Liverpool’s best players to buy in FPL – and do we need them?

---

Liverpool started the 2025/26 season in excellent form, with five consecutive league wins.

However, their performances were never very convincing and results have faltered since then, with five defeats in their last six games.

Ryan Gravenberch (£5.6m) is the Reds’ top scorer in that period (the last six Gameweeks), averaging just 5.0 points per game.

The question now: will Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers bring in Liverpool players ahead of Gameweek 12?

That’s because Arne Slot’s side are about to embark on a great run of fixtures, topping our Match Schedule in Matchweeks 12-20:

In this section, we look at Liverpool in more detail.

---

WHO IS THE MOST OWNED LIVERPOOL PLAYER IN FPL?

We use the top 100K as a sample in this article. This number should be a better measure of active managers than the overall ownership number, as there are fewer defunct/ghost teams.

Looking at the numbers found on LiveFPL (right at the deadline last Saturday), we can see it Virgil van Dijk (£5.9m) is Liverpool’s most popular player. The Dutchman has a top 100K ownership rate of 16.26%.

Cody Agat (£7.5m) ranks second in this group (13.48%), followed by Mohamed Salah (£14.2m) at 8.54%, Hugo Ekitike (£8.6m) at 6.08% and Gravenberch at 4.23%.

Ownership of certain assets will undoubtedly increase as next Saturday’s deadline approaches; However, maybe that’s all Dominik Szoboszla (£6.6m) is currently listed among the 10 most transferred players for Gameweek 12.

DEFENSE

	Total (ranking v other PL clubs)
Goal conceded	17th (=12th)
Clean sheets	3 (=10th)
Shot conceded	124 (=8)
Shot in the box conceded	83 (=9)
Big chance of conceding	29 (=17th)
xGC	13.93 (9th)
XGC non-pen	12.35 (6)

Liverpool’s defense has so far been far from convincing, with 17 goals conceded and just three clean sheets in 11 games.

You can see the drop in StatsBomb’s six-match expected goals against (xGC) graph, which covers the duration of Arne Slot’s tenure on Merseyside.

Injury to Alisson Becker (£5.4m), who has been out since Gameweek 6, has clearly had an impact on Liverpool’s ability to keep clean sheets.

Additionally, rotation at wing-back likely contributed, with Liverpool often opening up on counter-attacks quickly.

Even so, it was just a week ago that Liverpool limited Real Madrid to their lowest expected goals (xG) tally in over a year (0.45). The Reds also kept a clean sheet against Aston Villa a few days earlier, with last season’s midfield trio – Gravenberch, Alexis MacAllister (£6.3m) and Szoboszlai – magnificent in the middle of the park.

However, while the performance at Anfield showed progress, the performance against Manchester City on Sunday showed a significant regression, as the tactical discipline we observed against Real Madrid and Villa was missing, with a lack of structure throughout the team.

It’s important to remember that Liverpool will not fight back Jeremy Doku (£6.4 million) and Erling Haaland (£14.9m) every week, mind you.

ATTACK