The Greatest FPL Icons: From Value Picks to Fantasy Royalty

Before apps, chips and captaincy boosts, fantasy football lived in newsprint and on landlines. You’d smudge your fingers on the sports pull-out, scribble down “Julian Dicks – code 47” or “Juninho – code 12”, then dial in your XI from the house phone. Parents called it a maths exercise. Kids knew it was something closer to obsession.

Two decades on, Fantasy Premier League is a global behemoth with millions of managers, auto-substitutions and wildcards doing the arithmetic for you. Yet the thrill remains exactly the same: finding that one player everyone else has missed. The free-kick specialist defender. The striker priced like a bench option. The midfielder listed as a defender, sneaking into the box while your rivals look the other way.

With help from resident FPL analyst Thomas Woods and deep dives from Fantasy Football Scout, this is a look at the true icons of the official game since its launch in 2002-03. Not just the biggest names, but the players who broke the pricing model, warped the template and turned casual managers into obsessives.

Some became Premier League stars. Some barely flickered again. All of them, in their own way, changed how people played the game.

What makes an FPL icon?

Is it just raw numbers? If so, Thierry Henry has a strong claim. His haul from the inaugural season still sits seventh on the all-time list, and he topped the FPL charts in three of the first four campaigns. Frank Lampard did the same from midfield for Chelsea, arriving late in the box and racking up bonus points. Cristiano Ronaldo twice finished as the game’s leading scorer at Manchester United. They rank among the best single-season totals ever recorded.

But there’s a catch. They were also among the priciest players in the game. They were supposed to score big.

Then there’s Mohamed Salah. Different category entirely. Expensive, yes, but relentless. Since FPL began, 52 players have hit 200 points in a season at least once. Salah has done it eight times. He is the only player ever to break 300 points – and he’s done that twice.

So the Egyptian king gets his crown. Yet this list leans towards value: the cut-price picks who punched miles above their weight. The misclassified gems. The one-season wonders who still trigger a nostalgic grin when you scroll back through old teams.

Here are 10 of the greatest.

10. Harry Kane, Tottenham, 2014-15 – starting price £5.0m

It sounds absurd now. England captain. Premier League record goalscorer. Three Golden Boots. But in August 2014, Harry Kane was a £5.0m afterthought.

He began that season behind Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado in the Tottenham pecking order. He didn’t score in the league until November – a 90th-minute winner off the bench at Aston Villa. From that moment, the trajectory changed.

Kane finished with 21 Premier League goals and 191 FPL points. Between gameweeks 18 and 25 he went berserk: nine goals, four assists, 16 bonus points, 77 points in eight matches. For early adopters, it felt like cheating.

His price climbed from £5.0m to £6.4m, and he still ranks 11th on the all-time value list despite playing fewer minutes than anyone above him. From budget punt to automatic captaincy option in a single season.

8. Michel Vorm, Swansea, 2011-12 – £4.0m

Michel Vorm’s Premier League debut didn’t scream “legend”. He conceded four goals at Manchester City. But he also made 11 saves – more than any other goalkeeper managed in a single game that season.

That set the tone. Vorm became a magnet for both saves and clean sheets in Swansea’s first year back in the top flight. He finished with 14 clean sheets and the second-highest FPL total among goalkeepers, behind Joe Hart – who had started £3.0m more expensive.

At his peak, Vorm hit a price of £5.3m and was the fourth-most owned player in the entire game. For a £4.0m starter from a newly promoted side, it was a remarkable leap. In both reality and fantasy, he never quite hit those heights again, but that first season was enough to etch his name into FPL folklore.

7. Stuart Dallas, Leeds, 2020-21 – £4.5m

Under Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds played like a whirlwind. At the heart of that chaos, quietly racking up points, stood Stuart Dallas.

On the FPL site he was a defender. On the pitch, he was anything but. Dallas popped up all over the pitch, often as an attacking midfielder, yet still collected clean sheet points from the back line. He did it against everyone – including Manchester City, where he scored twice for a 17-point haul that turned him from differential to essential.

For £4.5m, managers got eight goals, 12 clean sheets, three assists and 171 points. As Woods puts it, his versatility “played into the hands of FPL managers”. Dallas was the perfect storm of role, price and productivity – the kind of asset you lock in and build around.

6. Michail Antonio, West Ham, 2019-20 – £7.0m

Not a season, a month. That’s all it took for Michail Antonio to become an FPL cult hero.

Listed as a midfielder but used as a striker, Antonio’s 2019-20 campaign stuttered through injuries and the Covid-19 break. His price even dipped. Then football returned – and he exploded.

In July 2020 he scored eight goals in seven games. The peak came at Norwich, where he hit four in a 4-0 away win, delivering a 26-point haul. For a sub-£7.0m asset, it was one of the most devastating single-game returns the game has seen.

That 26-point figure is the joint-highest ever for a player valued under £7.0m, alongside Cole Palmer, and just three shy of Salah’s all-time single gameweek record. For one blistering month, Antonio felt unstoppable.

5. John Lundstram, Sheffield United, 2019-20 – £4.0m

Every seasoned FPL manager still smiles at the name: Lord Lundstram.

John Lundstram didn’t post the biggest season total on this list – 144 points – but context is everything. He arrived as a £4.0m defender, the sort you normally bury on the bench and forget about. FPL, though, had misclassified him. On the pitch for Sheffield United, he was a box-to-box midfielder.

He scored five goals, supplied four assists and collected clean sheets while officially registered as a defender. Gameweek 11 brought his most famous haul: two goals, a clean sheet and 21 points that turned him into a must-own.

Starting a £4.0m player every week didn’t just bring points. It unlocked budget everywhere else. Managers could stack premiums in attack knowing their cheapest defender was actually a marauding midfielder. That kind of structural advantage is gold dust.

4. Riyad Mahrez, Leicester, 2015-16 – £5.5m

Leicester’s title win was a football miracle. For FPL managers who backed Riyad Mahrez early, it was also a financial one.

Priced at £5.5m, Mahrez opened 2015-16 with 15 points against Sunderland, rewarding the 5.9% of managers who had taken a pre-season punt. It wasn’t a one-off. He hit double figures in five of the first six gameweeks, amassing 56 points in that spell alone – one of the hottest starts in FPL history.

The bandwagon became a stampede. By gameweek seven, more than half the game owned him. Jamie Vardy’s record-breaking scoring run grabbed headlines, but he had started £0.5m more expensive. Mahrez finished as the overall FPL top scorer with 240 points from a mid-price slot on the wing.

He wasn’t just value. He was the cornerstone of a title-winning template.

3. Michu, Swansea, 2012-13 – £6.5m

Some FPL picks feel personal. Michu was one of them.

Arriving from Rayo Vallecano with little fanfare, the Spaniard started at £6.5m. A few sharp-eyed managers noticed he had scored 15 goals in La Liga the previous season and backed him from the off. On the opening day at QPR, he scored twice. The secret didn’t last long.

Classified as a midfielder but effectively playing as a striker, Michu finished 2012-13 with 18 league goals and 190 FPL points. His price climbed by £2.0m over the season as he became a near-universal pick.

Then, almost as quickly as he arrived, he vanished. He managed just two league goals the following year and soon departed for Napoli. One blazing season, one unforgettable FPL phenomenon.

2. Mohamed Salah, Liverpool, 2024-25 – £12.5m

Salah’s FPL legacy is so vast that one season barely covers it. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson redefined what full-backs could be in the game. Luis Suarez delivered 55 attacking returns in 2013-14 despite missing the first five matches. Yet if a single premium pick deserves a place here, it is Salah, and if one campaign defines him, it is 2024-25.

Coming off his “worst” FPL season – still comfortably above 200 points – the Egyptian responded with a record-shattering 344. No one else has ever come close to that total. He didn’t just justify a £12.5m price tag; he made it feel underpriced.

Salah has eight 200+ seasons and two over 300. In a game built on variance, he has been the one constant. FPL royalty, in every sense.

1. Cole Palmer, Chelsea, 2023-24 – £5.0m

To understand Cole Palmer’s impact, you have to rewind to how that season started. He arrived at Chelsea from Manchester City seeking minutes, not stardom. On FPL, he was a £5.0m midfielder. He didn’t start a league game for his new club until gameweek seven.

When he produced his first double-figure return at Burnley in gameweek eight, only 63,575 managers owned him – just 0.6% of the game. His next big haul, a 12-pointer at Tottenham in gameweek 12, nudged ownership up to 4.5%. Then the dam burst.

As Palmer took on penalties, playmaking duties and responsibility in a chaotic Chelsea side, FPL managers piled in. By gameweek 33, more than five million owned him when he scored four against Everton, matching Antonio’s 26-point haul – the joint-best ever for a sub-£7.0m asset.

He finished as the game’s top scorer with 244 points. Starting at £5.0m, he delivered such absurd value that FPL handed him the biggest price rise in the game’s history: up £5.5m to £10.5m for 2024-25. As Fantasy Football Scout concluded, based on starting price, Palmer’s 2023-24 campaign stands as the best-value season FPL has ever seen.

From low-owned punt to the most expensive midfielder in the game inside a year. That’s not just a breakout; that’s a re-write of what fantasy managers thought a £5.0m midfielder could be.