Brentford have teamed up with Fantasy Football Scout to help bring you hints, tips and advice during the 2026/27 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season.
Scout will be using their expertise to provide info, advice and Gameweek tips which may prove useful in ensuring you sit at the top of your mini-leagues.
Best of the Bees
The summer friendlies are going well for Keith Andrews’ side, with three wins from four, including two against Rennes.
That’s good news for the FPL managers who are intrigued by Brentford’s opening schedule. After all, looking across the first seven encounters, none of them ended in defeat last season – three wins, four draws.
So, which Bees can make an early impact in the game?
Most popular
As of now, Igor Thiago (£8.0m) is the team’s highest-owned player, in around 16 per cent of squads.
Fresh from playing at the World Cup, last Saturday’s headed goal past Rennes was a well-timed reminder of what the Brazilian was like in FPL last season.
Beginning at a low £6.0m, he went on to score 22 times, including a hat-trick against Everton. Only Erling Haaland (£15.5m) beat him for attempts inside the box (80), shots on target (43) and expected goals (xG, 20.57).
Naturally, he’s more expensive this time, but it’d be foolish to ignore a leading forward who takes penalties.
After Thiago, the next most popular Brentford asset is Caoimhín Kelleher (£5.0m). The Irish international ranked as the second-best goalkeeper for both saves (110) and FPL points (143). Nobody else saved multiple spot-kicks (three) either.
New signings
Meanwhile, Brentford have actively added depth to the squad. Established Premier League forward Callum Wilson (£5.5m) has 95 Premier League goals to his name, whereas Jannik Schuster (£4.5m) is a promising young defender, bought from Red Bull Salzburg.
On the wing, Jaidon Anthony (£6.0m) racked up eight goals and four assists last season for relegated Burnley.
However, the club-record signing of Mamadou Sangaré (£5.5m) is already demanding attention among the FPL community.
His one year at Lens ended in a second-placed Ligue 1 finish, plus the Coupe de France trophy. While three goals and four assists are very respectable tallies, the real excitement lies in his high defensive contribution (DefCon) numbers - could he be FPL’s next Elliot Anderson (£6.5m)?
Midfielders gain a couple of points if they accumulate 12 DefCon actions in a match. Last season, Sangaré averaged 14.2 per 90 minutes, a rate better than Anderson (13.9) and everyone else who played at least 100 minutes.
18 of his 27 league starts reached the threshold (66.67 per cent), which is very impressive.
Of course, managers will always be slightly cautious about blindly buying new Premier League arrivals without seeing them in action. There’s internal competition from Yehor Yarmoliuk (£5.0m), Vitaly Janelt(£5.0m), Mikkel Damsgaard (£5.5m), Mathias Jensen (£5.5m) and more.
But Sangaré has the potential to make a mockery of his price tag.
A good differential
Those wanting to enter Gameweek 1 with a low-owned player should check out Kristoffer Ajer (£4.5m).
Fellow centre-back Sepp van den Berg (£5.0m) hasn’t yet featured in pre-season, so the Norwegian could be one of this price point’s leading options.
Brentford kept 10 clean sheets last season and achieved the fifth-most set-piece attempts (167), something which this tall defender might enjoy being part of.
But what puts Ajer ahead of attack-minded colleague Michael Kayode (£4.5m) is his DefCon rate. Defenders only need to reach 10 actions to get rewarded in a match, and Ajer averaged 9.30 per 90.
Other barely-mentioned talents include attackers Dango Ouattara (£6.5m) and Kevin Schade (£6.0m).