Has Crystal Palace's European demotion made Eberechi Eze a must-have player?
The England international scored the winning goal against Manchester City in an FA Cup final to deliver the Eagles their first major trophy.
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Dream Team managers have to put emotions and sentimentality aside when choosing their XI but even without intangible romances, Eze is an extremely tempting selection.
For the latest in our SCOUT REPORT series, we're seeking to establish whether the 27-year-old is worthy of his new-found status as one of the game's most expensive players.
At £5.5m, Eze is the joint-fifth most costly midfielder ahead of Gameweek 1 with only Bukayo Saka (£6.5m), Cole Palmer (£6m), Bruno Fernandes (£6m) and Florian Wirtz (£6m) commanding greater price tags.
The first reason for this is that he performed superbly last season.
Eze scored 15 goals and provided 11 assists on his way to 315 points, a tally bettered by just four players in his position.
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He also ranked seventh for bonus points (46) among all assets, thanks to his impressive stats concerning successful dribbles, fouls won and goals scored from outside the box.
When all was said and done, Eze averaged 7.3 points-per-game in 2024/25.
HIGHEST POINTS-PER GAME AVERAGE AMONG DREAM TEAM MIDFIELDERS LAST SEASON (MINIMUM 5 APPEARANCES):
8 - Bryan Mbeumo
7.9 - Bruno Fernandes
7.7 - Cole Palmer
7.7 - Bukayo Saka
7.3 - Eberechi Eze
6.3 - Dwight McNeil
6.2 - Antoine Semenyo
6 - James Maddison
5.9 - Morgan Rogers
5.9 - Iliman Ndiaye
The second reason for Eze's punchy starting price is that his schedule will be enhanced by European commitments for the first time in his career.
The Selhurst Park faithful are understandably frustrated by their side's demotion from the Europa League to the Conference League because of Uefa's multi-club ownership rules but this harsh turn of events may actually create golden opportunities in the world of Dream Team.
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Gaffers should be licking their lips at the prospect of Eze (plus Daniel Munoz, Philippe-Jean Mateta, etc) taking on some extremely favourable opponents in Europe's tertiary competition.
Chelsea players provided ample returns on Thursday nights last season on their way to Conference League glory.
Palace's No10 capitalised on his side's FA Cup success last term, taking plenty of points from the additional domestic fixtures from start to finish.
Even when he was on the wrong side of the fixture deficit, Eze was a viable Dream Team midfielder.
Favourable European commitments could make him a must-have asset for much of 2025/26.
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The elephant in the room is that Eze has long been linked with a move away from Selhurst Park.
Arsenal are said to be keen admirers and should such a transfer materialise it would be interesting to see the impact on his Dream Team ownership, which is currently 10.6%.
A move to the Gunners would mean no favourable Conference League match-ups for Eze but his schedule would still be enhanced by Champions League commitments.
For now, he's a Palace player and seemingly well placed to produce another points-laden campaign.
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