Summer 2026 transfers that will actually matter for your fantasy team

Last updated 10 July 2026. Living post, updated through to deadline day on 1 September. Bookmark it and check back before you draft.

Planning a fantasy team while the window is open is guesswork. This is the cheat sheet: every confirmed move that changes your picks, one verdict each, with the official announcements as receipts. Rumours are quarantined at the bottom where they belong.

The quick version:

• Salah is gone and the Anfield penalties are up for grabs. Biggest fantasy story of the summer.
• Spurs have bought half a new team. Someone there will be a bargain, someone will be a trap.
• The value lives at the promoted clubs, as always. Butland and the Ipswich forwards first.

1. Mohamed Salah leaves Liverpool

Free agent, deciding his future after the World Cup. The safest pick in fantasy history is out of the pool until further notice.

Whoever inherits the right wing and the pens at Anfield becomes the most interesting pick of the season.

Verdict: watch who takes Liverpool's first penalty of pre-season like it's a cup final.

2. Elliot Anderson to Man City, £116m

British record deal, agreed with Forest while Anderson's at the World Cup. He goes from carrying a mid-table midfield to finishing moves in the best attacking side in the country, and he was on set pieces at Forest too.

Verdict: premium pick from day one. Priced like it, probably worth it.

3. Sandro Tonali to Spurs, £92.5m

Does everything, including arriving late in the box. But he's a deep midfielder in a team still finding itself.

Verdict: watch the first month before you commit.

Newcastle sold their engine room to a rival. Someone owes that fanbase several pints.

4. Mateus Fernandes to Spurs, £85m

Relegation usually deletes a player from your plans. Fernandes escaped West Ham's drop inside five minutes, and he was their best creator by a distance.

Verdict: the value midfield pick of the autumn if he settles fast.

5. Andy Robertson to Spurs, free

An assist machine from left back for a decade, and attacking defenders are where fantasy seasons are won. He arrives alongside van Hecke, Senesi and Dúbravka. That's an entire new back line.

Verdict: pick Robertson for the assists, don't bank on the clean sheets until four strangers learn each other's names.

6. Newcastle swap wings: Gordon out, Touré in

Gordon has gone to Barcelona for big money. Gordon took pens and a big share of Newcastle's attacking output with him. Touré, £42m from Hoffenheim, is rapid but new to the league.

Verdict: avoid until you see who's on pens. Then move fast.

7. Emanuel Emegha to Chelsea

The Strasbourg captain's long-arranged move is now real, part of an intake that also includes Geovany Quenda and Marco Palestra. A proper physical nine at a top-six club. If he starts every week he'll be everywhere. If Chelsea rotate him like they rotate every young forward, he'll break your heart instead.

Verdict: pre-season minutes are the tell. Watch them.

8. Ewen Jaouen to Newcastle

Keeper moves are quietly the biggest fantasy news in any window, because clean sheet points follow the number one shirt. Nobody buys a keeper like Jaouen to sit him down.

Verdict: hold until the first team sheet, then the St James' gloves are a buy.

9. Jack Butland to Hull, £3m

The classic: proven keeper, promoted club, costs almost nothing. Hull will defend for their lives, which is terrible for clean sheets and brilliant for save points.

Verdict: the budget keeper slot, sorted. Every good squad has one of these.

10. Ipswich stack the attack: Akpom and Emersonn

Straight back up, and they've spent on two forwards: Chuba Akpom from Ajax and Brazilian striker Emersonn from Toulouse on a five-year deal. Somebody has to score Ipswich's goals, and the club has told you who they think it is.

Verdict: one of these two will be the popular cheap forward by September. Akpom is the safe read, Emersonn the upside.

Rumours worth watching (do not draft off these)

• Salah's next club. Decision after the World Cup. Everything until then is noise.
• United's striker search. Højlund to Napoli is done, the replacement isn't.
• Chelsea's left back. Cucurella to Real Madrid is confirmed, the successor is speculation.

Reckon you know this window better than your league?

Good, because that's about to be worth actual currency. In YourScore Fantasy Football, our new fantasy game launching mid-August, there's no fixed budget. You answer a weekly knowledge round and what you know earns what you spend. The player who's been following this window properly walks into the draft rich. Here's exactly how it works.

Until then, test yourself on today's quiz and see where your budget would land.

So: who's on Liverpool's pens come August? Wrong answers welcome.