FPL Pre-Season Friendlies 2026/27: The Signals Worth Trusting

Data current as of: 9 August 2026. Prices are 2026/27 launch prices. Friendly results are drawn from confirmed lineup reports through 4 August.

Most pre-season friendly-watching is wasted effort. A club with a settled first-choice XI plays a friendly, rotates half the squad, and the result tells you nothing you didn't already know. The friendlies worth reading are the ones with genuine uncertainty behind them: three promoted clubs with no Premier League history, and a handful of established-club players whose role changed after a big departure.

Here's where the evidence is real, and where it isn't.

Where the signal is strong: no Premier League history

Coventry City, Hull City and Ipswich Town are all back in the top flight with no 2025/26 minutes to draw on. For these three, friendlies are close to the only pre-GW1 evidence that exists.

Hull City's spine is the clearest read in this group. Jack Butland (£4.5m) started in goal in all three friendlies, against Konyaspor, Rizespor and Kasimpasa. Ryan Giles (£4.0m) and John Egan (£4.0m) both started at left-back and centre-back in the two most recent games. Liam Millar (£5.0m) and Oli McBurnie (£5.5m) started together up front in both, and McBurnie scored in the Kasimpasa game. That's five players with confirmed starts in Hull's most recent lineup, all at or near the price floor.

Ipswich Town's back line and wide players show the same pattern. Dara O'Shea (£4.0m) started and captained both friendlies. Leif Davis (£4.0m) started both. Jack Clarke (£5.5m) and Abdul Fatawu (£5.5m) both featured across two friendlies with at least one confirmed start each. Up front, Emersonn (£5.5m) started the first friendly from kickoff and Akpom (£5.0m) scored in one of two appearances.

Coventry City has the deepest friendly coverage of the three, with a near-full back line showing repeat starts at the £4.0m floor. The full Coventry breakdown covers who's actually nailed, which fixture window to time a pick around, and the one player (Bassette, out on loan) to avoid despite still appearing in squad lists.

Where the signal is real but smaller: role changes at established clubs

A handful of players at settled clubs saw a significant departure this summer that could open up their minutes. Two are worth flagging from what pre-season has shown so far.

Christos Tzolis (ARS, £6.5m) is the standout. He started against MK Dons on 25 July, then started again against Girona on 1 August and scored. Two starts and a goal across two matches is a genuinely strong pre-season run, and at £6.5m in a squad that kept the best defensive record in the league last season, he's the highest-ceiling differential on this list.

Lewis Koumas (LIV, £5.0m) is a smaller-sample version of the same idea. He did not start either friendly, but came off the bench to score in one of them (85th minute, vs Sunderland on 25 July) and played 63 minutes in the other. Not a starting-XI case yet, but a name worth tracking if Liverpool's pre-season minutes keep trending his way.

Emiliano Buendía (AVL, £6.0m) started and scored in his one pre-season friendly. One match is a thin sample on its own, but combined with a genuine change in Aston Villa's forward options this summer, it's worth a note rather than a headline.

Where the signal is weak, and why

Brighton, Chelsea and Crystal Palace are worth a specific caution. Brighton's summer signings have no reliable pre-season minutes on record yet. Chelsea's fringe additions have mostly come on as second-half substitutes rather than started. Crystal Palace's rotation options have barely featured in what's been played so far.

That's the expected outcome, not a red flag. These clubs have settled first-choice XIs, so a friendly lineup is mostly reserves and squad players getting minutes, not a preview of round-one selection. Reading signal into it would be the mistake, not the absence of a headline.

The honest exception is Ipswich's goalkeeper situation, which is genuinely unresolved. Three players are priced at exactly £4.5m for the position (Scherpen, Van Oevelen, Walton), and the evidence conflicts: one report describes Scherpen as the manager's stated pick with zero appearances recorded, Van Oevelen has a partial substitute appearance where he conceded the winning goal, and Walton has one sourced start in a specific lineup alongside a separate report that he's out with a foot injury. We're not picking a side on that one. It's a case where the friendly data itself is the story, and it needs the next round of pre-season games to settle.

How much weight to put on any of this

Confirmed starts from kickoff are the strongest signal. "Played" or "featured," without start confirmation, is weaker and shouldn't be read the same way. A goal or assist adds color but doesn't override the starting-XI question on its own, since impact substitutes score in friendlies too. And opposition quality varies hugely, from League Two sides to top-flight European clubs, which affects how hard any given start actually was to earn.

Treat everything above as directional. Team news across the final fortnight before the 21 August kickoff will confirm or override most of it, and that's the point where these picks stop being pre-season theory and start being real squad decisions.

Build your GW1 squad in the squad builder, and check the budget enablers guide for the established-club cheap starters that pair with any of the picks above.