B.Fernandes Vs Palmer: The Better FPL Pick
The call — Bruno Fernandes or Cole Palmer? The £2.5m question Here's the number that should stop you: my projections have Bruno Fernandes and Cole Palmer separated by barely two points over the next six gameweeks — roughly thirty-one for Bruno, just under twenty-nine for Palmer. Fernandes costs £12.0m. Palmer costs £9.5m. That's £2.5m of your budget buying you almost nothing.
Start with the case for Bruno, because it's real. He's on everything at United — penalties, free-kicks, corners — and his opening run is about as friendly as fixtures get: Hull away, Ipswich at home, Everton away before City show up in GW4. That's three matches where United should score two or three, and when they do, Fernandes is usually the one collecting the points. My numbers rank him ahead of Palmer, and there's a reason: his weekly output is more dependable, and he's the safer bet to be good for five or six most weeks. He's also enormously owned — nearly 5 in 10 managers have him — so leaving him out is a genuine risk if he hauls.
Palmer's case is value and freedom. Chelsea open at Fulham, then Brighton at home — decent — and while Arsenal away in GW3 is nasty, Hull at home in GW4 is about as soft as it gets. Only about 1 in 10 managers own him, so every big Palmer week moves you up the ranks rather than keeping you level. And he can go massive on his day — the kind of player who turns a good gameweek into a great one.
The honest caveat on each: Bruno's price means he has to out-score Palmer by a meaningful margin to justify himself, and my numbers say he won't by much. Palmer's downside is that £9.5m midfielders at 1-in-10 ownership hurt twice when they blank — you lose the points and the crowd doesn't.
But do the maths on the gap. Two projected points over six weeks for £2.5m is a terrible exchange rate. That £2.5m upgrades a defender into a genuine clean-sheet source or turns a bench body into a starter — and those points will comfortably beat the sliver Bruno offers over Palmer.
If you already own Fernandes and your squad is settled, hold — don't burn a transfer chasing near-identical output. But if you're building or choosing fresh: buy Palmer, spend the £2.5m elsewhere. That's my pick.