Fantasy Premier League has only been live for a matter of days, but thousands of managers have already started building their first Gameweek 1 drafts.
With the player prices now available, early ownership figures are beginning to reveal which assets could form the initial FPL template team for 2026/27.
Using live data from the Fantasy Football Fix Insight Live and Big Data: Team Reveal tools, we have examined the most-owned players in the game and identified the beginnings of a potential Gameweek 1 core.
An FPL template is the group of highly owned players who appear in a significant proportion of active Fantasy Premier League squads.
Managers do not necessarily own exactly the same 15 players, but a template begins to emerge when the same core assets repeatedly appear across drafts.
High ownership does not automatically make a player a strong selection. Some popular assets may still carry concerns over price, minutes, fitness or fixtures. Read our FPL Players to Avoid for Gameweek 1 guide for the early options managers may want to reconsider.
The Highest Owned Team Reveal within the Big Data: Team Reveal tool creates a complete FPL squad using the players with the highest ownership across the game.
The data is updated every hour, allowing managers to track how the wider FPL template changes throughout pre-season.
The tool also allows users to compare the popular squad against three alternative approaches:
Comparing the four reveals can help managers understand where general ownership, expert opinion and Fantasy Football Fix’s points projections agree — and where they differ.
Insight Live provides a more detailed view of current player ownership across all Fantasy Premier League managers.
At the time the data was captured, these were the ten most-owned players:
The percentages shown in the Highest Owned Team Reveal may be fractionally different because the tools update regularly and the screenshots were taken at slightly different times.
Haaland is comfortably the most-owned player in the game, featuring in almost three-quarters of current squads despite his record-breaking £15.5m price.
The Manchester City forward already appears to be the closest thing to a Gameweek 1 template lock. His ownership is more than 25 percentage points higher than any other player.
B. Fernandes and João Pedro form the next tier, with both selected by nearly half of all managers.
Szoboszlai and Rogers are also already above 35% ownership, suggesting that the initial template could be built around the following five players:
The defensive template appears far less settled.
Raya is the most-owned goalkeeper, but he remains below 30%. Guéhi, O’Reilly, Gabriel and Dúbravka are all clustered between approximately 24% and 26%, while several other defenders feature in the Highest Owned Team Reveal without making the overall top ten.
That indicates that managers currently agree far more strongly on the premium attacking positions than they do on their goalkeepers and defenders.
Four of the ten most-owned players also appeared in the first 2026/27 draft submitted by Elite FPL manager Dan Bennett:
Dan has recorded ten top-10k finishes, including seven inside the top 5k, making his early selections particularly interesting when comparing expert opinion with general ownership.
His inclusion of Haaland and Fernandes supports the current preference for two premium captaincy options, while João Pedro offers an affordable route into the Chelsea attack.
Gabriel is a more divisive selection. His £8.0m price makes him significantly more expensive than most other defenders, but almost one-quarter of managers have still included him.
The overlap does not prove that the popular players are automatically the best choices, but it does suggest that several parts of the early template are also attracting support from one of the game’s most consistently successful managers.
There is one major reason not to read too much into these numbers yet: auto-picked teams.
Many managers will have registered a squad without making any meaningful changes. Others may have quickly selected recognisable names before returning to their drafts later in pre-season.
This can inflate the ownership of popular players, particularly premium assets and players who performed well last season.
The more reliable Gameweek 1 template will only start to become clear once managers have had time to:
Ownership data should therefore be treated as an early indicator of interest rather than evidence of a settled template.
It may only take one major Premier League transfer to completely change the current picture.
Arsenal are reportedly exploring a potential move for Real Madrid winger Vinícius Junior. No club-to-club contact had taken place at the time of reporting, but Sky Sports described Arsenal’s interest as genuine, with Vinícius one of several attacking targets being considered.
Vinícius Júnior to Arsenal? 👀
— Fantasy Football Fix (@FantasyFootyFix) July 25, 2026
The rumours are starting to gather pace… but how much do you think #FPL would price him at if he made the move? 💰 pic.twitter.com/Ql2T2SrmpU
A premium price could force managers to dismantle their existing squad structures. His arrival would also create another major contender for one of the three available Arsenal spaces.
The transfer is currently only a possibility, but it demonstrates why an apparent template can change extremely quickly during pre-season.
An early FPL template is beginning to form, led by Haaland, B. Fernandes, João Pedro, Szoboszlai and Rogers.
Defence remains less settled, with Raya the only defensive player above 30% ownership. However, auto-picked teams, pre-season, transfers and predicted line-ups could quickly change the picture.
We will revisit the data closer to Gameweek 1. Until then, track ownership through Insight Live and compare the Highest Owned, Expert Managers, AI and Differential squads in the Big Data: Team Reveal tool.
Follow first drafts and live team changes from our Elite XI: Team Reveal managers.
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