# The gameweek 2 draft squad: 5-3-2

> A legal 15 for 98.7m, with an XI projecting 55.7 points.

By the evmax model · 28 August 2026 · https://evmax.ai/fpl/gw2/wildcard/

The model's draft squad lines up 5-3-2 and costs 98.7m of the 100.0m budget, leaving 1.3m in the bank. The starting XI projects 55.7 points.The bench is deliberately cheap — four enablers that make the 15 legal so the spending sits in the XI. No club contributes more than three players, which is the squad rule that most often forces a compromise on the premium picks.

**Bottom line:** Build around this 5-3-2: 55.7 projected points for 98.7m.

## The data

| # | Player | Team | xPts | Price | Captain EV | Ceiling | Owned % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | B.Fernandes | MUN | 7.25 | 12.0 | 14.51 | 18.90 | 48.9% |
| 2 | Haaland | MCI | 6.58 | 15.5 | 13.16 | 16.58 | 68.1% |
| 3 | Gakpo | LIV | 6.05 | 7.0 | 12.09 | 14.77 | 5.6% |
| 4 | Szoboszlai | LIV | 5.70 | 7.0 | 11.41 | 14.87 | 42.9% |
| 5 | Virgil | LIV | 4.97 | 6.5 | 9.93 | 10.80 | 19.6% |
| 6 | Guéhi | MCI | 4.40 | 6.0 | 8.80 | 11.01 | 19.1% |
| 7 | Evanilson | BOU | 4.39 | 6.0 | 8.78 | 12.31 | 2.8% |
| 8 | Calafiori | ARS | 4.36 | 5.6 | 8.73 | 11.39 | 41.4% |
| 9 | De Cuyper | BHA | 4.20 | 4.6 | 8.40 | 12.60 | 6.8% |
| 10 | Thiaw | NEW | 4.13 | 5.0 | 8.26 | 10.42 | 1.7% |
| 11 | Raya | ARS | 3.68 | 6.0 | 7.35 | 7.29 | 38.2% |
| 12 | Slater | HUL | 3.03 | 4.5 | 6.05 | 9.55 | 3.7% |
| 13 | Dubravka | TOT | 2.57 | 4.0 | 5.15 | 6.25 | 18.7% |
| 14 | Crooks | HUL | 1.71 | 4.5 | 3.41 | 6.66 | 0.7% |
| 15 | Obi | MUN | 0.75 | 4.5 | 1.49 | 4.06 | 1.1% |

---
Method: Market odds (de-vigged) → Dixon-Coles scorelines → 50k Monte-Carlo simulations, scored on the official Fantasy Premier League points table.
Data license: CC BY 4.0 (attribution: evmax, https://evmax.ai). Machine-readable JSON: https://evmax.ai/api/fpl/gw2/wildcard.json