FPL Is Boring Now - Here's Why

FPL Is Boring Now - Here's Why:

I would wager that at least 90% of the people reading this article either currently play or made at the start of the season and gave up after a poor gameweek 1, a Fantasy Premier League team.

We all do it's a ritual at the start of every Premier League season, whether it's to play for fun or you wager with mates or you're in a work league to have something to discuss with colleagues during a lunch break.

The problem is I can't be the only one finding it a little bit dull recently and I promise that's not just because I'm doing poorly, this is actually one of my better seasons so far.

No my issue surrounds the fact that any spark of creativity that people used to play with is gone and now every gameweek you're playing a 'professional's' team that has been stat checked to within an inch of it's life.

This isn't a case of people necessarily caring about their FPL more and putting in real life research, in fact it's that everyone seems to just copy whatever the trending FPL Youtuber has said are the best moves for the upcoming gameweek.

You log on ahead of the deadline to find that half of your league has the same players, the same chips played, the same transfers made and I for one am sick to death of it.

We've all got that one rival that is somehow flying 😅 pic.twitter.com/lSanApZiut

— Fantasy Premier League (@OfficialFPL) November 5, 2025

The best way to properly share my feelings on this is to break it down into individual gripes with the state of the game now.

Everyone Copies FPL Youtubers:

Ok so I have already touched on this point but seeing as it's my main gripe with the game right now I can't help but talk about it again.

To an extent I understand it you want to win your league and so you put trust in someone whose job it is to play the game. You get hours worth of statistical analysis and data interpreting by just watching a ten minute video, especially when you're in a league with a cash prize it makes sense. But my god is it boring.

I'd like to state as well I don't actually have an qualms with the youtubers themselves, making money out of playing FPL is the dream and they absolutely have the right to post and make videos on a very popular area of content. Plus I sit and write about football so it would be a weird moral high ground to try sit on.

The Haaland Captain Problem:

Ok so I admit this one isn't really the fault of anyone at all, just an unfortunate by-product of the league now having what I'm convinced is a cyborg playing week in week out for one of the most dominant sides the league has ever seen.

In case it wasn't obvious I am indeed talking about Erling Haaland at Manchester City and his reign of terror on both the Premier League and FPL.

The issue he causes is that by being so good there's near to no point in ever captaining someone else. The second you do to try to be a little different he scores a hattrick and you plummet down the rankings below everyone else that has had him set as captain for the last 10 gameweeks without even a thought toward it.

We're at a stage where the captain chip is almost a forgettable aspect of the game because nobody ever shifts it from the Norwegian.

Someone tell Erling Haaland it's only November 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/jSN1ZaUUFG

— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) November 3, 2025

Again I would like to reiterate that this is just the reality of FPL, I mean if a player is playing so well so often you keep them captain. I remember when there was at least some variance though and at longest a captain chip would stay on a player for max three weeks because of an easy run of fixtures.

Now you could easily leave the armband on Haaland for 38 gameweeks in a row and it would genuinely be an advisable strategy.

Gut Instinct Is Virtually Dead:

Tactical analysis and genuine thought process has always been a factor in FPL and one you would be stupid to ignore... However I don't think it has ever been as stupidly prevalent as it is right now.

In all my time playing FPL I have never seen it be so surgically analysed as it is now, it's the most serious anyone has ever taken the game and again I sort of get it but it's ruining the average experience of playing.

Formerly, the idea of borderline professional analysis would get you laughed at when playing Fantasy League but now it gets implored.

Xg, Xa, heatmaps, field tilt, any in depth statistic you can think of is now routinely dissected and used in deciding whether Esteve or Alderete might be a better cheap defensive option.

I completely understand wanting to do well in FPL but what happened to saying 'just got a feeling' about a player instead of 'well actually Semenyo has better progressive carry stats against a high line whilst Kudus is playing a left footed full back which will impact his angle bias more.' Just grow up and pick based on gut feeling, I promise you FPL is never that serious.

Conclusion:

FPL as a whole can still be quite fun and good additions, like the inclusion of DEFCON points, have been a step in the right direction to give new angles of play and stop everyone lining up with identical teams.

The real way to have fun now is to agree to certain limitations against the people you're playing with to actually have fun and make FPL feel like it used to. I'm not trying to be a nostalgia merchant but come on it used to be so much more enjoyable.

A lot of dominos have to fall to make FPL 'perfect' and feel as fun as it once did but here's hoping because right now it is getting tedious and boring to log into every week.