Bruno Fernandes is no longer a bargain pick. Fantasy Premier League has priced the Manchester United captain at £12.0m for the 2026/27 season, a £3.0m jump from where he started last year, making him one of the two joint-biggest risers of this year’s reveals alongside Erling Haaland. Here’s the full breakdown of what changed and why.
From Value Pick to Premium Price
Fernandes began last season priced at just £9.0m and finished it as Fantasy’s second-highest scorer overall, racking up 235 points behind only Haaland. Nine goals and a league-record 24 assists made him one of the most reliable sources of points in the entire game, and FPL’s pricing team has responded accordingly.
At £12.0m, Fernandes now matches his own all-time high, a mark he previously hit back in 2021/22 when he was Fantasy’s top scorer with 244 points. In other words, the game is once again treating him as a genuine premium midfielder, not just a solid mid-price option.
The Carrick Effect
Digging into last season’s numbers tells a clear story of two different halves. Under Ruben Amorim through the first 21 gameweeks, playing in a central midfield role within a 3-4-2-1 formation, Fernandes ranked only fourth among midfielders in Fantasy points. Once Michael Carrick took over as head coach and shifted United into a 4-2-3-1 setup, everything changed. Fernandes moved into a more advanced, points-friendly role and turned into one of the most dangerous captaincy options in the game, finishing with 12 double-figure hauls across the season, at least twice as many as anyone besides Haaland and Newcastle’s Bruno Guimaraes.
That second-half surge is the clearest explanation for why FPL has pushed his price back up to the ceiling.
What It Means for Your Budget
Pairing Fernandes with Haaland, now priced at a record £15.5m himself, would cost a combined £27.5m of your £100m starting budget. That’s up sharply from the £23.0m it would have taken to own both of them at the start of last season, and it leaves just £72.5m to fill the remaining 13 squad spots if you want both premium names in from Gameweek 1.
Why Managers Still Want Him In
Beyond the raw points total, Fernandes’s appeal comes down to ownership and captaincy potential, the same factors that pushed Haaland’s price to a record high. High ownership plus consistent big-haul potential is exactly what FPL’s pricing model rewards, and Fernandes delivered both in bulk last season.
With Mohamed Salah’s exit from Liverpool also reshaping the midfield pricing landscape, Fernandes now looks set to enter the season as Fantasy’s most expensive midfielder outright, a title that’s changed hands surprisingly rarely in recent years.
What to Watch Next
- Manchester United’s Gameweek 1 fixture, a trip to Hull City on August 22, which will be an early test of whether Fernandes keeps his advanced role under Carrick from matchday one.
- How United’s summer midfield additions, including Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, affect Fernandes’s game time and set-piece duties.
- Ownership trends as the season approaches, since a player this expensive can quickly become a template pick if early performances back up the price.
