Gameweek 1 is scored and 310 players have a 2026-27 rating for the first time. The biggest riser in the Premier League is a Hull City goalkeeper who has played one match.
Konstantinos Tzolakis is now the eleventh-highest-rated player in the game. So are Hull’s John Egan, Brentford’s Mohamed Sangaré and Ipswich’s Emersonn, all four on exactly 1520 and all four on one appearance.
Do not buy any of them on that number. Here is why, and it is the same reason the number is published in the first place.
The rating is half the story
Every rating on this site carries a confidence figure beside it. It is the range the true level is likely to sit in, and it is the difference between a number and a guess.
| Player | Rating | Games | Likely range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gabriel (ARS) | 1597.0 | 33 | 1325 to 1869 |
| Erling Haaland (MCI) | 1567.9 | 36 | 1296 to 1840 |
| David Raya (ARS) | 1547.5 | 38 | 1328 to 1768 |
| James Tarkowski (EVE) | 1522.7 | 38 | 1303 to 1743 |
| Konstantinos Tzolakis (HUL) | 1520.0 | 1 | 841 to 2199 |
Tarkowski and Tzolakis are three places apart on the board and they are not remotely the same claim. Tarkowski’s rating has thirty-eight matches under it. Tzolakis has ninety minutes, and the honest reading of his 1520 is that he could be anywhere.
Movement scales with ignorance, not with quality
Across all 310 rated players, this is how far a rating actually travelled in Gameweek 1, grouped by how many Premier League matches sit behind it.
| Career matches | Players | Average move | Largest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 81 | 13.1 | 29.5 |
| 6 to 15 | 21 | 7.5 | 15.8 |
| 16 to 25 | 56 | 4.2 | 11.9 |
| 26 or more | 150 | 3.3 | 7.7 |
A debutant moved four times as far as a thirty-eight-game veteran for the same afternoon’s work. That is deliberate. A rating with nothing behind it should move a long way on new evidence, and a rating with three seasons behind it should barely flinch.
The consequence for a manager is the useful part. A leaderboard of biggest movers in August is mostly a leaderboard of players nobody has enough information about, and chasing the top of it is chasing noise with a transfer.
The players who actually improved
Filter to players with twenty-six or more matches behind them, where a move has to be earned, and the list looks completely different.
| Player | Price | Owned | Move | GW1 points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Ødegaard (ARS) | £6.5m | 10.2% | +10.3 | 11 |
| Anthony Elanga (NEW) | £6.0m | 1.3% | +7.7 | 9 |
| Joe Willock (NEW) | £5.0m | 0.2% | +7.1 | 6 |
| Maxim De Cuyper (BHA) | £4.5m | 4.3% | +7.0 | 17 |
| Jack Hinshelwood (BHA) | £6.0m | 1.4% | +6.5 | 16 |
| Cole Palmer (CHE) | £9.5m | 11.7% | +6.2 | 13 |
Ødegaard is the biggest genuine riser in the league, and even he is only 222nd overall. A large move means a player who was rated low and had a good day, not a player who is suddenly elite. That is worth holding onto before anyone spends a transfer on a rating arrow.
De Cuyper returned seventeen points at £4.5m and is owned by 4.3%.
What it did to the players you own
| Player | Price | Owned | Rank now | Move | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Erling Haaland | £15.5m | 68.8% | 2nd | -3.9 | 2 |
| João Pedro | £7.5m | 64.9% | 18th | +5.2 | 11 |
| Bruno Fernandes | £12.0m | 50.1% | 3rd | -3.9 | 2 |
| Riccardo Calafiori | £5.5m | 40.8% | 47th | +5.8 | 9 |
| Christos Tzolis | £6.5m | 25.6% | 38th | +8.6 | 6 |
| Antonee Kinsky | £4.5m | 23.5% | 171st | -5.4 | 2 |
| Harry Maguire | £5.0m | 17.7% | 156th | -6.3 | 1 |
| Alexander Isak | £9.0m | 16.9% | 237th | -4.9 | 2 |
| Luke Shaw | £4.5m | 20.5% | 300th | -2.9 | 1 |
Haaland and Bruno both lost ground on two points each, and both are still second and third in the game. One quiet week does not undo three seasons, which is the entire argument for a rating that carries over rather than resetting every August.
Tzolis is the one question the round settled. Friday’s preview flagged that a quarter of the game owned an Arsenal midfielder we had no rating for at all. He now has one, he is 38th, and the answer turned out to be that the market was right and we had nothing to say.
Before Friday
Three names on that list are now rated outside the top 150 and owned by more than one manager in six: Isak at 237th, Shaw at 300th and Maguire at 156th. Two of those three are Manchester United defenders at home to Ipswich this weekend, which is the fixture that decides whether the problem was the opponent or the team.
Isak is the cleanest decision. He is £9.0m, 237th, and Friday’s preview already had him in the group rated below their price. Gameweek 1 moved him further down rather than closer.
The GW2 deadline is Friday 28 August. Prices begin moving from this week now that a round has been scored, so a player you intend to sell is worth selling before the market does it for you.
Every figure here is from the snapshot taken today, the first that carries Gameweek 1.