FPL Set-Piece and Penalty Takers 2025/26: All 20 Clubs

Data current as of: 2 May 2026 Coverage: All 20 Premier League clubs, 2025/26 season, latest known set-piece roles. Refresh cadence: This page is updated when the FPL set-piece data layer flags a change. Last sync: 2 May 2026. Verify the current taker on any GW with team news.

Set-piece roles are the single highest-leverage piece of information in FPL. A penalty earns roughly 0.76 expected goals on average. Direct free kicks are good for 0.05 to 0.10 xG. Corners drive a quarter of all goals in the league. If you do not know who takes them at every club, you are leaving easy points on the table.

This guide lists the penalty number one and number two at every club where the data layer surfaces a confirmed taker, plus the set-piece changes that mattered most this season.

Penalty takers by club

The full table, sorted alphabetically by club, with the FPL Pilot confidence rating (3 stars is locked in, 2 stars is most likely, dashes mean the data layer has no confirmed second-choice).

Club	Pen #1	Conf	Pen #2	Conf
ARS	(rotated)	-	Trossard	2/3
AVL	(rotated)	-	Watkins	2/3
BHA	Welbeck	3/3	-	-
BOU	Kluivert	2/3	Tavernier	2/3
BRE	Thiago	2/3	Jensen	2/3
BUR	Flemming	3/3	Bruun Larsen	2/3
CHE	Enzo	3/3	-	-
CRY	Mateta	3/3	-	-
EVE	(rotated)	-	Beto	2/3
FUL	Andreas	3/3	-	-
LEE	(rotated)	-	Piroe	2/3
LIV	(rotated)	-	M.Salah	2/3
MCI	Haaland	2/3	Doku	2/3
MUN	B.Fernandes	3/3	-	-
NEW	Gordon	3/3	-	-
NFO	Anderson	3/3	-	-
SUN	Diarra	3/3	Isidor	2/3
TOT	(rotated)	-	Richarlison	2/3
WHU	(rotated)	-	Bowen	2/3
WOL	Hee Chan	3/3	-	-

A ”-” in the Pen #1 column means the data layer does not currently mark a primary taker, which usually reflects rotation between two players or a recent change of penalty hierarchy.

What changed this season

Three set-piece moves in 2025/26 shifted FPL value enough to be worth re-stating.

Mateta locking in CRY pen #1. Crystal Palace had genuine ambiguity early in the season but Mateta is now the unambiguous taker. Combined with his xG of 14.66 against 10 goals scored, this makes him one of the better-priced penalty forwards on the board at £7.6m.

Bowen as WHU pen #2. West Ham have shifted away from the previous setup and Bowen is now in the rotation as the second taker. He is not a primary, so price him as a “bonus pen if the first is unavailable” rather than a pure penalty asset, but the optionality matters in a chip week.

Salah dropping to LIV pen #2. Liverpool’s penalty hierarchy moved in 2025/26. Salah remains in the rotation but is no longer the locked first taker. Combined with his current injury (out for the season, expected back 24 May), this is moot for the run-in but worth knowing for next season’s draft. Our injury update for the run-in covers Salah and the other big assets currently flagged.

Direct free kick takers

Set-piece data for direct free kicks is sparser than for penalties, but the names below are the consistent first-choice strikers of dead balls at each club where one player has clearly emerged.

ARS: Rice
AVL: McGinn
BHA: rotated, often Welbeck or Hinshelwood
BRE: Thiago
CHE: Palmer (when fit)
CRY: Eze (if available)
LIV: Szoboszlai
MUN: B.Fernandes
NEW: Gordon
NFO: Anderson
TOT: Maddison or Son depending on side
WHU: Bowen
WOL: Hwang or Andre

Direct free kick xG is meaningful but small. Treat it as a tiebreaker between two players with similar xG and pStart, not a primary signal.

Corner takers and threat-from-corners

Corners convert at a lower rate than open play but matter for two reasons: assists for the taker and clean-sheet-bonus interactions for tall defenders. The clubs with the highest corner volume in 2025/26 (per the team-stats data layer) are Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Chelsea. The taker most often surfaces as the deep-lying playmaker, B.Fernandes for MUN, Bernardo for MCI, Szoboszlai for LIV, Palmer for CHE.

If you own a tall defender at one of those clubs (Khusanov, Saliba, van Dijk, Colwill), part of their value is that they are on the receiving end of premium corner delivery. This is a quiet reason City defenders project so high in DGW36.

How to use this in transfers

Three rules.

Rule 1: Never own a striker who is not on penalties at his club. Mateta over Watkins is the simplest example in the £7m bracket. Mateta is the locked taker, Watkins is the rotated number two at AVL.

Rule 2: A change in penalty taker is a buy signal that resolves in 2 to 4 weeks. When Bowen moved into the WHU rotation, he was a low-key add. The price reflects it now, but the same logic applies any time the data layer surfaces a new pen #1 mid-season.

Rule 3: Free kick and corner takers are tiebreakers, not anchors. Do not transfer in a player just because he takes corners. Do transfer in a player whose xG is borderline if he also takes corners and is on free kicks.

What to do with this list

Match this against your current squad. Anyone in your starting XI who is at a club where they are not the pen #1 or pen #2 should be reviewed against the alternative at the same price. Cherki vs Bernardo, Mateta vs Watkins, Welbeck vs Wissa: in each case the set-piece role tilts the call.

If you are using this in combination with chip planning, we have specific picks for the run-in differentials and a separate guide on when to play the bench-boost chip.

Find the best set-piece-on-form transfers for your squad and budget →

Set-piece data sourced from the FPL Pilot production data layer on 2 May 2026. Confidence ratings reflect the latest model run. Always verify on team news the morning of the deadline. We refresh this page when the underlying set-piece roles change.