In the ruthless world of Fantasy Premier League (FPL), having a player you fully trust perform poorly and return 1 or 2 points is enough to ruin your weekend. You look at that red arrow crashing down your rank and let out a sigh. But trust me, that frustration is nothing compared to when your “golden boy” performs so disastrously that he gets… negative points.
Getting negative points in FPL feels like a cruel betrayal. Not only do you get zero points, but you are actively dragged backward.
Here are the 5 worst FPL performances that left unhealed psychological scars on the global FPL community.
5. Emmanuel Dennis (Watford)
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Points: -1 point (For Captainers: -2 points).
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Match: vs Norwich City & Burnley (Double Gameweek 23, 2021/22 Season).
Many might wonder: there are dozens of players in FPL history who have received -1 or -2 points, so why does Emmanuel Dennis’s -1 automatically make the list of the absolute worst disasters?
The answer lies in one word: “Betrayal”.
Heading into Double Gameweek 23 that year, Dennis was everyone’s must-have player. The Nigerian striker was in devastating goal-scoring form, and Watford had two home fixtures against relegation-struggling Norwich and Burnley.
In this context, 1,205,675 FPL managers did not hesitate to give him the Captain armband. Hundreds of thousands of players even went all-in by using their Triple Captain chip, dreaming of a massive point shower.
However, tragedy struck in the very first match against Norwich. Dennis played a toothless, harmless game and surprisingly received a second yellow card, being sent off in the 78th minute. That disastrous red card not only dragged his score down to -1, but Premier League rules also triggered a suspension, stripping him of the right to play in the second match against Burnley.
He got sent off, missed the next game, and threw the expectations of millions into the mud. Millions of managers were left dead silent seeing the “C” icon on Dennis’s arm turn into a mocking -2 points. This massive, widespread psychological damage makes Dennis the greatest scam in FPL history, far exceeding any normal negative score.
4. Ederson (Manchester City)
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Points: -3 points.
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Match: vs Wolves (2019/20 Season)
Spending a large chunk of your budget to own a Premium Goalkeeper in FPL is always considered a safe bet. You expect them to keep clean sheets and steadily bring in 6 points. But Ederson proved that in FPL, nothing is absolutely safe.
During an away trip to Molineux against Wolves, when the match was barely 12 minutes old, Ederson rushed out of his penalty area and committed a heavy foul on Diogo Jota. The referee did not hesitate to pull out a straight red card. Manchester City had to play with a man down for nearly 80 minutes and eventually lost 3-2.
Being sent off so early, combined with the direct point deduction for the red card, resulted in the Brazilian keeper “gifting” Fantasy managers a bitter -3 points.
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3. Jonathan Walters (Stoke City)
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Points: -4 points.
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Match: vs Chelsea (2012/13 Season).
If there is ever a day when everything you touch turns into a disaster, that is definitely Jonathan Walters’s day. The Stoke City forward endured the worst 90 minutes of his professional career against Chelsea.
Walters accidentally headed the ball into his own net not just once, but twice in the same match (each own goal equals -2 points in FPL).
It didn’t stop there.
As a desperate attempt to salvage his pride, Walters stepped up to take a late penalty when Stoke was awarded one. And guess what? He missed that penalty too. A perfect storm of bad luck turned Walters into a reluctant legend of the FPL world with a final score of -4.
2. Richard Dunne (Manchester City)
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Points: -6 points.
Richard Dunne is famous for holding the record as the player with the most own goals in Premier League history, but his worst FPL disaster came from a different bloody script on the very last day of the 2007/08 season.
In Manchester City’s humiliating 8-1 defeat against Middlesbrough, Dunne was sent off as early as the 15th minute. The cruel part of FPL rules is this: when a player is sent off, he is still held responsible and receives negative points for every goal his team concedes for the rest of the match.
As a result, Dunne received his starting point (+1), minus 3 points for the red card, and was deducted another 4 points because the system calculated he had to “carry” the consequences of the 8-goal shower.
Total: -6 points.
1. Jan Bednarek (Southampton)
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Points: -7 points.
In Southampton’s horrifying 9-0 defeat at the “Theatre of Dreams”, the Polish center-back had a haunted performance, “accumulating” the most devastating combo the FPL system could ever imagine.
Bednarek scored an own goal (-2 points), received a straight red card (-3 points), and was part of a defense that conceded 9 goals (-4 points). Combined with the 2 points for starting the match, he finished the game with -7 points.
The nightmare didn’t stop there.
Historical FPL data shows there were actually managers unlucky enough to… use their Triple Captain chip on Bednarek in that exact gameweek. That means they had to endure an unprecedented score: -21 points from a single player!
But the absolute peak of this tragicomedy arrived a few days later. Southampton successfully appealed the red card, meaning his suspension was overturned and he was cleared to start in the very next match against Newcastle United.
Did he use this unexpected second chance to redeem himself? Absolutely not.
Bednarek immediately continued his disastrous week by getting his feet in a horrible tangle and scoring yet another comical own goal. To rub salt into the wound, Southampton ended up losing that match 3-2 despite Newcastle playing with only 9 men for a large portion of the game.
It was, without a doubt, the most cursed week for any player in Premier League history.
