Premium captains only work if the rest of the squad is cheap and playing. These are the best budget options for 2026/27 ranked by expected points across the whole season, not by ownership — because what other managers have picked tells you what is popular, not what is good.
Data pulled from the official FPL API on 24 September 2026. Expected points come from Dugout's own match model — see the method note at the foot of the page.
| Player | Team | Price | Ownership | xP (GW6) | xP (season) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verbruggen | BHA | £4.5m | 21.6% | 4.20 | 141 |
| Leno | FUL | £4.5m | 3.3% | 4.20 | 133 |
| Petrović | BOU | £4.5m | 3.0% | 3.73 | 133 |
| Scherpen | IPS | £4.5m | 0.6% | 3.52 | 99 |
| Kinsky | TOT | £4.5m | 17.4% | 2.82 | 97 |
| Rushworth | COV | £4.5m | 0.8% | 2.96 | 95 |
| Steele | BHA | £4.0m | 4.1% | 0.22 | 7 |
| Valdimarsson | BRE | £4.5m | 0.1% | 0.21 | 7 |
| Lecomte | FUL | £4.0m | 1.1% | 0.22 | 7 |
| Di Gregorio | BOU | £4.5m | 0.0% | 0.20 | 7 |
| Player | Team | Price | Ownership | xP (GW6) | xP (season) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ajer | BRE | £4.5m | 3.9% | 2.70 | 99 |
| Justin | LEE | £4.5m | 1.5% | 1.95 | 93 |
| F.Kadıoğlu | BHA | £4.4m | 1.6% | 2.56 | 87 |
| Shaw | MUN | £4.3m | 7.8% | 2.69 | 80 |
| Schuster | BRE | £4.5m | 0.3% | 2.13 | 78 |
| Diop | IPS | £4.0m | 12.8% | 3.11 | 76 |
| Ruggeri | AVL | £4.5m | 0.1% | 2.39 | 76 |
| Bard | LEE | £4.5m | 0.0% | 1.63 | 75 |
| Robinson | FUL | £4.5m | 1.4% | 2.58 | 75 |
| Costinha | BHA | £4.5m | 0.0% | 2.20 | 75 |
| Player | Team | Price | Ownership | xP (GW6) | xP (season) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ampadu | LEE | £5.4m | 0.9% | 3.25 | 112 |
| Xhaka | SUN | £5.5m | 3.6% | 3.14 | 103 |
| O'Riley | BHA | £5.4m | 0.1% | 2.96 | 101 |
| Bouaddi | MCI | £5.5m | 0.2% | 2.83 | 97 |
| Bentancur | TOT | £5.5m | 0.2% | 3.00 | 97 |
| Osorio | CRY | £5.5m | 0.0% | 2.74 | 93 |
| L.Miley | NEW | £5.5m | 0.1% | 2.69 | 93 |
| Janelt | BRE | £5.0m | 2.5% | 2.71 | 90 |
| Mac Allister | LIV | £5.4m | 1.3% | 2.55 | 86 |
| Lewis-Potter | BRE | £5.5m | 1.7% | 2.41 | 84 |
| Player | Team | Price | Ownership | xP (GW6) | xP (season) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wilson | BRE | £5.4m | 0.3% | 2.74 | 91 |
| Emersonn | IPS | £5.5m | 3.5% | 2.16 | 72 |
| McBurnie | HUL | £5.5m | 1.9% | 2.07 | 72 |
| Flemming | IPS | £5.5m | 0.1% | 1.71 | 61 |
| Kalimuendo | NFO | £5.4m | 0.1% | 2.00 | 51 |
| Thomas-Asante | COV | £5.0m | 0.8% | 1.50 | 50 |
| Vaz | HUL | £5.0m | 0.1% | 1.30 | 49 |
| Jebbison | BOU | £5.0m | 0.1% | 1.59 | 47 |
| Georginio | BHA | £5.3m | 0.5% | 1.31 | 46 |
| Akpom | IPS | £5.0m | 1.2% | 1.25 | 42 |
Ownership is a crowd, and the crowd is often chasing last season's story. Ranking by projected points over all 38 gameweeks surfaces cheap players who start every week and accumulate quietly — particularly defenders who hit the 10-action defensive contribution threshold, which is worth 2 points a match and is the single most underrated source of budget returns in 2026/27.
Two caveats. Season totals assume no injuries, no transfers and no loss of a starting place across nine months, so treat the ordering as a ranking rather than a forecast. And a cheap player is only cheap if he plays — check the minutes before you commit.
Expected points are not FPL's ep_next field, which is floored at 1.0 and capped near 4.0 before a season starts and cannot rank players. Dugout builds them from a venue-split Poisson model of every fixture — separate home and away scoring records for each club — then splits each club's expected goals and assists between its players, and scores the result with FPL's real 2026/27 rules: goals by position, assists, clean sheets, goals conceded, saves, penalty duty, defensive contribution points and an estimate of bonus. Everything is weighted by expected minutes. Newly promoted clubs have no Premier League data, so their players are estimated and should be treated with caution. These are predictions, not forecasts of what will happen. Full method →
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Guides: FPL prices 26/27 · Captain picks · Deadlines · How xP is calculated · Price changes