Haaland, Nkunku & Jota - pre-season lessons for the new FPL season including Chelsea & Liverpool stars

Do pre-season results mean anything? Probably not, when it comes down to it – but while the actual scoreline may be worth little more than a shrug, the performances and the players involved can give us an idea of the path that teams are taking, and there may be occasional lessons to be learned for the new Fantasy Premier League season as well.

As 3 Added Minutes’ resident FPL expert (ranked well inside the Top 2,000 globally last year) I’ve already written a guide to building your starting team as well as looking at potential bargain buys, players who look like possible traps and discussed how the new rules will affect strategy – but now that we have some games to pore over, I’ve brought together as much usual information as I can find to see what we might need to know before the big kick-off on Friday 16 August.

Before I get going in earnest, I’ll share one simple lesson that I’ve learned down the years, which is not to put too much stock in pre-season performances by individual players. It’s doing precisely that which led me to put former Manchester City forward Valeri Bojinov in my team way back in the 2007/08 season. It didn’t end well and if you’ve never heard of the Bulgarian, there’s a reason. Let’s just say that Oscar Bobb’s impressive pre-season form doesn’t mean he’ll be a nailed-on starter in a week’s time. You’ve got to add a bit of common sense and past data into the equation to decide whether a striker scoring a few in friendlies implies he’ll be on top form come the start of the season proper.

Chelsea are a bullet worth dodging

Chelsea have had a seriously concerning pre-season under new head coach Enzo Maresca. A routine 3-0 win over Mexican side Club América was flanked by defeats to Celtic, Manchester City and Real Madrid as well as a 2-2 draw with Wrexham. Their defence, in particular, has looked all over the place and they shipped 12 goals in their five games. Sufficed to say that there is little evidence that Reece James is worth taking a chance on right now.

They have at least scored a few goals, but Maresca has rotated his attacking players every game, with one exception – Christopher Nkunku, who missed the majority of last season through injury, started five from five and scored three goals. A lot of players have him down as a potentially brilliant buy in FPL and he was mentioned in my article on possible bargains as a £6.5m midfielder, but it’s worth noting that two of his goals were penalties, which will probably be Cole Palmer’s responsibility again come the season proper.

The starts make Nkunku look appealing, but we’re still very low on data and with all the rotation going on it’s still unclear that he’ll get 90 minutes on the regular, or whether he’ll rediscover his RB Leipzig form. The closer we get to the season, the less keen I am to start out with him, but he’s certainly one for the watchlist and I can’t blame anyone for taking a chance. His ceiling is very high indeed. Otherwise, I struggling to make a case for any Chelsea assets.

Erling Haaland is still really good

The £15.0m price tag slapped on Haaland’s head has seen an awful lot of players stay well clear of the blonde colossus, but it’s worth remembering that despite having a “bad year” and missing several games with injury, he still scored 217 points in 2023/24 and in scoring exactly seven points per game he was behind only Cole Palmer. But will he be back to his 50-goal-plus best once more?

Early signs suggest that he might. Manchester City have had a pretty uninspiring pre-season and the 4-2 defeat of Chelsea was their only win, but they usually do the business when the real work comes around and Haaland himself has bagged five goals with one penalty, including a hat-trick against Chelsea. Pep Guardiola did suggest that he had some minor fitness problems, but that was before he bagged that triple.

£15.0m is such a huge sum that there are valid arguments for excluding Haaland if you aren’t convinced that you can find enough cheap assets who will go big this year, but generally speaking the best thing you can do in FPL is grab the highest-scoring players and work the rest out from there. Haaland looks very likely to be one of the big scorers again, and I’d say he’s odds-on to be top scorer overall.

Jota in, Gakpo out

Liverpool have only played three pre-season games at the time of writing and will wrap their preparations up with a match against Sevilla on 11 August, but there are still a few interesting data points from Arne Slot’s first few games in charge.

Firstly, he’s playing a 4-3-3 system which looks pretty similar to that which Jürgen Klopp used, which means that the wing-backs might not be quite as far up the field as they could have been if he’d used the 3-4-3 at Feyenoord. That doesn’t suddenly make Trent Alexander-Arnold a bust, but perhaps takes a little of the shine off.

Secondly, Diogo Jota (listed as a £7.5m midfielder) has started the last two games up front in the central striker’s role, and it looks likely that he’ll open the season there instead of Darwin Núñez. Cody Gakpo, who is in a fair few teams as it stands, hasn’t featured but Fábio Carvalho has impressed on the left wing, scoring twice and starting all three games. Don’t be shocked if he enters the first-team rotation early in the year and eats into Gakpo’s minutes.

Havertz may not be a striker

Arsenal have left much of their transfer business late, so take this one with a pinch of salt, but Kai Havertz – who has been designated as a forward for the first time in FPL – has played several games in midfield behind Gabriel Jesus and that may indicate that he won’t be the number nine week in, week out. He still scored twice and set up two more in a largely successful pre-season for the Gunners, so we’re not suggesting he’s become a terrible purchase, but an asterisk has emerged next to his name.

Crystal Palace still look good

They may have lost Michael Olise but Crystal Palace have just beaten both Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Ham United 3-1 in the space of a week and look like they could be about to pick up where they left off under Oliver Glasner. Specific assets are hard to nail down given that Jean-Philippe Mateta will likely be eased back in after the Olympics, but as a team we’re continuing to be impressed. Jeffrey Schlupp has been scoring and setting them up in volume, in case you want to throw a real curveball into your mini-league.

Mixed news for Man Utd

Manchester United have not had a brilliant pre-season and lost 3-0 to Liverpool last weekend, but there are some bright spots – both Amad Diallo (a £5.0m midfielder) and Marcus Rashford (cheaper after his awful season in 2024/25) have been in good nick and getting among the goals. Thanks to injury, Jadon Sancho may start up front, but we’ve seen nothing to convince us that he’s worth taking a punt on.

Jacob Murphy could be worth a shot

Newcastle United have contended themselves with playing smaller sides this summer, whether it’s on tour in Japan or against teams like Hull City, but Jacob Murphy has caught the eye, scoring four and assisting two more in four games. Murphy has tended to impress when he actually plays recently and is set to be the starting right winger ahead of Miguel Almirón. At £5.5m, Murphy could be an interested enabler. The caveat is that Newcastle are likely to try to sign another winger before deadline day - and please note that this article was written prior to their Friday night friendly against Girona, so please don’t write in if Murphy gets carted off on a stretcher before you read this. I’m already sorry.

West Ham struggle and Wolves start strong

Finally, a couple of notes on two teams who both have several interesting assets but who also start the season with a rough run of fixtures. West Ham have not had a great pre-season and were only able to beat Dagenham & Redbridge (only 1-0, at that), losing to Palace and to Wolves, who have looked far better. West Ham are a team in transition with a new head coach and several new players coming in, but I suspect it’s best to hang fire on Niclas Füllkrug for the start of the season, at least. Wolves players may be a little less of a risk due to fixture difficulty than expected, although I still wouldn’t come in too hard.