Our FPL expert ranks the five best budget forwards this season among the strikers at the £5.5m and £6.0m price points.
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It’s been a few days since the 2026/27 Fantasy Premier League launched, and our resident expert has been pouring over the price list to figure out which players you should sign and swerve for the new season.
He’s already looked at some must buys, wait-and-see signings and a few players he’s avoiding ahead of Gameweek 1, but having had a little more time to go over the stats and figure things out he’s now going to go through some specific positions and price points to provide his top five players for certain slots in your side – starting with budget-friendly strikers.
There are plenty of forwards priced at £5.5m and £6.0m who could well be strong signings and most teams will head into the new campaign with at least one cheap striker in the squad. But which one should you pick for your starting side? Here’s our expert’s countdown of the best options…
Brobbey’s seven goals in 31 appearances last season earned him just 92 points, but there’s likely to be a much higher ceiling here – this is, after all, a player who scored three goals in three starts for the Netherlands at the World Cup. He has the quality. The problem wasn’t Brobbey as a striker, but the service provided to him by his team-mates.
Signing new wingers is a priority for Sunderland this off season, and if they can find players who can provide the 24-year-old with more clear-cut chances (he totalled a miserable 5.94xG last year) then he should score quite a few more – and he’s firmly established as the starting striker now, which wasn’t the case when he first signed from Ajax.
Brobbey will get plenty of minutes and if the service is there, he should improve his output considerably. Given that we’ll have to wait and see if that service really is there, I’m holding fire for Gameweek 1 – but he’s a player worth bearing in mind as the season unfolds.
The 23-year-old had a rather up-and-down first season in the Premier League. An inconsistent finisher, as he was with Villarreal before moving to Merseyside, he ultimately managed a relatively modest eight goals from 8.15xG and played just 51 minutes per match, good for a meagre 95 points in the FPL – but he could well improve on that this time around.
Mostly that’s because Beto looks increasingly likely to leave Everton, which should clear a path to more regular minutes. If Barry started averaging 70 minutes per match, for instance, his points total would creep up to around 135 points based on last season’s form, which is getting towards a very respectable place for a budget striker who will likely rotate in and out of your team – it’s more than any other player in this list managed last season bar one. And that’s if his form remains the same rather than improving.
If Beto stays put or if Everton sign another forward, Barry may well become less appealing, but for now I’ve got him ahead of players like Chris Wood, Igor Jesus or all three Newcastle strikers simply because he looks likely to have the clearest path to regular minutes. Barry’s inconsistency means that there’s a high risk factor, but he also has a pretty strong ceiling and is £0.5m cheaper than most of the obvious alternatives. I won’t say I’m completely sold, but I can make the case for him.
Welbeck will turn 36 in November, and at some point age surely has to catch up with him – but it didn’t happen in the 2025/26 season, during which he scored 13 goals from 12.44xG, played just over an hour per match, and managed a thoroughly respectable 126 points in the FPL. He was unlucky to miss out on a spot in England’s controversial World Cup squad.
Can he keep it up? That’s the million dollar question, but he still looks set for a prominent role, is still a fine finisher, and Brighton are a side who create enough chances to keep him scoring and ticking over when he’s on the field. There’s a reason he had double the quality of scoring opportunities as Brobbey, and the strength of the team around him is the reason he remains a strong consideration.
The reason I don’t have him higher in this list (or in any of my drafts thus far) is that there’s a very real chance he sees a gradual reduction in playing time. Quantifying that risk is impossible, but it doesn’t need to slide much from 61 minutes per game before he goes from 126 points to 90-100, and that’s too few to be worth the slot. Brighton also have a relatively high early fixture difficulty.
Editor’s Note: This article was published shortly before news broke that Chelsea were considering a bid to sign Welbeck. Our FPL expert notes that if he were to move to Stamford Bridge, he would drop out of this top five ranking as he would very likely become a back-up player.
Calvert-Lewin’s 142 points in 2025/26 was the most of any of the strikers who ended up at a budget-friendly price point this season, and by a fairly healthy distance – another 14-goal season, and he’ll be a great pick-up at this price.
He may not be the most reliable finisher – he undershot his xG somewhat – but he’s a regular starter, still has the physicality and movement to carve out chances for himself, and there’s no immediately obvious reason why either he or Leeds should regress heading into the new campaign. I feel confident that he remains a strong option.
He blows hot and cold, granted, but the result was still a high points tally for the position and price. The downside, of course, is his fitness, but as it stands he looks set to head into the new season in good shape. I doubt that he’s likely to score many more points than last season and struggle to envisage a ceiling higher than 140-150 points, but Calvert-Lewin looks like the safest bet of all the budget strikers right now, and he’s a very real consideration for my final team.
Where Calvert-Lewin gets high marks for having a high floor, Solanke takes number one for due to what I see as his higher ceiling, and I’d generally prefer to aim high rather than take the steady, safe option where I can – but a fit Solanke should have a fairly high floor, as well.
This is a striker with 19-goal, 175-point season in the not-too-distant past, one of three 100+ point years out of the last four. Injuries wrecked 2025/26 for him, but we have extensive proof of concept for the idea of Solanke scoring regular goals and being at least solid in FPL. What he needs is his health, and for Spurs to be a lot better than they were last year so that he actually gets some service. Even Brobbey had it better in terms of chance creation.
Will Spurs be better? I strongly suspect so, although I imagine that Roberto De Zerbi’s gung-ho style of play will suit their attacking players better than their defenders. If Spurs are decent again and Solanke continues to play, he’s a minimum 100-point striker who could easily score 150 or more with luck and a fair wind behind him. That slightly higher ceiling means he edges out Calvert-Lewin in my early rankings, although he’s certainly slightly more of a gambler’s option. I will note that if Spurs end up signing another centre-forward with starting potential, their rankings will reverse immediately.