Bawler's projected-points model is built from underlying player and fixture data, and for Gameweek 5 it has an outsider on top. Morgan Gibbs-White is projected for 5.45 points — xPts, our shorthand for the model's points forecast for the gameweek — the highest of any player this week, just ahead of Bukayo Saka on 5.35. Ownership (ownPct) tells a second story: Gibbs-White is owned by 9.7% of all thirteen million FPL managers, Saka by 11.4%. Neither figure suggests a nailed-on template pick, and that's before the team news is factored in.
Forest's playmaker missed a Carabao Cup tie with an ankle knock that overstretched his MCL, but head coach Oliver Glasner confirmed before the Liverpool game that there was no structural damage and Gibbs-White was fit again. He's now Forest's central creative outlet, and the model likes what it sees enough to rank him above every other player in the game this week.
Saka is the harder case. Arsenal's forward has been managing a hamstring problem, with Mikel Arteta talking about him being out for "a few weeks" rather than giving a firm return date. If he isn't back to full training by the 6.30pm deadline on 18 September, the 5.35 projection built on him playing won't apply, and hamstring issues have recurred for Saka before. Anyone leaning on him for the captaincy should check the team sheet, not just the projection, before committing.
Behind the top two sits a cluster of attacking picks with real goal threat. Everton's Thierno Barry projects for 5.29 points at a forward-cheap £5.6m and just 6.3% ownership. He's David Moyes' only recognised senior number nine, which cuts both ways: nobody is taking his minutes, but an injury to him would leave Everton short up front. Bournemouth's Marcus Tavernier (5.24 points, £6.0m, 4.1% owned) and Brentford's Igor Thiago (5.05, £7.9m, 10.4% owned) follow, with Brentford team-mate Kevin Schade (4.91, £6.0m, 4.2% owned) and Everton's Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (4.86, £6.5m, 4.7% owned) close behind. Nottingham Forest's Neco Williams rounds out the top eight at 4.84 points from just £5.0m, the best return projected for any defender this week.
Tavernier's projection needs a caveat too. He's been working back from a hamstring injury that cost him four matches, and Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola has been treating his involvement as a late fitness call rather than a certainty. The upside is real if he starts and takes set pieces, but that's an if.
Where the model gets interesting is the differentials: players projected to score well without the ownership to match. Forest's Murillo (4.63 points, £5.5m) is owned by just 1.7% of managers, the lowest ownership of anyone in the top group, but he's also been short of full training after his own hamstring problem, according to Forest's fitness updates, so his involvement isn't guaranteed. Tottenham's Jan Paul van Hecke (4.46 points, £4.9m, 6.8% owned) looks the safer differential: he started in Spurs' back four in their goalless draw with Forest and has kept his place since.
On pure cost-efficiency, three names stand out. Williams at £5.0m and Murillo at £5.5m are the cheapest routes to the defensive returns above; Egan at Hull City (£4.1m, 3.67 points) is the cheapest name on the whole list. Brentford supply three of the eight value picks — Thiago, Schade and the £5.0m Vitaly Janelt (4.2 points, 2.4% owned) — which says as much about a kind fixture and a team playing well under Keith Andrews as it does about any one player.
Set the projection against what the best-performing managers actually own, and a real tension shows up. Bawler tracks the squads of the top-ranked managers in the game every night; the ownership gap is the difference between how many of them own a player and how many of all managers do. By that measure, six players stand out this season: Chelsea's João Pedro (99.6% of the elite sample, a 25.5-point gap on the wider game), Cole Palmer (79.2% elite-owned, a 52.4-point gap, and captained by 60.7% of that sample this season), Arsenal's David Raya (77.7% elite-owned) and Riccardo Calafiori (75.4%), Morgan Rogers (76.6%) and Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai (55.3%). None of the six appears anywhere in this week's top eight projections. That doesn't make the elite holdings wrong; those are season-long picks the best managers aren't rotating for one gameweek. But it does mean this week's highest-projected points and the players the smartest sample actually trusts with the armband are, for now, two different lists.
There's a small confirming signal in the price data: Rogers and João Pedro are both among this week's risers, alongside Kai Havertz, meaning the wider game is still buying into the elite template even as the projection points elsewhere. Zubimendi, Bruno Guimarães, Onana, Garnacho, Madjo and Milosavljević are the week's fallers. None of this is a guarantee of points. Gibbs-White, Saka and Tavernier all carry some form of fitness question mark, Murillo is not confirmed fit, and a projection is a starting point for a decision, not the decision itself. Check the team news again nearer the 18 September deadline.