FPL GW5 review: Semenyo and Brobbey share top score of 17

This FPL GW5 review starts at the top: Semenyo and Brobbey both finished the gameweek on 17 points, the joint-highest score of the round, as the FPL gameweek 5 highest scores list produced a mix of nailed-on names and complete surprises.

The GW5 dream team

The GW5 dream team

Player	Points	Goals	Assists	Bonus	Our forecast
Semenyo MCI MID	17	2	1	2	4.5
Brobbey SUN FWD	17	3	0	3	2.4
Dasilva COV DEF	15	1	0	3	2.3
Schuster BRE DEF	14	0	1	3	3.2
Groß BHA MID	14	1	1	3	4.0
Tarkowski EVE DEF	14	0	1	3	5.2
Manzambi AVL MID	13	1	1	2	0.5
Hall NEW DEF	13	1	0	3	4.6
Buendía AVL MID	12	1	0	3	2.8
Rushworth COV GKP	11	0	1	2	2.6

Semenyo's 17 came from two goals and an assist in 90 minutes, with two bonus points on top. Brobbey matched him with a hat-trick and three bonus points, also from a full 90. Behind them, Dasilva (15 points, one goal, three bonus) and Schuster (14, one assist, three bonus) both delivered big defensive returns, while Groß and Tarkowski were the next two on 14 apiece — Groß with a goal and an assist, Tarkowski with an assist and three bonus points.

Further down the fpl gw5 dream team, Manzambi took 13 points from just 71 minutes on the pitch with a goal and an assist, Hall added 13 with a goal and three bonus, Buendía scored 12 with a goal and three bonus, and Rushworth rounded out the top ten on 11 points with an assist from a goalkeeper.

Where the model got it right, and where it didn't

Our model graded 301 players in GW5 with a mean absolute error of 2.09 points — a useful gut check on how close the projections landed overall.

The biggest overperformers against our forecast were led by Brobbey, projected for 2.4 points and returning 17, and Dasilva, projected 2.3 and returning 15. Manzambi (forecast 0.5, actual 13), Semenyo (forecast 4.5, actual 17) and Schuster (forecast 3.2, actual 14) also blew past their projected numbers.

The model missed in the other direction too. Saka was projected for 6.8 points but managed only 2. B.Fernandes was forecast 6.7 and also returned 2. Mbeumo (forecast 6.3, actual 2) and Gibbs-White (forecast 6.3, actual 2) both fell well short as well, and Cash was the biggest miss of all relative to expectation, forecast 3.4 but finishing on -1 points.

The captain call

Our model's captain pick for GW5 was Haaland, who returned 12 points once doubled. It's a solid if unspectacular captain score for a gameweek where the very top individual returns — Semenyo and Brobbey's 17s — came from players who weren't the obvious armband picks.

How the average compares

The FPL average score for gameweek 5 was 48, with a fpl gw5 average score high of 126 for the best-performing team. Since the deadline of Friday 18 September, 18:30 UK, our team scored 35 points against the FPL Experts' 57, while our model XI (a separate benchmark) scored 45 against that same FPL average of 48 — the Experts took the gameweek.

Across the season so far, our team has beaten the FPL Experts in three of five gameweeks, sitting 29 points behind on total but still 20 points above the FPL average.

How we worked this out

These numbers come from our projection model, graded after full-time against actual returns; see model accuracy for the running error rate and us v the FPL Experts for the season-long head-to-head. The full round is archived at gameweek 5.