This week sees a return to relative calm in the FPL world, following the chaos of a blank and double-gameweek-dominated GW25.
However, gameweek 26 can be described as the eye of the storm in many ways - in it being the only time between GW25-29 that all 20 teams are in action.
With that in mind, here are five essential picks for your fantasy team this week:
Tyrone Mings
Given the lack of double-gameweeks and blanks across the board this week, it is important to pick players with good fixtures.
England’s Tyrone Mings fits that bill this week, facing Crystal Palace at home.
Villa’s defensive stats will not fill you with hope, but a glance at Palace’s recent offensive output should give you confidence that Mings has at least a strong chance of keeping the sheets clean this week; Patrick Viera’s team have managed only 48 shots across their previous six matches; the lowest in the league in that period.
Kaoru Mitoma
Despite a price hike in recent weeks, Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma still represents excellent value for money at £5.3m.
Brighton’s talisman has seven direct goal contributions in his 10 starts this season (three goals and four assists) and faces a West Ham side that have almost consistently underwhelmed this season.
Despite a recent upturn in performances, including a 4-0 demolishing of Steve Cooper’s Nottingham Forest, Wednesday’s 3-1 FA Cup defeat at the hands of Manchester United show that the Hammers are still defensively vulnerable.
Mitoma averages nearly 0.3xG and 0.3xA per game in the league this season, which is extremely encouraging going into a good fixture like West Ham at home.
The Japanese also has a double-gameweek in GW27, so will continue to offer value going forward, especially while Solly March is an injury doubt.
Ollie Watkins
Aston Villa’s main man proved doubters wrong last week to extend his scoring run to a club record-breaking five Premier League matches in a row.
Watkins joins Marcus Rashford and Erling Haaland in being the only players to score more than three in their last five.
The question is: can it continue?
Crystal Palace’s injury-hit defence and poor clean sheets record would suggest so. As would Watkins’ shooting stats - the forward has had the most on-target efforts (eight) in the league during the past five weeks.
The forward is amongst those who doesn’t blank in GW28 and has a double-gameweek the following week, so seems a smart investment moving forward, too.
Ivan Toney
Whilst Erling Haaland and Harry Kane have been excellent FPL picks week-on-week this year, finding your second or third striker has been a bit trickier.
Ivan Toney is most certainly the pick of the bunch outside the obvious calls of Haaland and Kane to lead your front line.
14 goals in 21 games is a fantastic return, especially considering the English striker is only £7.6m, making him the 11th best-valued player in the league; earning managers 16 points per £1m they spend on him.
He faces Fulham next, who, despite a defensive resurgence after Christmas, have started conceding goals again.
Morgan Gibbs-White
It’s safe to say that Forest players are rarely on our essential pick lists, but the marauding and brilliant Morgan Gibbs-White has the potential to offer a lot to managers in GW26.
Gibbs-White has scored 64 of his 84 points in home matches this season and Forest host relegation-threatened Everton, leaving the potential for a big points tally come the end of GW26.
The midfielder averages nearly two shots per game and can expect to have a few more this time round against an Everton defence that is still unsure of itself.
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Good luck in gameweek 26 everyone.
