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Home › The Brief › Chelsea FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid › Version of 11 August 2026
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Chelsea FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

This is the version of Chelsea FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid from 11 August 2026, kept for the record. The picks and the numbers have moved since. The current version →

The call — Chelsea's opening six: the attack is the sell, the clean sheets are not Six in 10 managers have already made their Chelsea call, and it's João Pedro at £7.5m. That's the template talking, and for once the template and our model agree: he tops our Chelsea list for the opening stretch, projected for around 22 points across the first six…

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Then there's Palmer. £9.5m, projected for the biggest Chelsea haul of the lot — nearly 29 points over six — and only about 1 in 10 own him. That's a striking gap, and he's the man most likely to go massive on his day. The honest other side: he's £2m dearer than João Pedro, and our model still prefers the forward as the cleaner route in. If you've got the budget and want the upside, Palmer's the swing. If you want the reliable body who starts every week at a fair price, João Pedro is the pick — which, you'll be unsurprised to hear, is where I land.

At the back, be careful. Chelsea rate as one of the meaner defences in the league, but the fixture run for clean sheets is genuinely awkward — three away trips including the Emirates. Colwill at £5.0m is the interesting one regardless: owned by almost nobody, projected for a tidy 20 points, and cheap enough that a few blanks don't sting. Sánchez at £5.0m offers similar logic in goal but less return. Caicedo at £5.5m is a fine footballer and a dull FPL asset; leave him.

The call: buy João Pedro now — he's the floor at the right price. Palmer only if the £9.5m is burning a hole. Colwill if you need a fifth defender who might quietly outscore his price tag. Skip the rest.

Who to own at CHE
PlayerPosPriceProj (next 6)Own %Minutes
João PedroFWD7.521.958.3Rotation risk
PalmerMID9.528.610.8Rotation risk
ColwillDEF5.020.21.8Rotation risk
CaicedoMID5.517.54.0Rotation risk
SánchezGK5.016.22.1Rotation risk
Players in this pieceJoão PedroPalmerColwillCaicedo