Crystal Palace's 25/26 collapse — and the 26/27 reset
Crystal Palace finished 15th in 2025/26 with 45 points — a major underperformance vs the prior season. Oliver Glasner continues. For Fantasy Premier League managers, Palace is still a defensive-bargain pool, but every name that defined it has gone: Eberechi Eze to Arsenal, Marc Guéhi to Manchester City, Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea, and Daniel Muñoz to Nottingham Forest, where he is £5.4m and 6.5% owned. Strand Larsen has joined from Wolves to lead the attack.
What is left is a genuinely cheap spine. Tyrick Mitchell (£4.5m) and Adam Wharton (£5.5m) have started both league games, Mitchell at 4.7% ownership and Wharton at 0.9%. The most-owned Palace player of all is Will Hughes (£4.5m) at 9.5% — and he has not played a minute.
Tyrick Mitchell — the Palace defender to own now Guéhi and Muñoz have gone
The two Palace defenders worth owning in 25/26 are both somewhere else. Guéhi is a £6.0m Manchester City defender held by 18.7% of the game; Muñoz is a £5.4m Nottingham Forest defender held by 6.5%. Buying either off the back of a Crystal Palace page buys you the wrong team's clean sheets.
The replacement is Tyrick Mitchell (£4.5m). He is the cheapest defender Glasner starts, he has played every minute of both league games, and at 4.7% owned he is the only Palace defender with real ownership behind him. Chris Richards (£5.0m) is the alternative if you want the Defensive Contribution route rather than the price: across the same two starts Richards has logged 22 defensive contributions to Mitchell's 10, the most of any Palace defender.
Neither is a points source. This is an enabler slot with clean-sheet upside, priced accordingly.
Strand Larsen, Mateta, and the new Palace attack
Jorgen Strand Larsen (£6.0m) joined from Wolves and is the lead striker. Glasner's 3-4-2-1 system has historically delivered 15+ goal seasons from his nominated No. 9, though Strand Larsen has one start and 89 minutes so far. With Eze gone to Arsenal, the Strand Larsen case now rests on Glasner's wing-backs rather than on Eze's creation — Sarr, the other supply line, is out with a groin injury and no return date.
Jean-Philippe Mateta (£6.4m) is out with a hamstring injury and not expected back before 11 October — do not buy in before then. Dean Henderson (£5.0m) has started both league games and is the premium-budget GK pick. Ismaïla Sarr (£6.3m) is out with a groin injury and no return date. Will Hughes (£4.5m) is where Palace ownership has settled — 9.5% of the game owns him, more than any other player at the club — but he has not played a minute of the league season, so that ownership is an enabler bet, not a starting one. The Palace midfielders actually on the pitch are Daichi Kamada (£5.0m) and Adam Wharton (£5.5m): both have started every game and they carry the two highest BPS totals at the club, 46 and 41.
Palace's 26/27 ownership angle
Palace are a cheap-exposure pool, not a captaincy one. The recommended exposure is Tyrick Mitchell (£4.5m) and Dean Henderson (£5.0m) at the back plus one of Kamada or Wharton in midfield — three slots between £4.5m and £5.5m that free money for the positions where points are actually scored. Captain no Palace asset.
The structural 26/27 question is no longer a transfer decision; the window settled it. Guéhi, Eze, Lacroix and Muñoz have all left, Mateta is out until mid-October and Sarr has no return date, so Glasner is rebuilding the attack around Jorgen Strand Larsen (£6.0m) and Eddie Nketiah (£5.5m) with no established creator behind them. Until that supply line exists, Palace is a defensive-value pool and nothing more.