Arsenal centre-back rises £2.0m after his best-ever season in 2025/26, when he produced 209 points
Gabriel has been handed a premium £8.0m price tag for 2026/27 Fantasy Premier League after topping the defender standings last season with 209 points.
Arsenal’s Brazilian climbs £2.0m from his starting cost of £6.0m in 2025/26.
He now ranks just below the record price for a defender of £8.5m, which was set in 2003/04 by Liverpool’s John Arne Riise and then matched in the following campaign by Chelsea’s John Terry.
Most expensive defenders of all time in FPL
Player
Price
Club
Season
John Arne Riise
£8.5m
LIV
2003/04
John Terry
£8.5m
CHE
2004/05
Ashley Cole
£8.0m
ARS
2002/03
Sami Hyypia,
Mikael Silvestre
£8.0m
LIV, MUN
2003/04
Leighton Baines,
Nemanja Vidic
£8.0m
EVE, MUN
2011/12
Trent Alexander-Arnold
£8.0m
LIV
2023/24
Gabriel
£8.0m
ARS
2026/27
Scroll across to see the full table on mobile
Defensive contributions add to consistency
Gabriel’s aerial threat from set-pieces played a big part in his successful 2025/26 campaign, with the Brazilian scoring three goals and assisting a further five.
Arsenal’s resilient rearguard was another key factor, with the centre-back racking up 18 clean sheets.
Crucially, he was also the Gunners’ dominant defender in the inaugural season of defensive contribution (DC) points in Fantasy last season.
Gabriel picked up 22 DC points, just eight less than the COMBINED 30 of Arsenal’s other defenders.
Impressively, his all-round output meant the Brazilian blanked in only six of his 30 starts in 2025/26.
His total of 209 points was the third-most of all time, just behind the record of 213 points set by Andrew Robertson for Liverpool in 2018/19.
Best ever seasons by defenders in FPL
Player
Points
Club
Season
Andrew Robertson
213
LIV
2018/19
Trent Alexander-Arnold
210
LIV
2019/20
Gabriel
209
ARS
2025/26
Virgil van Dijk
208
LIV
2018/19
Trent Alexander-Arnold
208
LIV
2021/22
Joao Cancelo
201
MCI
2021/22
Scroll across to see the full table on mobile
Consistent both home and away
Gabriel’s price reveal comes after Erling Haaland and Bruno Fernandes were announced as costing £15.5m and £12.0m earlier on Wednesday.
If you want to own all three players in your opening squad, the combined cost will be a hefty £35.5m. That’s over a third of your £100.0m budget, with 12 of your 15 players still to pick.
In the case of Haaland and Fernandes, those huge costs are mainly down to their ability to deliver big hauls, which makes them popular captain picks.
They produced 10 and 12 double-figure returns respectively last season, more than any other players, whereas Gabriel managed only six.
Although the Arsenal star can’t compare with the duo as a captaincy option, his relentless consistency both home and away puts him on a par with Haaland and Fernandes.
All three were among the four top-scoring players in both home and away matches in 2025/26.
Watch: Gabriel’s best bits from 25/26
As the table below highlights, Gabriel had the least disparity of the three when it came to match location. He averaged 7.0 points per home start and 6.8 points per away start, a difference of just 0.2.
The output of Haaland and Fernandes, by contrast, dropped 0.8 and 1.1 points per start (pps) respectively when playing an away match.
2025/26 comparison
Gabriel
Haaland
Fernandes
Home pts
106
120
124
Home pps
7.0
7.4
7.3
Away pts
103
119
111
Away pps
6.8
6.6
6.2
Pts = Points, PPS = Points per start. Scroll across to see the full table on mobile
If you accept that you aren’t going to be captaining him, Gabriel’s home/away output makes him an ideal “set and forget” pick to play in every Gameweek of the season.
A home match against promoted Coventry City in Gameweek 1 only enhances Gabriel’s appeal for your opening squad, while Arsenal also face two of last season’s promoted clubs – Sunderland and Leeds United – over the first six Gameweeks of 2026/27.
Arsenal’s first six matches
GW
Opp.
FDR*
1
Coventry (H)
2
2
Aston Villa (A)
4
3
Chelsea (H)
3
4
Sunderland (A)
3
5
Brighton (A)
4
6
Leeds (H)
2
*FDR = Fixture Difficulty Ratings. 1=easiest possible fixture, 5=hardest possible fixture