 deadline. Shorter bar, colder legs. This is the single biggest difference between this August and every other one.
He takes his first session under a manager who has never picked him on 13 August, having missed both marquee friendlies. City then play the Community Shield on 16 August. Minutes management is not a tail risk here — it is the base case.
Spain won the tournament and their reserve keeper did not play a second of it. He is the freshest premium asset in the game and 31% of squads have already worked that out.
Haaland — First session under Enzo Maresca on 13 Aug. Norway went to the quarter-finals; he scored 7 in 5. He missed the Inter and Atlético friendlies, and City play the Community Shield on 16 Aug.
Martinez — Back on 9 Aug after the heaviest tournament load in the squad — 810 minutes for Argentina — with the UEFA Super Cup three days later.
Mac Allister — Extended leave until the Monaco fixture on 9 Aug.
Watkins — Returned 8 Aug alongside Konsa. Villa play PSG in the Super Cup on 12 Aug, before a ball is kicked in the league.
Who is not playing
Every flagged Premier League player, sorted by how much of the game owns them. Between them they sit in 21% of squads.
Out
13No return date. Do not pick.
Suspended
3Bans carried into the new season.
Back around Gameweek 1
7Dated returns that land on or after the opener. A start is a gamble.
Flagged 75%
9Expected to play. Expected is not the same as fit.
Hurt on 8 August, no scan yet
3The freshest injuries in the game, and the ones no price has adjusted for.
The scoreline wall
Read these for atmosphere, not for signal — friendly results are close to worthless as a predictor, which is why our projections ignore them entirely. Two of them are still worth your attention, and section four explains why.
The result of the summer. Enes Ünal scored a brace.
Alonso’s first tour game and nobody defended.
A League Two side, and Palace still created 23 shots and five big chances.
Liverpool led 2-0 at half-time. Isak and Wirtz both came off at the break.
A Championship side put four past the side that host Liverpool in Gameweek 1.
Arteta afterwards: “Very upset, given a hard time. They are fuming, but this is good.”
Emirates Cup. Arsenal took the shootout 5-4 but conceded twice again.
Glasner split his squad across two fixtures that day.
Followed six days later by Rosenborg 0-5 Man Utd.
Palmer returned after being rested against Juventus.
Soured by Minteh limping off.
Callum Wilson came off the bench for a goal and an assist; Carvalho returned from nine months out with an ACL injury.
Leif Davis, a £4.0m defender, scored twice.
Sakamoto, Eccles and Simms.
Butland broke his arm; Frankfurt dominated.
Jaißle’s first game. Wissa scored twice.
Four defences that could not stop anything
A friendly result is noise. A pattern across a whole pre-season, in front of a Gameweek 1 fixture, is not.
3, 3 and 1 conceded in the last three. No clean sheet all pre-season, with Saliba out and Timber only just back.
GW1 · Coventry (H)3-0 to Bromley and 3-0 to Lens inside a week.
GW1 · Everton (A)4-1 at Bristol City, then still open under Jaißle against Valencia. £240m of players sold this summer.
GW1 · Liverpool (H)Beaten 2-0 by Frankfurt, first-choice keeper broke his arm, and they conceded 66 in the Championship.
GW1 · Man Utd (H)Twelve new managers, and the shapes that pay
A record turnover, and most of the FPL value is in the systems rather than the names. A full-back given licence in a back three is worth more than any transfer fee.
The clearest full-back story of the summer. Williams pushed high and often in the 3-0 win over Blackburn; Aina gets the same licence on the other side.
Two consecutive friendlies in the shape. Rio Cardines created multiple chances as a wing-back and costs £4.5m.
Branthwaite, Tarkowski, O’Brien, Aznou and Röhl. Röhl impressed at wing-back and is a midfielder in FPL.
Wirtz is the ten. Szoboszlai dropping means fewer touches in the box for the second-most-owned midfielder in the game.
Debut against Valencia. Botman hit the DefCon threshold; the defence still looked open, and Liverpool visit in Gameweek 1.
He has historically preferred a back three and the 3-5-2 talk has not gone away. Treat the shape as unresolved.
Guardiola has gone. Every City price is being paid on a system nobody has seen in a competitive match.
Two Real Madrid forwards arrived for a combined £43m, which is bad news for Muniz owners.
The set-piece jobs nobody can call
Penalties are worth roughly a goal every four attempts. Five clubs have a question over theirs, and three of them are genuinely open.
Who takes Liverpool’s penalties now Salah has gone?
Unresolved. The first penalty Liverpool win is one of the biggest single data points of the opening month.
Gibbs-White, McAtee or Awoniyi on Forest set pieces?
Three data points, no resolution. The most interesting set-piece contradiction of pre-season.
Does Gonzalo García take Fulham’s penalties?
Unresolved, and no pre-season penalty settled it.
Arsenal’s corners have changed hands
Gabriel is 26.5% owned. Who swings the ball in matters to those squads.
Mbeumo scored a penalty. Bruno is still on them.
No change. A penalty taken in a game the first choice missed is not evidence.
Who actually looked sharp
Goals in July are not points in August. But a new signing scoring on debut is at least evidence they will start, and that is most of what a cheap pick needs.
Brace against Valencia on 8 Aug after an injury-wrecked 2025-26.
£34m from Club Brugge, scored on debut against Girona, and now Arsenal’s first-choice corner taker.
Scored in four consecutive friendlies.
Goal and an assist against Augsburg, an assist the game before.
Off the bench against Rennes for a goal and an assist.
Farke on the Leeds centre-back: “the sky’s the limit”.
Scoring repeatedly through the tour.
Impressed against Valencia on debut.
What this changes about Gameweek 1
Four conclusions the data above supports. None of them is a projection — the projections live on the squad pages, and they update every day.
Fresh legs are an edge you can buy
Raya played nothing at the World Cup. Most premium assets around him played a tournament and then rested. In a season opener, that gap is bigger than it will ever be again.
The captaincy is not automatic
Three-quarters of the game will captain a striker who has had eight days with a new manager and a Community Shield in between. That is not a reason to avoid him — it is a reason to know you are taking a position, not a default.
Buy the shape, not the shirt
Forest and Palace have both moved to a back three and pushed their full-backs up. Those are £4.5m to £5.0m players with attacking returns priced as defenders.
Leave the unresolved penalties to somebody else
Liverpool, Forest and Fulham all have a genuinely open penalty job. The first spot-kick each of them wins settles it for the season. Waiting one gameweek costs you nothing.
Now score the squad you built off it.
Rate My Team runs your fifteen through the same engine that produces our projections and tells you which picks the numbers disagree with. Free, no sign-up to see the score.
Questions people actually ask
Short answers, same data.
Which players missed pre-season before the 2026/27 season?
The 2026 World Cup final was on 19 July, so the deepest-running internationals had almost no preparation. Erling Haaland took his first session under Enzo Maresca on 13 August, eight days before the Gameweek 1 deadline, having missed the Inter and Atletico friendlies. Aston Villa were worst hit: Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa returned on 8 August and Emiliano Martinez on 9 August after 810 minutes for Argentina, with the UEFA Super Cup on 12 August. Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz made their first Liverpool appearances on 2 August and were both substituted at half-time.
Who is injured for FPL Gameweek 1 in 2026/27?
William Saliba (back), Rodri (back surgery), Hugo Ekitike (Achilles), Conor Bradley (knee), Joe Gomez (muscular), Dejan Kulusevski and Xavi Simons (knee), Kaoru Mitoma (hamstring), Eli Junior Kroupi (foot), Matthijs de Ligt (back) and Jack Butland (arm) are all out with no return date. Ryan Christie, Joachim Andersen and Wesley Fofana are suspended. Jurrien Timber, James Garner, Carlos Baleba and Stefan Bajcetic are all due back on or around the Gameweek 1 weekend and are not safe picks.
Which pre-season friendly results actually mattered for FPL?
Very few. Friendly scorelines carry almost no predictive signal, and Onside deliberately ignores them in its projections. Two are worth noting as defensive warnings rather than results: Newcastle lost 4-1 at Championship side Bristol City and still looked open under Matthias Jaissle, and they host Liverpool in Gameweek 1. Arsenal conceded three, three and one in their final three matches and finished pre-season without a clean sheet, with Saliba out. Bournemouth 10-1 Genoa was the highest score of the summer and means nothing.
How many new Premier League managers are there in 2026/27?
Twelve established clubs changed manager, plus new appointments at two of the three promoted sides. Pep Guardiola left Manchester City and was replaced by Enzo Maresca, Xabi Alonso took over at Chelsea, Andoni Iraola moved to Liverpool, Roberto De Zerbi to Tottenham and Oliver Glasner to Nottingham Forest. Glasner has already switched Forest to a back three, pushing Neco Williams and Ola Aina forward.
Which set-piece jobs are still unresolved going into Gameweek 1?
Three. Liverpool have no settled penalty taker since Mohamed Salah left — the official order lists Isak first and Szoboszlai second, and Szoboszlai already has corners and direct free kicks. Nottingham Forest are contradictory: the official order says Morgan Gibbs-White on free kicks, but James McAtee took every set piece against Blackburn and Taiwo Awoniyi took the penalty against Portimonense. At Fulham, Antonee Robinson is still listed first on penalties but new signing Gonzalo Garcia converted six of seven for Real Madrid Castilla and Raul Jimenez has left.