FPL Beginner Guide: Everything You Need to Start Winning

The basics: squad, budget, deadline

Fantasy Premier League gives you a £100m budget to build a 15-player squad from real Premier League footballers: 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 forwards. You can pick at most 3 players from any one club.

Each gameweek you select a starting XI in a legal formation (at least 1 goalkeeper, 3 defenders, 1 forward). Your players score points for what they do in real matches, and your bench automatically substitutes in if a starter does not play.

Everything locks at the deadline — usually 90 minutes before the gameweek's first kick-off. Miss it and your team rolls over unchanged.

How scoring works

The scoring system rewards attacking returns and clean sheets:

Bonus points (1–3 extra) go to the best-performing players in each match, and defensive contributions can earn points too. The headline lesson: goals and assists dominate. A midfielder who scores gets 5 points plus a likely bonus — which is why attacking midfielders are the most valuable position in the game.

Your captain scores double every week. This single mechanic decides more mini-leagues than any other — our captaincy guide covers it in depth.

Transfers, hits and price changes

You get 1 free transfer per gameweek, and you can bank them (up to 5). Extra transfers beyond your free ones cost −4 points each — a "hit". New managers take far too many hits; experienced ones treat them as a last resort.

Player prices rise and fall based on how many managers buy or sell them, in £0.1m steps. Over a season a well-managed team grows £3–5m in value, which buys real upgrades. But price-chasing is a trap for beginners — points always come before price.

The chips: four one-shot power-ups

You get chips that can each be played once (one per gameweek):

• Wildcard (two per season) — unlimited free transfers for one gameweek. The full rebuild button. See our wildcard strategy guide.
• Bench Boost — your bench scores points too, for one gameweek. Best on a double gameweek with a full playing bench.
• Triple Captain — your captain scores triple instead of double. Save it for a premium player with two fixtures in one gameweek.
• Free Hit — unlimited transfers for one week, then your squad reverts. Ideal for blank gameweeks when half your team does not play.

Beginner rule of thumb: do not burn chips early. Their value peaks around double and blank gameweeks in the second half of the season, when fixture chaos makes them worth 20–40 extra points each.

Five habits that beat most veterans

Experience matters less than process in FPL. Adopt these five habits from day one and you will finish above most long-time players:

1. Pick players who play. Minutes beat talent. A guaranteed starter at £5.0m beats a rotating star at £7.0m, every season.
2. Plan around fixtures. Check every player's next five opponents before buying — never just the next one.
3. Captain the obvious pick. Boring is profitable. Save the hero calls for when you are chasing.
4. Limit hits. If you take more than one −4 a month, your process is reactive. Bank transfers instead.
5. Review, don't rage. After each gameweek, ask what the data said before kickoff — not what the result was. Good decisions with bad outcomes are still good decisions.

Building your first squad

A reliable beginner structure for the £100m budget:

• Goalkeepers: one £4.5–5.0m starter, one £4.0–4.5m backup. Never spend more.
• Defence: one premium (£5.5m+) from a top clean-sheet side, the rest £4.0–5.0m nailed starters.
• Midfield: two premiums (£8m+) who take penalties or dominate their team's attack, filled out with £5–6.5m starters.
• Forwards: one premium, one mid-price, one cheap starter.

This gives you two or three genuine captaincy options, a playing bench, and no dead money. From there, the game is iteration: one good decision per week compounds into a strong season.