PointsLeak / Guides

FPL Gameweek 6: the most common mistakes, in real numbers

What cost FPL managers points in gameweek 6? No opinions or predictions here: just the official numbers for captaincy, highly owned players who blanked, starters who didn't play and the week's most popular transfers.

Data: official public FPL API, gameweek 6 finished and data-checked. Pulled 2026-10-19. Ownership = number of FPL teams that held the player in gameweek 6; FPL had 11,126,784 registered teams when we pulled the data.

Gameweek 6 in numbers

• Average score: 58 points. Highest score: 131 points.
• Transfers made: 19,638,667.
• Chips played: Wildcard 762,489, Free Hit 213,008, Bench Boost 121,353, Triple Captain 88,051.
• Most captained: Haaland (MCI), 6 points (12 as captain). Highest-scoring player: Henderson (CHE), 18 points.

1. Captaincy: the armband vs the week's best

The most captained player, Haaland, returned 6 points, so a standard captain gave 12. The best single score of the week was 18 by Henderson. Nobody can pick the top scorer every week, and with hindsight it is easy to point at a haul. The useful question for your own team is different: how far was your captain from the best player in your starting XI, week after week?

2. Template players who blanked

Of the 20 players owned by more than 2 million teams this gameweek, 7 scored 2 points or fewer. When a highly owned player blanks, most managers lose little rank (everyone has him), but the points are still gone, and for managers who also captained him the loss doubles.

3. Owned starters who didn't play

Players with 0 minutes this gameweek despite being owned by at least 500,000 teams. If one of them was in your XI, the auto-sub only rescued you if your first eligible bench player played. That depends on your bench order, which is set before the deadline.

4. The most transferred-in players, and what they scored

Transfers recorded for gameweek 6 by the FPL API, with the player's points that week. One week is a small sample, and many of these moves are made for the next several fixtures, not just one. But it shows how often the week's popular move doesn't pay back straight away: 6 of the top 8 scored 2 points or fewer.

What to take from gameweek 6

• Judge your captain against your own XI, over many weeks, not against the week's top scorer. See FPL captaincy mistakes.
• Check minutes before the deadline and order your bench so the first sub is someone who will actually play. See bench points.
• Don't pay a −4 to chase one week: the 3-gameweek test in is a −4 hit worth it? is a better filter.