Tarkowski Vs Collins: The Better FPL Pick

Tarkowski or Collins? My numbers split them by four points — and £0.5m

Strip it back and here's what my numbers say: over the next six gameweeks I've got Tarkowski down for roughly thirty points and Collins for around twenty-six. Four points across six weeks. That's the whole argument — and it's closer than either price tag or ownership suggests.

Tarkowski at £6.0m is the safer road. Everton open with Crystal Palace at Hill Dickinson, then Bournemouth away, Manchester United at home, a trip to Spurs, Ipswich at home and Hull away. That's a genuinely favourable run — only the Tottenham trip makes you wince — and it's why I project him at a shade over five points a week, the kind of steady return that quietly wins you your mini-league. He's owned by just under 1 in 10 managers, so he's popular without being template. The honest caveat: at £6.0m for a centre-back, you're paying a premium for clean sheets, and Everton need to actually keep them for the maths to work.

Collins is the sneaky one. He's £5.5m, he's owned by hardly anyone — fewer than 1 in 50 managers — and Brentford's run is arguably even kinder: Spurs at the Gtech, Leeds away, Sunderland at home, Bournemouth away, Chelsea at home, Villa away. Yes, Spurs and Chelsea are in there, but both come to Brentford, and the Leeds, Sunderland and Bournemouth stretch is where the clean sheets live. If he delivers, almost nobody in your league has him, and that's a real swing.

But here's the thing: my numbers rank Tarkowski ahead, and it's not a coin flip. Four extra projected points over the window, at a position where value is clean-sheet potential rather than fireworks, is a meaningful gap. Collins is the pick only if that £0.5m saving unlocks something specific elsewhere in your squad — a genuine upgrade, not a comfier bench.

If the half-million is doing real work for you, Collins is a perfectly good punt on a kind run. If it isn't, don't overthink it.

My call: buy Tarkowski. He's the higher-scoring pick over the next six, the fixtures back him, and steady five-a-week from a defender is exactly what you build around.