Rayan Cherki was in 47.2% of the top 999 Fantasy Premier League squads at the Gameweek 2 deadline. Across the other 13 million-plus managers, he sat in just 15.4% of squads. That's a 31.8-point gap between the elite sample and the field — one of the widest of the season so far. When the best-performing managers cluster this hard around one player while the rest of the game hesitates, it's worth asking what they saw that the majority didn't.
Start with what kind of pick this is. At £7.6m, Cherki isn't a cut-price enabler bought to free up funds for the big names elsewhere in a squad. He already had 22 points on the board after just two gameweeks — a return built on end product, not cheap appearance points. This is a mid-price player the elite backed to actively win them points, not to sit quietly doing nothing. That distinction matters, because the reasoning behind an enabler pick and a genuine differential pick are entirely different, and this one is the latter.
The context is a change at the top. Manchester City moved on from Pep Guardiola in the summer, with Enzo Maresca taking over — meaning every City attacker started the season having to prove themselves fresh, Cherki included, regardless of the creative numbers he put up in his first season at the club. In Gameweek 1 against Bournemouth, he didn't start. He came on in the 63rd minute with City trailing, and inside half an hour produced two assists to spark a stoppage-time comeback win — the corner that led to Marc Guehi's equaliser, then the pass that set up Josko Gvardiol's winner.
Gameweek 2 told a rawer version of the same story. Cherki started away at Crystal Palace, playing as the No.10 behind Erling Haaland, but was quiet enough in the first half that Maresca considered substituting him at the break. Cherki admitted afterwards that he'd played poorly, that he didn't like seeing his manager weigh up a change, and that he needed to show he wanted to play, score and create. He answered with two goals in the second half of a 4-1 win, and Maresca praised the shift in his work off the ball as much as the finishing.
That's the mechanism behind the ownership gap. The top 999 managers were pricing in a player whose underlying quality had already been shown — a standout season of chance creation under the previous manager — and were prepared to look past the visible selection risk: a bench role in Gameweek 1, a shaky first half in Gameweek 2. Most of the game saw the same two pieces of evidence and read them the other way: a player not nailed into the side under a brand-new manager, in a City midfield now also carrying new signing Ayyoub Bouaddi and competition from Enzo Fernández.
Even among his backers, conviction had limits. Only 4.1% of the top 999 gave Cherki the captain's armband in Gameweek 2 — the pick that doubles a player's points that week. High ownership paired with low captaincy suggests the elite sample wanted him in their squad for his goal threat, but weren't yet ready to build a gameweek around him.
Bawler's projection engine, which estimates points for every player each gameweek, rates Cherki's tier as 'rated' — its band for a player whose underlying output justifies attention. But its numbers carry the same caution as the ownership split. It projects him for 3.83 points in an average gameweek and around 60 minutes of playing time, well short of a guaranteed 90, reflecting genuine uncertainty over his role. It puts his chance of a haul — a big scoring return — at 8.8%, against a 61% chance of a blank, where he returns nothing. Worth flagging: with only two gameweeks of 2026/27 data banked, this projection leans on last season's underlying numbers as a preview estimate rather than a settled read on the new campaign.
None of this tells anyone what happens next. Cherki has produced in both his appearances this season, and the elite ownership figure shows real conviction from the managers with the best records in the game — that's evidence worth weighing, not a promise. The same data shows a squad that isn't settled, a manager willing to consider a half-time change, and new competition for his position. The gap between the top 999 and the field shows where informed judgement pointed first — not a guarantee about where the points keep coming from.