The gameweek report

Candace takes the throne as Green Street takes a tumble

CVD FC wins the week and the view from the top. Tineka and Clarky close in, Ian presses the Free Hit button, and the Chairman collects the pig.

The 2026/27 season · GW05 · Final edition

The league table

On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to see every column.

#	TEAM / MANAGER	GW5	TOTAL	MOVE
1	CVD FC Candace Van Damme	71	321	▲3
2	This is the Wirtz! Ivo Ferreira	39	314	▼1
3	TBABCDEFC Tineka Bishop	68	308	▲3
4	RHRed Djed Redemption Ryan Hindle	39	306	▼2
5	PCclarkys cloggers Paul Clark	68	305	▲3
6	Boo Tottenham Aubrey Hindle	53	295	▼1
7	sendmetocoventry Ian Gpowell	62	291	▲2
8	Green Street United Robert Ayres	32	284	▼5
9	Park the Bus Hailey Hindle	60	282	▲1
10	DAThe Balon D'orgus Dela Avle	39	279	▼3
11	Mikel Arteta's Army Peter Mossad	41	251	—
12	AFC Kincardine Steve Fletcher	48	216	—
13	PPVermilion Bird Portia Pavia	58	138	—
14	Devastators FC Angelo Pavia	55	132	—

No GW05 transfer hits: gross and net weekly scores are identical. Weekly honours recognise ties; overall positions follow the captured FPL standings.

The league has a new landlord

Ivo Ferreira began the weekend with the keys. Candace Van Damme finished it with the property. CVD FC’s 71-point week has turned a 25-point deficit into a seven-point lead, an eviction notice delivered without a chip, a hit or much regard for the occupants. The title race has acquired a new centre of attention.

Ivo and Ryan Hindle both returned 39, leaving the former second and the latter fourth. Groß prevented Ivo’s afternoon from becoming thoroughly indecent; Ryan had just bought him, which makes the rest of Red Djed Redemption’s performance rather harder to excuse. One excellent purchase cannot be expected to carry the furniture, paint the walls and fix the plumbing.

Tineka Bishop and Paul Clark supplied the pressure behind Candace, sharing the second-best weekly score with 68 apiece. The defending champion follows last week’s win by moving into third. Tineka took the title last season and is beginning to look rather reluctant to give it back. Paul climbs alongside her by three places to fifth. Clarky has now scored 68 in three consecutive Gameweeks. What began as a result is becoming a standing order.

Only 16 points separate the leader from fifth, and Ryan has Paul one point behind him. It is a much less comfortable arrangement than anyone near the top would admit. Every time somebody appears to have established a little authority, another manager arrives with a Brighton midfielder and ruins the seating plan.

Manager Spotlight: Candace Van Damme

The easiest explanation for Candace’s rise is that she owned Groß and Semenyo, who supplied 31 points between them. The more interesting detail is that she put a productive side around them. Kelleher and Mitchell contributed, Haaland’s armband did a respectable job, and the new arrival Belloumi added something useful without requiring an invoice.

This is a different sort of story from GW03, when the column spent rather more time inspecting CVD FC’s substitutes. The points that mattered were on the pitch this time. The goalkeeper on the bench matched the starting keeper, so there is no grand missed opportunity to turn the victory sour. Candace can enjoy this one without the newsletter immediately presenting a second, better team she could have selected.

The progression is substantial: sixth after GW03, fourth after GW04, now first. Three places gained this week, the weekly prize secured and two former leaders overtaken in one go. Plenty of managers talk about building momentum. Candace has provided something the rest of the league can actually see, and it is now looking down at them.

The armband: Isak finally answers

Portia and Angelo Pavia share Captain Fantastic with Isak’s 16. After last week’s underwhelming return, the same choice produced a much happier conversation. Their weekly scores comfortably cleared the overall average of 48, even if the missing early Gameweeks still leave them at the foot of the cumulative table.

The Haaland captainers received 12, enough to keep the decision respectable without settling the week. Ryan’s armband passed from the absent João Pedro to vice-captain Gvardiol, whose doubled return supplied eight. Rob’s Gibbs-White and Dela Avle’s Calvert-Lewin managed four each. There are imaginative decisions, and then there are decisions whose principal achievement is giving this column another paragraph.

Steve Fletcher endured the worst outcome: João Pedro captain contributed nothing. Hall and Semenyo supplied 30 between them to drag AFC Kincardine up to the overall average anyway. It is difficult to ask much more of two players when the armband has effectively taken the weekend off.

Pork Chop of the Week: Rob

Rob won this league the season before Tineka, but past glories do not come with diplomatic immunity. The Chairman’s trophy cabinet offers little protection from this week’s evidence. Green Street United’s 32 was the lowest score in the league, and a fall from third to eighth was the largest drop. The Pork Chop therefore goes to Rob, with the sort of supporting documentation that makes an appeal inadvisable.

Gibbs-White arrived and immediately received the armband, returning four captain points. Van Hecke was the other purchase and the side’s highest scorer, but his six could not repair a team full of modest contributions. The Raya–Gabriel pairing that had supplied such useful foundations last week offered only two between them this time. The same bricks, a considerably less convincing wall.

There was no hit to blame and no enormous haul stranded on the bench. This was a starting-XI problem, signed off by management. Hailey Hindle is now just two points behind after a much healthier week, which means eighth comes with neither a view nor much security of tenure.

Ian hires a different team for the weekend

After consecutive four-point hits, Ian Gpowell found a way to change almost everything without paying another one: the Free Hit. Sendmetocoventry emerged with 62 and a two-place climb, helped particularly by Tarkowski and Groß. The change produced a better result, though measuring the chip’s exact value would require a properly reconstructed alternative XI rather than a convenient subtraction.

The log contains 14 GW05 transfer transactions, including players bought and moved on again before the deadline. That is activity, not 14 separate additions to the final squad, and no points were charged. The temporary side did its job; whether spending the chip was the right season-long decision is a question one improved weekend cannot settle.

Elsewhere, Ryan’s switch from Szoboszlai to Groß delivered an immediate return, while Ivo’s move from João Pedro to Delap offered much less. Candace’s Gravenberch-to-Belloumi business and Paul’s replacement of Hughes with Dewsbury-Hall supplied modest gains in raw player points. Tineka, like Rob, swapped Virgil for Van Hecke; Virgil outscored the replacement, but her wider squad was strong enough to carry the decision.

Hailey brought in Konsa for Collins, and Portia exchanged Gonzalo for Welbeck. Neither deal was the main engine of its manager’s week. Nobody paid a transfer hit; Ian’s Free Hit was the league’s only chip. For once, the accountant had a quiet weekend even if the recruitment staff did not.

The bench has not gone away

Tineka’s joint second place in the weekly scoring comes with the Bench of Shame: 19 points. Ajer, Verbruggen and Le Fée supplied most of that reserve total. An excellent week can still contain an irritating team sheet, and Tineka has demonstrated considerable commitment to both sides of the argument.

Those 19 are recorded unused points, not a legal instruction to add the entire bench to the XI. The goalkeeper slot and formation requirements still exist, however much their abolition would improve the mood. What matters is that there was genuine production in reserve as well as in the side.

Aubrey Hindle received a more helpful intervention: Ampadu replaced João Pedro and supplied five, lifting Boo Tottenham to 53. He still slipped to sixth as stronger weeks swept past him. Peter Mossad also benefited from substitutions, with Diop and Ampadu supplying nine between them, but Mikel Arteta’s Army remained below the average and stuck in eleventh.

The rest of the dressing room

Hailey’s recovery was driven by Semenyo, with useful support from Pickford and Mitchell. Park the Bus moved up a place and almost caught Green Street. After Mitchell’s one-point response to being promoted last week, his seven this time was a belated apology rather than an explanation.

Dela has now slipped three places in each of the last two Gameweeks. This time Cherki and Isak provided the better returns, while the captaincy landed on Calvert-Lewin. He finished level with Ivo and Ryan on the week, but without their accumulated cushion. The Balon D’orgus is discovering that identical bad scores can have very different consequences.

Portia followed her debut with 58, again finding useful support in defence through Tarkowski. Angelo finished three points behind her for the second consecutive week, with Tarkowski’s 14 arriving as an automatic replacement for João Pedro. Portia’s lead over Devastators FC is now six. The competition between them has already started doing its own talking.

GW05 honours board

On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to see every column.

What we’ve learned

This was a week in which the dependable-looking foundations were not dependable at all. Last week’s productive Arsenal defence offered very little, the João Pedro armband went from prize-winning to empty, and the managers with Groß and Semenyo together had a much more pleasant time explaining their choices.

Candace now has a lead to defend, Tineka has put two strong weeks together, and Paul is close enough to trouble both former leaders. Ian has used his Free Hit to arrest the slide. Rob needs a response more convincing than a change of newsletter subject. There is plenty to think about before the next deadline; that does not mean every thought requires a transfer.