The Fantasy Premier League is back with yet another edition, which is set to begin tomorrow, when the champions Liverpool kick off the 2025/26 season of the Premier League with a clash against Bournemouth at home.

This season's edition is going to be an experience like never before, as approximately 11 million managers have tuned in so far to create their first squad drafts, with phenomenal new signings and exciting new changes to the game creating a lot of excitement for the rookie FPL managers as well as the veterans of the game.

What are the major changes in this season's FPL, and how will they impact the game?

Apart from the arrivals of showstopping stars such as Florian Wirtz, Viktor Gyokeres, Benjamin Sesko, Jeremie Frimpong, etc., the game has also undergone major changes in its points system along with additional chips, tweaks to the bonus points system and extra transfers during the AFCON period.

Changes to the points system

1) Defensive Contributions

Inspired by the UCL Fantasy, the new upgrade in FPL now includes a "defensive contributions" points criteria, which states that for defenders, every 10 defensive contributions (tackles, blocks, clearances, interceptions, etc.) would result in 2 additional points.

Whereas for midfielders, every 12 defensive contributions, including ball recoveries, would result in 2 additional points.

This certainly increases the significance of centre-backs and defensive midfielders, who were massively overlooked because their chances of scoring points were extremely low, especially ball-playing DMs, who rarely got attacking returns while also recording just 1 point for a clean sheet.

2) Changes to the assist points

The creators have certainly attempted to improve the assist points rule in the game for the coming campaign, which has caused a lot confusion and frustration for many managers over the years.

Till now, even the slightest deflections or touches from an opposition player in a final pass provided by a player to the goal scorer would result in that pass not being counted as an assist in the game, denying the assist provider of his 3 points for providing the goal-scoring pass.

From this season, the game will be awarding all the assist points to that particular pass provider only if his deflected pass is received inside the six-yard box by the goal-scorer and there has been just a single touch of deflection before the ball reaches the goal-scorer.

If these two conditions are not met, then a deflected final pass will not be considered an assist.

Apart from this, the revised FPL assist rules also state that unforced defensive errors leading to goals and forced handballs leading to scored penalties or free kicks would not be counted as an assist, like they were till the end of the previous edition.

Additional Chips

From this season onwards, the original four chips – Triple Captain, Bench Boost, Wildcard, and Free Hit, will be provided two times during the entire season, once in each half, meaning a total of 8 chips will be provided in this campaign.

The managers will get to use the initially provided four chips within the first 19 gameweeks and get the four chips again for the remaining 19 gameweeks of the season.

The Assistant Manager chip, which was introduced just last season, has been removed from the game after low popularity and negative feedback.

While the extra chips are meant to increase the element of excitement and point-scoring in the game, the earlier seasons tested the managers' abilities and thinking to save and use their chips at the right time, which made the game much more competitive and challenging.

Extra Transfers for the AFCON Period

The mid-season AFCON period has always troubled the managers in a great sense, with some of the biggest assets of the game, including the mighty Mohamed Salah, being unavailable for a brief period of time while forcing many managers to make a lot of changes.

This once again makes the game much simpler and easier, especially for new players, but at the same time will decrease the competitiveness in the game while not testing the managers' abilities to save their transfers and chips and use them in the most beneficial way.

Changes to the Bonus Points System

Just like almost every other season, there have been tweaks made to the Bonus Points System in the FPL in order to make it more accurate and consistent.

The newly introduced changes majorly lie in goalkeeper saves, successful tackles, goal-line clearances, and penalties earned and conceded.

Two New General Leagues

The FPL has also introduced two new general leagues – Top 1%, which will only be available for the top 1% finishers in the previous season's world rankings, and Top 10%, available for the top 10% finishers of the previous season's world rankings.