Set-piece duty is the most reliably mispriced signal in FPL. A penalty is worth roughly 0.79 goals on average, and the player taking them is knowable in advance — FPL publishes the order itself. Yet every season managers buy the wrong man, because the published list and the teamsheet do not always agree. Eight clubs currently list a first-choice penalty taker who is projected for 45 minutes or fewer in the opening gameweek, which quietly promotes the number two without anyone updating the graphic. This is every club's penalty, direct free-kick and corner hierarchy for 26/27, cross-checked against projected minutes so you buy the player who will actually be standing over the ball.
Why Set-Piece Duty Is Worth Paying For
Three separate scoring streams run through a designated taker. Penalties convert at roughly 79% in the Premier League, which makes a single spot-kick worth more expected goals than most players generate from open play in a full match. Direct free kicks are lower percentage but concentrated in one player. And corners drive assists plus a steady flow of bonus-point contributions — every delivery that produces a chance feeds the BPS calculation, which is why corner takers accumulate bonus far beyond what their goal involvement suggests. Our breakdown of how bonus points are actually calculated covers that mechanism in detail.
The key point is that all of this is knowable before you transfer. Unlike form or fixtures, set-piece duty is published data.
The Trap: The Listed Taker Is Often Not on the Pitch
This is where most managers lose money. FPL lists the penalty order as the club reported it, but it does not adjust for injuries, rotation or players who are no longer first choice. Cross-reference the order against projected minutes and the picture changes completely.
- Bournemouth — Kroupi Jr is listed first but projects at 0 minutes. Justin Kluivert (£6.0m, 65 minutes) is the one who will take them.
- Crystal Palace — Jean-Philippe Mateta is first choice at 30 projected minutes. Ismaïla Sarr (£6.5m, 80 minutes) is second and far likelier to be on the pitch.
- Nott'm Forest — Chris Wood at 30 minutes, with Morgan Gibbs-White (£8.0m, 80 minutes) behind him and also on direct free kicks.
- Sunderland — Diarra at 30 minutes; Enzo Le Fée (£6.0m, 90 minutes) is second on penalties, second on free kicks and first on corners.
- Ipswich — Jack Clarke holds penalties but projects at 30 minutes, promoting Emersonn (£5.5m, 80 minutes).
- Arsenal and Spurs — both clubs' listed one and two are projected under 40 minutes: Saka and Gyökeres at Arsenal, Solanke and Kudus at Spurs. Neither club has a reliable penalty route into your squad right now.
The Number Ones Who Will Actually Play
These are first-choice penalty takers with projected minutes to match — the combination you are actually paying for.
- Erling Haaland — Man City, £15.5m, 73.3% owned, 85 minutes. The most expensive and most owned penalty taker in the game.
- Bruno Fernandes — Man Utd, £12.0m, 47.9% owned, 90 minutes. First on penalties, first on direct free kicks and first on corners — the only premium in the game with all three.
- Cole Palmer — Chelsea, £9.5m, 10.9% owned, 85 minutes. Penalties plus third-choice free kicks, at a third of Haaland's ownership.
- Alexander Isak — Liverpool, £9.0m, 14.0% owned, 80 minutes.
- Thiago — Brentford, £8.0m, 16.3% owned, 85 minutes.
- Iliman Ndiaye — Everton, £6.0m, 15.7% owned, 88 minutes. The best mid-price penalty security on the board.
- Dominic Calvert-Lewin — Leeds, £6.0m, 25.6% owned, 85 minutes.
- Pascal Groß — Brighton, £5.5m, 11.4% owned, 85 minutes. See below — he is the standout of the entire article.
- Oli McBurnie — Hull, £5.5m, 1.5% owned, 85 minutes. The only Hull player listed on penalties at all, at near-zero ownership.
The Triple Threats: Penalties, Free Kicks and Corners
Four players hold duty across all three set-piece types. This is the rarest and most valuable profile in FPL, because it concentrates every dead-ball scoring route in one squad slot.
- Pascal Groß — Brighton, £5.5m. First on penalties, first on direct free kicks, first on corners, projected 85 minutes. There is no other player in the game with a complete set-piece monopoly at this price. If you take one name from this article, take this one.
- Bruno Fernandes — Man Utd, £12.0m. The same complete monopoly, at more than double the price and 47.9% ownership.
- Dominik Szoboszlai — Liverpool, £7.0m, 42.0% owned, 90 minutes. First on free kicks and corners, second on penalties behind Isak.
- Enzo Le Fée — Sunderland, £6.0m, 12.7% owned, 90 minutes. First on corners, second on both penalties and free kicks — and as noted above, the man ahead of him on penalties projects at 30 minutes.
Set-piece duty is the only edge in FPL that is published in advance and still routinely ignored. The mistake is not failing to find the information — it is failing to check whether the man at the top of the list is going to be on the pitch.
Budget Set-Piece Merchants
Dead-ball duty at the bottom of the price range is where this becomes a squad-building tool rather than a luxury. Several of these double as genuine budget enablers, which means you get set-piece upside from a slot you were filling cheaply anyway.
- Ryan Giles — Hull, £4.0m, 0.8% owned, 85 minutes. First on direct free kicks and first on corners. A minimum-priced defender with complete open-play set-piece duty is the single biggest mispricing in this dataset.
- Marcelino Núñez — Ipswich, £5.0m, 0.2% owned, 80 minutes. First on free kicks and corners for a side opening against difficulty-2 opposition.
- Leif Davis — Ipswich, £4.0m, 80 minutes. Second on both free kicks and corners, behind Núñez — worth owning as the cheaper route into the same set-piece supply.
- Matty Cash — Aston Villa, £4.5m, 8.5% owned, 80 minutes. First on corners at enabler pricing.
- Lewis Hall — Newcastle, £5.0m, 3.9% owned, 80 minutes. First on corners.
- Neco Williams — Nott'm Forest, £5.0m, 11.7% owned, 90 minutes. First on corners with the highest projected minutes of any budget set-piece option.
- Anton Stach — Leeds, £6.0m, 1.1% owned, 80 minutes. First on free kicks and corners, and he clears the midfield defensive-contribution threshold — a genuine dual-return profile we cover in our DefCon shortlist.
The Oracle Takeaway
Set-piece duty is published in advance; the edge comes from checking it against who is actually playing.
Buy Pascal Groß at £5.5m — a complete penalty, free-kick and corner monopoly at mid-budget pricing is the clearest value in the game. Take Ryan Giles at £4.0m as the cheapest possible route into guaranteed set-piece supply. Avoid Arsenal and Spurs penalties entirely for now, since both clubs' listed one and two project under 40 minutes. Where a first-choice taker is not playing, buy the number two instead — Kluivert at Bournemouth, Sarr at Palace, Le Fée at Sunderland and Gibbs-White at Forest are all effectively promoted. And re-check this order after every transfer window and injury, because the published list updates far more slowly than reality.
FPL Oracle tracks penalty, free-kick and corner order alongside projected minutes for every player, so you can see promotions the moment they happen — and compare two set-piece takers directly on duty, minutes, fixtures and ownership.
Which set-piece taker are you backing this season — the £5.5m monopoly or the £4.0m differential? 👇