Khadija Shaw Becomes Fantasy Football’s Biggest Budget Test | OneFootball

Khadija Shaw has been handed the top price tag among forwards in the new season’s WSL fantasy football game, arriving with a £12.5 million price tag, the most expensive player in the game and one of the most expensive picks in its history. That matters because it confirms what most fans already suspected heading into the new campaign: Shaw remains the player fantasy managers build their squads around.

Why Manchester City’s forward tops the pricing chart

Shaw topped last season’s stats with 21 goals and four assists in just 22 matches, output that explains why fantasy pricing models have settled on her as the clear top pick. Her form wasn’t a one-off. She was named Barclays WSL Player of the Season, the Football Writers’ Association Women’s Footballer of the Year, and won Manchester City’s own Etihad Player of the Season award. She also claimed a record third successive WSL Golden Boot in 2025-26.

The season had milestone moments too. In December, Shaw became the first player in Manchester City’s history, men’s or women’s, to reach 100 goals for the club, doing so in a 6-1 win over Aston Villa in which she scored four. Her four assists that season also pushed her combined WSL goal contributions past a century, making her only the sixth player in the competition’s history to reach that mark.

What this means for fantasy managers this season

A top-tier price always comes with a trade-off. Spending £12.5 million on Shaw leaves £87.5 million to fill the remaining 14 places in a squad, and that opportunity cost is the debate fantasy managers will be having in the build-up to the opening gameweek.

Even so, several factors make her price look justified rather than risky. Her new record-breaking four-year contract ties her to City until 2030, removing the transfer uncertainty that usually attaches to premium picks. She also picked up no yellow or red cards last season, meaning no unexpected point deductions from suspensions. Her underlying numbers back up the volume too, with 51 shots on target from 118 attempts last season, and she finished the campaign strongly, scoring twice against West Ham in City’s final match as part of a run of six goals in their last five games.

Her early fixtures work in her favour as well. Newly promoted Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic both feature in City’s opening five matches, alongside Aston Villa, Liverpool and Arsenal, giving her realistic early opportunities to reward the managers who pick her from gameweek one.

The picture around the WSL more broadly continues to shift, too, with clubs across the division making moves that will shape squads for the season ahead, including Tottenham Hotspur’s record signing of Alice Sombath, part of the wider churn fantasy managers will need to track before the campaign kicks off.

What happens next

Full pricing for the rest of the forward pool, along with midfielders and defenders, is expected to follow as the new WSL fantasy game rolls out ahead of the season opener. Whether Shaw’s price proves justified will depend, as ever, on minutes on the pitch and goals in the net.

Source: WSL Football