Bawler reads the squads of the top managers in the Overall Fantasy Premier League rankings every night, then sets what they own against ownership across the whole game. Going into Gameweek 4, our sample of 968 top-ranked managers averaged 95.9 points, well clear of 63 — the average score across every manager in the game. They made 0.7 transfers each on average and only 1.5% took a points hit. This was a week defined less by transfer activity than by one big call on the armband.
That call went to Cole Palmer. Chelsea's playmaker was captained by 48.9% of the sample, ahead of teammate João Pedro on 34.9% — even though João Pedro was owned by 99.3% of the top managers, making him close to a universal pick. The case for Palmer: he is Chelsea's penalty taker and, as a midfielder, earns a point for a clean sheet that João Pedro does not get as a forward. Both point back to the same fixture — Chelsea at home to newly-promoted Hull City, the week's most attractive captaincy puzzle.
João Pedro's near-universal ownership still gave him the largest hand in the sample's Gameweek 4 score. His share of the sample's scoring that week — a measure that counts a captain's points twice, for that single gameweek only — was 137.9%, the highest of anyone, above Palmer's 124%. Erling Haaland was owned by 81.3% of the sample but captained by only 8.9% of it. Manchester City's trip to Manchester United was rated their toughest fixture of the round, and the top managers largely steered the armband away from Haaland because of it.
The clearest transfer consensus was Morgan Rogers. Chelsea signed him from Aston Villa in July, in a deal reported at £117m — the most expensive transfer fee ever paid for a British player — and 68.3% of the top sample bought him in for Gameweek 4, comfortably the week's most-bought player. His ownership among the elite sample, 73.9%, is now more than double his ownership across the whole game, 36.4%.
Arsenal's Ezri Konsa was next, bought by 47.1% of the sample. He also arrived from Aston Villa this summer, brought in as cover after long-term injuries to William Saliba and Jurrien Timber, and at £4.5m he is one of the cheapest defenders in a low-conceding Arsenal side. Brighton supplied two of the week's popular buys: Pascal Groß, now the club's penalty taker and the league's leading chance-creator this season, was bought by 33.6%, while teammate Maxim De Cuyper was bought by 33% after an injury to Yankuba Minteh pushed him into a more advanced role and delivered an attacking return in four straight matches.
Newcastle's Lewis Hall, bought by 27.7%, signed a new long-term contract this month after resisting interest from Manchester United, cementing his place at left-back. Yoane Wissa was bought by 24.6% despite reports that Newcastle are already looking to move him on after a disrupted first season at the club — a reminder that a transfer bought by a quarter of the best managers is not the same as one with a settled future. Arsenal's David Raya rounded out the week's buys, in for 24.3% of the sample.
The sell list was dominated by Manchester United. Bryan Mbeumo (44.2%) and Bruno Fernandes (43.3%) were the two most-sold players in the sample, even after Fernandes's 23-point haul against Ipswich earlier in the season. United's Gameweek 4 fixture, at home to Manchester City, was rated one of the toughest of the round — both moves look more like profit-taking ahead of it than a verdict on either player's form.
Manchester City's Rayan Cherki was sold by 21.8% of the sample despite two goals in three appearances and being named Etihad Player of the Month for August. He was already a rare pick among the elite before this week — 5% ownership against 28.9% across the whole game — and that gap widened further. Leeds's Dominic Calvert-Lewin (28.8% sold), Brighton keeper Bart Verbruggen (23.8%), Manchester United's Harry Maguire (23.7%), Liverpool's Cody Gakpo (22.2%) and Manchester City's Iliman Ndiaye (21%) also saw meaningful exits.
Chip activity was heavy for a Gameweek 4. More than a third of the sample, 36.5%, played their wildcard, resetting their squad around Chelsea's fixture run. Another 12.9% fired the triple captain, doubling their captain's points a second time — likely aimed at the Palmer or João Pedro pairing given the fixture. Free Hit (7.2%) and Bench Boost (3.7%) were used far less.
None of this is a forecast. It is a record of what 968 of the game's best-ranked managers actually did at the Gameweek 4 deadline, set against how the rest of the game played it. A player the elite bought in numbers, like Rogers or Konsa, is worth a look — not an instruction, and no guarantee their ownership stays that high.