Top Fantasy Football Bargains: Players Who Defined Value
There was a time when fantasy football meant ink-stained fingers, not algorithm-driven chips. You sat at the kitchen table, paper spread out, parents pretending this was a maths lesson while you scribbled down codes for Julian Dicks and Juninho, then rang a landline to lock in your XI. No price-change trackers, no expected goals. Just you, a pen and the hope you’d found a bargain before anyone else.
That thrill hasn’t gone anywhere. Whether it’s a free-kick specialist defender, a mislabelled midfielder masquerading as a striker or a £4.0m keeper racking up save points, the heartbeat of Fantasy Premier League has always been the same: value. Who gives you far more than they cost?
With help from resident FPL expert Thomas Woods and deep digging by Fantasy Football Scout, here are the icons who defined that search for value – the players who bent the game in your favour.
Because yes, Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard and Cristiano Ronaldo racked up monstrous totals. Henry topped the charts in three of the first four seasons, Lampard did it three times from midfield, Ronaldo twice from the wing. Mo Salah has gone beyond them all, smashing the 200-point barrier eight times and clearing 300 twice – a level no one else has touched.
But this is about the bargains. The ones who felt like cheating.
10. Harry Kane, Tottenham, 2014-15 – starting price £5.0m
Before he became England captain, before the Golden Boots and the records, Harry Kane was a £5.0m afterthought.
Tottenham began 2014-15 with Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado ahead of him. Kane’s Premier League season didn’t properly start until November, when he came off the bench at Aston Villa and snatched a 90th-minute winner. From there, he caught fire.
He ended with 21 league goals, forcing his way into Mauricio Pochettino’s side and into almost every serious FPL squad. Between gameweeks 18 and 25 he was relentless: nine goals, four assists, 16 bonus points, 77 points in eight matches.
Those who backed him early watched his price climb from £5.0m to £6.4m, his total to 191 points. He finished 11th on the all-time value list despite playing fewer minutes than anyone above him. Kane never felt that cheap again.
8. Michel Vorm, Swansea, 2011-12 – £4.0m
Michel Vorm’s first taste of the Premier League looked like a nightmare on paper: four goals conceded away to Manchester City. For a £4.0m keeper, that sounded about right.
But buried in that defeat was the hint of what was to come. Vorm made 11 saves that day, more than any other keeper would manage in a single game all season.
He went on to sweep Swansea’s end-of-season awards and quietly become an FPL phenomenon. Clean sheets came regularly – 14 in total – and the saves never stopped. He finished with the second-most points among keepers, behind Joe Hart, who had started £3.0m more expensive.
At his peak, Vorm’s price hit £5.3m and he was the fourth-most owned player in the game. For both Swansea and FPL managers, that was his high-water mark.
7. Stuart Dallas, Leeds, 2020-21 – £4.5m
Under Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds played like chaos in a bottle. Stuart Dallas turned that chaos into FPL gold.
Listed as a defender, Dallas spent the season popping up everywhere. He was, in reality, an attacking midfielder who just happened to bring clean-sheet points with him. He even tore apart Manchester City at the Etihad, scoring twice in a 17-point explosion that felt like pure robbery for his owners.
“The Northern Ireland international's versatility played into the hands of FPL managers because, even though he was classified as a defender, he played all over the place for Leeds in 2020-21 – more often than not as an attacking midfielder,” explains Woods.
For £4.5m at the start, managers banked eight goals, 12 clean sheets, three assists and 171 points. A budget defender who attacked like a winger and scored like a No 10. That’s not value, that’s daylight robbery.
6. Michail Antonio, West Ham, 2019-20 – £7.0m
Michail Antonio’s place here isn’t about a full season. It’s about one outrageous month.
Classified as a midfielder but used up front, Antonio’s campaign lurched through injuries and the pandemic. His price drifted, managers lost patience.
Then football returned – and Antonio detonated.
In July 2020 he played seven times and scored eight goals. The centrepiece was Norwich away, a 4-0 West Ham win in which Antonio scored all four and walked away with 26 points.
For a player priced under £7.0m, that haul is joint-highest on record, matched only by Cole Palmer, and just three short of Salah’s all-time single gameweek record. For that brief, blazing spell, Antonio wasn’t just a good pick. He was the game.
5. John Lundstram, Sheffield United, 2019-20 – £4.0m
Every FPL manager remembers where they were when they realised John Lundstram wasn’t just a £4.0m bench-warmer.
“Lord Lundstram” started the season as the classic final-slot defender: cheap, disposable, a body to fill out the squad. FPL had him down as a defender. Chris Wilder had other ideas.
“A £4m defender is usually the last spot on FPL managers' benches but Lundstram was misclassified by FPL towers and was actually a box-to-box midfielder,” says Woods.
He scored five goals, added four assists and collected clean sheets on the way to 144 points. His week 11 return – two goals and 21 points – became instant folklore.
Most importantly, starting a £4.0m asset who produced like a mid-priced midfielder freed up money everywhere else. Lundstram didn’t just score points; he bent the whole game’s economy.
4. Riyad Mahrez, Leicester, 2015-16 – £5.5m
Leicester’s title win was a miracle. For FPL managers who backed Riyad Mahrez early, it was also a gold rush.
Priced at £5.5m, Mahrez exploded out of the blocks. In gameweek one he hit Sunderland for 15 points, rewarding the 5.9% of managers who had taken a punt. That was the warning. The avalanche followed.
He hit double figures in five of the first six gameweeks, amassing 56 points in that spell – one of the best starts the game has ever seen. By week seven, over half the managers in the game had scrambled to get him.
Jamie Vardy’s record-breaking run – a goal or assist for 15 straight gameweeks – grabbed the headlines, but he had started £0.5m dearer. Mahrez, at that modest price, finished as the game’s top scorer with 240 points.
For Ranieri, he was priceless. For FPL managers, he was as close to free money as the game allows.
3. Michu, Swansea, 2012-13 – £6.5m
Some FPL picks feel like a fling. Michu felt like a love affair.
He arrived from Rayo Vallecano as a relative unknown, priced at £6.5m. A few sharp-eyed managers noticed he’d scored 15 goals in La Liga the previous season and took a chance. On the opening day at QPR, he scored twice. The bandwagon started rolling and never really stopped.
Michu was, in practice, a striker. The game listed him as a midfielder. That misalignment powered one of the great fantasy seasons.
He finished 2012-13 with 18 league goals and 190 points, his price climbing by £2.0m over the campaign. “He is probably the biggest one-season wonder in FPL history,” says Woods.
The sequel never came. He scored just twice the following year and then left for Napoli. For one glorious season, though, he was the face of FPL – a cult hero living in the top-left corner of your screen.
2. Mohamed Salah, Liverpool, 2024-25 – £12.5m
If there’s one premium player who has to gatecrash a list built on value, it’s Mohamed Salah.
Other Liverpool assets have strong claims. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson redefined what full-backs could be in FPL, while Luis Suarez delivered the third-highest score ever, with 55 attacking returns in 2013-14 despite missing the first five games.
But Salah stands alone. Since the game began, 52 players have hit 200 points in a season at least once. Salah has done it eight times. He is the only player to break 300, and he has done that twice.
His 2024-25 campaign was the peak: a staggering 344 points, the highest single-season total in FPL history, coming straight after what was, by his standards, a “down” year – still well above 200 points.
He has never been cheap. He has always been worth it. In a game obsessed with value, Salah proved that sometimes the most expensive option is still underpriced.
1. Cole Palmer, Chelsea, 2023-24 – £5.0m
To understand Cole Palmer’s place at the top of this list, you have to remember how that season started.
He arrived at Chelsea from Manchester City seeking minutes, not stardom. FPL priced him at £5.0m, filed him under “maybe later” and moved on. He didn’t start a league game for Chelsea until matchweek seven.
Only 63,575 managers – 0.6% of the game – owned him when he delivered his first double-figure return at Burnley in gameweek eight. A few more noticed when he hit 12 points at Tottenham in gameweek 12. Then the stampede began.
By the time he ripped Everton apart with four goals and a 26-point haul in gameweek 33, over five million managers had scrambled aboard. His price had crept up to just £6.1m, still absurdly low for what he was producing.
“Based on starting price, Cole Palmer in 2023-24 is the best-ever value player in Fantasy,” concludes the Scout.
Palmer finished that season as the overall top scorer with 244 points and earned the biggest price rise in FPL history: up £5.5m, from £5.0m to £10.5m at the start of 2024-25. In 12 months he went from punt to premium, from differential to template, from curiosity to cornerstone.
And that’s the magic of FPL. Somewhere out there, another Palmer, another Michu, another Lundstram is waiting at £4.5m or £5.0m, ignored in pre-season drafts, ready to blow the game apart for anyone brave enough to call their name first.
