Fantasy Premier League Insights: Tzolis, Schlager, and Targett Analysis

The transfer window is only just rubbing the sleep from its eyes, but Fantasy Premier League managers are already being handed new puzzles to solve. Three fresh names dropped into the game on Friday, and each one asks a different question about value, risk and how much you really trust a manager’s rotation.

Tzolis: Big Numbers, Bigger Risk

Christos Tzolis arrives at Arsenal with the kind of headline figures that normally send Fantasy managers scrambling for the “Add to squad” button.

Seventeen goals. Twenty-three assists. A title with Club Brugge. Those are elite attacking returns, whatever the league.

FPL has him at £6.5m, and on raw output alone that looks like a gift. The problem is not his talent. It is his manager.

Mikel Arteta’s title-winning 2025/26 campaign was built on control and depth, and his attacking midfielders paid the price in Fantasy terms. Rotation was relentless. Minutes were managed. Hot hands were cooled from the bench.

Declan Rice at £7.5m and Martin Zubimendi at £5.5m were the rocks, starting 35 and 34 matches respectively, each averaging around 80 minutes per appearance. Bukayo Saka, even in an injury-hit season, was the only other Arsenal midfielder to start more than 21 league games, and he still only managed 25 starts.

Everyone else lived in the half-light.

Leandro Trossard, Eberechi Eze, Martin Odegaard, Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli, Mikel Merino – all of them were rotated, all of them averaged under 60 minutes per outing. All of them are now priced at £6.5m, exactly where Tzolis lands.

That tells its own story.

Tzolis has the all-round game to explode when he does start. He can score, he can create, and in an Arsenal side that dominates territory he will see plenty of the ball in dangerous areas. But Fantasy is not just about ability. It is about availability.

When you can buy nailed-on starters at the same price – Brentford’s Dango Ouattara, Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, Everton’s Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – going for a rotation-threatened Arsenal winger becomes a conscious gamble, not a shrewd edge.

Tzolis might light up individual gameweeks. Right now, he looks more like a luxury risk than a foundation stone.

Schlager vs Sangare: Forest’s DC Battle

At Nottingham Forest, the story is not goals and assists. It is mud, sweat and defensive contribution points.

Xaver Schlager arrives from RB Leipzig to fight Ibrahim Sangare for the holding role left vacant by Elliot Anderson’s move to Manchester City. On paper, it is a straight battle for one spot in front of the back four. In Fantasy terms, it is a question of who can live closest to Anderson’s remarkable defensive output.

The DC metric is ruthless and simple: two points if a midfielder hits 12 Clearances, Blocks, Interceptions and Recoveries (CBIRT) in a match. Anderson made that his playground last season.

He averaged 8.3 recoveries per 90 minutes alone in 2025/26. Sangare and Schlager, between them, managed only 12 recoveries per 90. That gulf underlines just how hard it will be for Forest’s new pivot to replicate Anderson’s consistency in this scoring category.

Look at the full defensive profile per 90 from last season and the gap widens. Anderson totalled 13.9 defensive actions (CBIRT plus tackles). Sangare hit 11.6. Schlager trailed on 9.0.

There is a small twist. Schlager has already worked under Forest’s new head coach, Olivier Glasner. That familiarity could matter once the summer friendlies start to shape the first-choice XI for 2026/27.

For now, though, if you are hunting DC value at £5.0m, Sangare carries the stronger statistical case. He is closer to Anderson’s volume, he already knows the league, and if he nails the starting role he has the profile to become a quietly reliable source of bonus points in a part of the game most managers still overlook.

Schlager’s name is new. Sangare’s numbers are stronger.

Targett vs Hughes: The Hull Hierarchy

Down at Hull City, Matt Targett’s price tag will tempt a very different type of Fantasy manager.

£4.0m. A starting left-back in the Premier League at that price is usually gold dust. Targett, arriving on a free from Newcastle United, will go head-to-head with Ryan Giles, also at £4.0m, for the role on the flank.

The nostalgia is easy. Roll back to 2020/21 and Targett was a Fantasy staple, racking up 138 points for Aston Villa. Back then, full-backs were the darlings of the game, raking in clean sheets and assists without having to worry about defensive contribution metrics.

That world has shifted.

With DC introduced for defenders last season, centre-backs have muscled their way to the front of the value queue. They live where the clearances, blocks and tackles are. They hoover up the dirty work that now translates directly into points.

Hull’s best defensive option reflects that change.

Charlie Hughes, another £4.0m option, looks a tier above his team-mates for DC potential. Defenders receive two DC points for reaching 10 Clearances, Blocks, Interceptions and Tackles (CBIT) in a match. Hughes averaged 11.8 of those actions per 90 minutes in the Championship last season – more than any other defender in the promoted sides.

That is not a quirky stat. It is a flashing neon sign.

If Hull are under pressure in the top flight, Hughes will be busy. Busy means CBIT. CBIT means DC points. DC points mean steady returns even when clean sheets are rare.

Targett and Giles might share minutes, share set-pieces, share the odd assist. Hughes, if he keeps his place, will not be sharing anything. He will be in the line of fire, and the scoring system now rewards exactly that.

In a game where £4.0m defenders often sit third on your bench and never move, Hughes has the profile to be something different: a budget pick you are actually happy to start.