Brentford have teamed up with Fantasy Football Scout to help bring you hints, tips and advice during the 2024/25 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season.

Scout will be using their expertise to provide info, advice and Gameweek tips which may prove useful in ensuring you sit on top of your mini-leagues.

Best of the Bees

After an exciting summer of international tournaments, FPL is finally about to get underway. Thomas Frank’s side begins the campaign at home to Crystal Palace.

Forward Yoane Wissa (£6.0m) netted in last season’s opener and scored past Wolfsburg in Friday’s 4-4 friendly. This suggests he can continue the momentum that ended 2023/24, which saw five goals and two assists during the closing seven matches.

The 27-year-old comes at a popular price point for FPL managers, with fellow £6.0m forwards Rodrigo Muniz and Chris Wood collecting decent ownership. However, Wissa beat them both for chances created (30), big chances created (seven) and penalty area touches (128) last season.

The Spotlight

Mark Flekken (£4.5m) is currently the most-owned Brentford asset, appearing in 13.8% of teams. Flekken has the rare advantage of combining nicely with backup goalkeeper Hákon Valdimarsson (£4.0m) to give the rare situation of a club’s top goalkeeping pair costing just £8.5m.

The four goalkeepers who accumulated more FPL points last season are also more expensive than Flekken, costing at least £5.0m.

The Dutchman was one of only two goalkeepers to bag an assist last season. His long kick put Neal Maupay (now back at Everton, £5.0m) through on goal to open the scoring against champions Manchester City. That night he also made 12 saves, the joint-most from any Premier League goalkeeper since December 2017.

Furthermore, the Bees’ tendency to force opponents towards less threatening shots from distance is good news for Flekken owners. In 2021/22 and 2022/23, Brentford’s percentage of conceded attempts from outside of the box (39.8 per cent and 42.4 per cent) was more than any other team. Only Arsenal bettered their 39.2 per cent of 2023/24. This means there is a higher likelihood of save points for the shot-stopper.

Best of the rest

Erling Haaland (£15.0m) starts the season with, on paper, a difficult away match against Chelsea. However, the Man City striker scored a brace in this match last season. In pre-season, he also scored three goals against his Gameweek 1 opponents. In the last two seasons, Haaland had registered 13 points in Gameweek 1, in each of the fixtures, scoring two goals.

Diogo Jota (£7.5m) has started life under new manager Arne Slot well. The midfielder had the best goal ratio at Liverpool last season. He scored 10 Premier League goals last season, one every 116.9 minutes. For context, FPL’s top scorer from last season Cole Palmer’s (£10.5m) rate was 120.6 minutes per goal, and Mo Salah’s (£12.5m) was 142.1.

In Demand

Once Gameweek 1 kicks off, FPL managers will receive one free transfer and this occurs for every round of matches. Up to five can eventually be saved up, alongside several chips that await activation between now and Gameweek 38.

Newcastle’s Alexander Isak (£8.5m) is currently the most popular player in the game. He’s the sole player to be in over half of squads (55.8%), with Ollie Watkins (£9.0m), Haaland and Palmer all above 40% ownership.

Captaincy

As the most popular assets in the game Isak, is likely to be highly captained. The Newcastle forward scored 21 times in 30 appearances last season. He was beaten only by Haaland for big chances (40) and minutes per goal (108.0). Newcastle have a home match against newly-promoted Southampton in Gameweek 1.

Salah also has an attractive fixture against a newly-promoted team to start the season. Liverpool travel to Ipswich and as one of the most consistent FPL assets in the game Salah is a good captaincy option. The Egyptian’s seven seasons at Liverpool have all brought at least 211 FPL points.