Here’s our FPL GW4 tips article where 4 FFGeek Contributors show their FPL GW4 teams Part 3. There’s Clay, Stephen, Harry’s and Rick’s teams. Between them they finished in the top 1% of teams 33 out of 40 times in the last 10 ULTRA competitive seasons.
FPL GW4 Tips – 4 FFGeek Contributors teams Part 3
Other GW4 articles
The teams of 12 top FPL Managers, GW3 review, FFGeek Contributors Teams Part 1
The FFGeek Captain Poll, FFGeek Transfer Planner, FFGeek Contributors Teams Part 2,
The FFGeek Imaginary Wildcards Fixture Ticker
Introduction
It’s worth noting that the teams shown may not necessarily end up being the final teams or the transfers may have been made in the days prior to the posting . It’s an informal situation to give you an idea of trends.
However the FFGeek team, the Transfer Planner Team and the Contributor Vote team Plus the Contributor teams of Rob, Rick, Andrew, Pete, Javier, Andy and Joe mentioned above on the FFGeek Patreon site all make notified transfers live as they are completed. So you’re always up to date and live for a maximum £4 PCM.
The 12 top FPL managers average refers to the 12 top FPL managers who finished in the top 10k Overall Rank the last 3 seasons. See my article analysing their teams
Clay Van Doren
Clay’s last 12 seasons Overall ranks are 206k, 129k, 970th, 36k, 29k, 219k, 97k, 43k, 37k, 1k, 83k and 10k
GW3 points: 58 on TC (12 Top managers average 50 ) Total points: 249, Overall Rank: 25k, green arrow 23k: Team Value: £100.7m
Clay has used his BB and TC
GW 3 Notables: Focus on 2026-27 Metas
Rule changes having big impact on BPS from defcon defenders
- No defenders got bonus in GW1-GW3 without clean sheet, assist or goal…
- …while twelve defenders in GW1-GW3 2025-26 got FPL bonus without goals, clean sheets for assists
Arsenal runaway best team?
- If so, success in game may depend on swapping between Arsenal players to continuously have the best three Arsenal
- Chelsea defeat augmented this belief
Increase in attack across league?
- With all the 9 new managers…most of them attacking (even Newcastle and Fulham)
Possible return of premiums outside of Bruno and Haaland
- Palmer and Saka both staked a claim of their revival returning in Gameweeks 1-2
Gameweek 3 results: Solid week with Triple Captain 9 pointer, Mbeumo and Odegaard goals
Took risk on no Man City Midfielders for a 1 week before swapping to Chelsea
- Reminder that one-week points often are not worth it
Landed on an ok 58 points despite no Arsenal clean sheet (2 defenders, no Bruno return, Sangare on 0 points
My Gameweek rank of 2.8M was worse than my weekly 1M target but 6 points better than Elite average. On solid 26K Rank for season.
Gameweek 4: Plan Palmer for Fernandes, Captain Palmer
- Tempted to risk no Chelsea midfielder this week but Palmer’s minutes much more secure than a City Midfielder…
- …and Palmer on Fire with no Europe
Midterm Plans
Plan for Chips – Benchboost and Triple Captain used. Wildcard Late (like swing Gameweek 17) and Freehit (TBD possibly GW16)
Regarding Wildcard, planning to avoid use by using a couple of hits to bring in Konsa once he starts regularly and a man city midfielder if ever a clear starter who scores (Anderson, Foden, Cherki)
Tracking List
Disclaimer – typically only a small number of players in the mix with Elite managers so no need to spend time on 15th-20th candidates in midfield and defence (unless enjoy that of course)
- Youtubers talk about many more players to give them content
- Start with c. 40 players selected by elite managers and end up with c. 18 in play by end of season.
Goalies (outside current team). Little to choose from:
- Leno – Positive: GW6-8 Fulham play three promoted sides, rotates nicely with Kinsky if keep two goal keepers post Benchboost 1; Negative: Fulham appear all out attack under new manager
- Martinez – Positive: historically solid keeper at 5M on team targeting Champions League without midweek fixtures; con – defence not good so far this season
Defenders (I can envision whole new 5 defenders from the below)
- Konsa – 4.5M defender newly arrived at Arsenal; instant add to all FPL teams once plays regularly; Negative: for now, likely near-term price drops as 11% already own and could be weeks before plays
- Gvardiol – Positive: 5.5M attacking defender with position flexibility, 2025-26 down year still 30.3 points per million in matches played (27M across all players wins FPL); Negative: gametime as possibly sharing position with top players Guehi & O’Reilly (albeit O’Reilly recent injury may help)
- Muharemovic (Leeds) – 5.0M reported Defcon machine on Defcon team with improving defence in H2 2025-26. Strong start with 2nd best defcon in league (39)
- Vuskovic, Brighton – 5.0M Croatian scoring machine with likely solid Defcon on best end of season 2025-26 Defence; Negative – is he fast enough to play in Premier League
- Jacquet, Liverpool – Positive young French 5.0 defender on top team with limited competition; Negative his individual defensive stats (clearances per 90: 6.45, tackles per 90: 1.67) are weaker than Mahuremovic’s stats (clearances per 90: 8.57, tackles and interceptions per 90: 2.10)
Midfielders (plan is to lock in 2-3 lower value mids and rotate expensive players at top end)
- Palmer (rotation option with Bruno F)– Positives – potential premium without Champions League and strong upcoming fixtures with return of another premium after 18 months off. Tough to judge strong display against overly open Fulham but League would benefit from 200+ points 2023-24 & H1 2024-25 Palmer vs. 140-point 2025-26 Palmer
- Saka (rotation option) – Another 9.5 potential premium who surprised me with strong start (returns in gameweeks 1 & 2)
- Gibbs-White @8M (rotation option) – positive signs of return to the 44 points over last four 2025-26 matches
- Szlobeslai @7M (upper end of permanent player option) – seemingly the driving machine of Top 4 Liverpool, on free kicks and now, at least a share of penalties. My current thinking I may be able to roughly match from 5.5M Defcon Mid
- K Dewsbury-Hall (6.5), Ndiaye (6.5), Anderson(6.5), Stach (6.0) (possible perma players) – 6/6.5M Group all consistent with some upside
- Caicedo (injured -perma play low-priced Mid @5.5M) — would have had 140 2024-25 points (28.2M per million) with Chelsea if defcon scoring had been in place. His 42 defcon points in 2024-25 was tops vs. Anderson’s extraordinary 52 in 2025-26
- M Fernandes (perma play lower priced Mid @6M) but either injured or out of favour at moment
- Norgaard – (injured – @5M cheapest perma defcon midfielder) – would have had 141 2024-25 points (28.2M per million) with Brentford if defcon scoring had been in place.
Forwards (prices lowered but still worse value for money vs. cheap mids and defenders)
- Only Calvert-Lewin and J Pedro above 23.5 points per million vs. 26.8M needed to win the league
- And I seriously challenge Calvert-Lewin will do it again as had record x points from BPS and y points from minutes (vs. x average over last few years
- To be an option, Forward needs consistent 90 minutes and 15+ goals and assists
- Long list of 6.0M midfielders with better returns of all other forwards, Stach (6.0M, 29 starts) on 137 points, Le Fe (6.0M) on 147 points, Tavernier, Anderson, Ampadu all better than 6.0 forwards in 2025-26
- Strategy is Calvert-Lewin…maybe Wissa or 4.5M forward
Transfer strategy: Likely Bruno Fernandes OUT and Palmer IN
Here’s the team in transfer tab mode showing Palmer IN
Palmer (C); Haaland (VC): Bench: Verbruggen, Sangare, O’Shea, Maguire
Harry Vernon
Harry’s last 10 seasons are 45k, 7k, 853rd, 74k, 35k, 86k, 22k, 6k, an incredible 224th and 6k
GW3 points: 60 on TC (12 Top managers average 50) Total points: 223 Overall Rank: 502k, green arrow 343k , Team Value: £100.2m
Harry has used his TC
See the full article and team on the FFGeek Patreon Site for £3.50 PM plus loads of other FPL Content outlined above. No annual Commitment required
Rick Porter
Rick’s 8 of the last 10 seasons top 38k OR. 5 top 12k ORs
GW3 points: 52 on TC (20 Top managers average 50 ) Total points: 215, Overall Rank: 945k, red arrow 100k, Team Value: £100.3m
Rick has used his TC
After the excitement of GW2, GW3 was a bit of a non-event. I dropped 100k rank, but that’s only about 2-3 points in reality. Had I not bothered moving Tzolis to Foden then it would have been a small green arrow in the other direction.
Having a transfer that you’ve mulled over all week work against you is one of FPLs greatest jokes. It’s easy to say I shouldn’t have bothered getting Foden with the benefit hindsight, but a triple-up of City players against Coventry was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed. You have to make a grab for points when they look like they might be available – while there’s a lot of luck needed in this game, you have to put yourself in a position to get lucky.
Obviously, the triple-up fell apart. Foden was benched and came on for a 1-pointer, and O’Reilly hurt his back in the warm-up and missed out completely. The silver lining came in the form of a goal and full bonus for TC Haaland (an acceptable return from the chip in a single gameweek), and the fact the most popular City mid, Cherki, also blanked. Moving Mbeumo to Cherki instead, which was my ‘safe’ option, would have ended up scoring less.
There’s little point dwelling on sensible decisions that didn’t pay off. What’s more important is what happens next…
Wildcard
The word ‘Wildcard’ seems to be on everyone’s lips all of the time this season. Maybe it’s a lack of patience, a desire to get ahead of the pack, an unwillingness to lose funds, or simply an effective way to boost engagement… whichever it is, socials seem to be flooded with WC drafts. Now it’s the turn of WC4…
To be honest, I’m not wholly against it. The Man City uncertainty GW3 created makes me want to ditch both Foden and O’Reilly immediately. Bruno, Mbeumo and Maguire face City this week, which is suboptimal. Throw in my injured Crooks, who’s just taking up room on the bench, and there’s probably a case for it.
I have two FTs, so I can easily remove a City player with one and bring in any Chelsea player I want for GW4 with the cash raised should I want to, but a WC could sort everything and let me keep those transfers.
Issue is, I’m not overly sure on who’d I’d even want on WC, as we’ve seen three very different weeks of football. Most players I know I’d want long-term, like Haaland, Bruno, Pedro, Calafiori, Gross and Konsa are already in the team, and everything else is up in the air. Three weeks just isn’t enough time to get a good picture of where the value picks are, let alone the essential ones.
It would be far too easy to fill the gaps with last week’s favourite toys who’ll be tossed aside en masse for shinier ones after their next blank.
I still have Bench Boost to prepare for too, and the best way for me to do that is to WC over the long three-week international break before GW6 to allow me to plan it properly, with a view to activating it soon after. That’s still the best option if I can get there.
Transfers
You can see the full article, including LIVE transfers, lineup and captains at the Wide Forward Tier of the FFGeek Patreon site for only £4.00 pcm with no annual commitment and with loads of other content outlined at the bottom of this article. That includes following Rick’s Team and 6 others with live notified transfers as they happen and the teams final lineup each gameweek.
Stephen Troop
Stephens 7 of the last 10 seasons top 86k OR
Follow Stephen on twitter here
GW3 points: 46 on TC (12 Top managers average 50 ) Total points: 224, Overall Rank: 474k, red arrow 243k: Team Value: £100.3m
Stephen has used his BB and TC
GW3 Review
A pretty awful week really. I triple captained Haaland for 9 points and he was my only returner, capped of by having transferred out the returning Mbeumo for Cherki. It was a tough week for many including those on wildcards. Not much else to say really. The Cherki move does show that transfers designed for 1 week aren’t often a good use of a transfer.
GW4 Team
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The FFGeek Contributors League
As well as loads of other features, you can follow the FFGeek team and The Transfer Planner team with live Transfers and Final lineups on the FFGeek Patreon site.
This season also Andrew, Rick, Rob, Pete and Joe’s team you can following including live transfer notifications and final lineups on the Wide Forward Tier of the FFGeek Patreon site
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The Contributor Vote team – Last 3 ORs 10k, 151k, 91k
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