FPL Injuries: International Duty Is No Riskier Than a Gameweek

Updated 7 October 2026: the break is over. The injury list below now covers both rounds of internationals (24 September to 6 October), with a chart of where each injury most likely happened.

The longest international break of the season is over: a double window from 24 September to 6 October, with Gameweek 6's deadline at 11:00 UK time on Saturday 10 October. Every break brings the same worry for Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers: will my players come back injured?

This post does two things. First, it lists the players who have picked up an injury during this break. Second, it checks four seasons of data on how risky international duty really is. The short answer: playing for your country carries about the same injury risk as a normal week of Premier League football. It isn't the danger it's often made out to be, but it isn't a rest either.

Who's been injured during this international break

37 players who were fully fit at the Gameweek 5 deadline (18 September) now have an FPL injury flag. Data as of 7 October, after both rounds of internationals.

Seventeen were flagged before a single international was played, so those injuries happened in Gameweek 5, including Palmer (CHE) and Rice (ARS) after 90 minutes each. These 20 were flagged during the break itself:

Player	Club	FPL news	Flagged	Owned	What happened
Isak	LIV	Thigh injury, 75%	27 Sep	22.0%	Played for Sweden
Konsa	ARS	Unspecified injury, 75%	5 Oct	19.1%	Played twice for England
Semenyo	MCI	Ankle injury, 75%	24 Sep	15.0%	Didn't play for his country
Gakpo	LIV	Ankle injury, 75%	27 Sep	12.1%	Played twice for the Netherlands
Tzolis	ARS	Hamstring injury, 75%	2 Oct	11.8%	Played 3 times for Greece
O'Reilly	MCI	Unspecified injury, 75%	1 Oct	10.7%	Played for England
Havertz	ARS	Hamstring injury, 75%	24 Sep	8.0%	Played for Germany
Brobbey	SUN	Hamstring injury, 75%	24 Sep	6.8%	Played for the Netherlands
Van Hecke	TOT	Foot injury, 75%	30 Sep	6.4%	Played twice for the Netherlands
Scott	BOU	Thigh injury, 50%	5 Oct	5.6%	Played twice for England
Mykolenko	EVE	Leg injury, 75%	1 Oct	4.1%	Didn't play for his country
Jacquet	LIV	Hamstring injury, 75%	6 Oct	3.5%	Played twice for France
Ballard	SUN	Hamstring injury, 75%	25 Sep	2.5%	Didn't play for his country
Dorgu	MUN	Hamstring injury, 75%	27 Sep	0.5%	Played twice for Denmark
Mazraoui	MUN	Back injury, 75%	4 Oct	0.5%	Played twice for Morocco
Damsgaard	BRE	Unspecified injury, 75%	3 Oct	0.4%	Played 3 times for Denmark
Khalaili	CRY	Hamstring injury, 75%	4 Oct	0.3%	Played 3 times for Israel
Dowman	ARS	Unspecified injury, 75%	5 Oct	0.1%	Didn't play for his country
L.Miley	NEW	Unspecified injury, 75%	1 Oct	0.1%	Didn't play for his country
Gittens	CHE	Ankle injury, 75%	26 Sep	0.0%	Played for England U21

All but one are FPL's "75% chance of playing", so they're doubts rather than confirmed absences; Scott (50%) is the bigger worry. Expect clearer news at the clubs' press conferences before the deadline. "Played for his country" means he was flagged after playing, not proof he was hurt there.

What stands out:

• Arsenal have five new flags: Konsa, Tzolis, Havertz and Dowman during the break, plus Rice from Gameweek 5. Liverpool have three (Isak, Gakpo, Jacquet).
• 15 of the 245 Premier League players who played for their country were flagged afterwards (6.1%). That's 211 for senior national teams and the rest for under-21 sides. Over past breaks, 4.6% of players who played for their country were flagged by the next deadline, so this break has been a little worse than usual.
• Of fit regulars, 15 of 202 (7.4%) have a new flag since the internationals began. Across past breaks it was about 5% by the first deadline after the break. Part of the gap is length: this was a double window, with two rounds of matches over a fortnight.

How risky is international duty?

The worry: international breaks send players off to extra matches, long flights and unfamiliar training, and they come back hurt. We checked the four seasons from 2022/23 to 2025/26.

Across 12 international breaks, among Premier League regulars who were fit when the break started:

Group	Cases counted	New injury flags	Rate
Played for his country during the break	1,300 player-breaks	60	4.6%
A normal Premier League week	23,842 player-weeks	1,254	5.3%
Stayed at his club during the break (non-internationals)	719 player-breaks	19	2.6%

A player-break is one player in one international break: a player who was fit before 10 of the 12 breaks counts 10 times, once per break. A player-week is the same for a normal gameweek: one player in one gameweek.

Three things follow:

• International duty is roughly as risky as club football. 4.6% of players who played for their country picked up a new flag by the first deadline after the break, against 5.3% in a normal Premier League week. Internationals aren't especially fragile either: in normal weeks they're flagged at the same rate as everyone else (5.2% vs 5.3%).
• Staying at home is the safer option. Regulars who never play international football and spend the break at their clubs were flagged at 2.6%. So players on duty are about 1.75 times as likely to be flagged as those who rest (the likely range is roughly 1.05 to 2.9). Two weeks without a competitive match is simply lower risk than playing one or two.
• Internationals who miss their country's matches are the real red flag. 19% of fit-looking internationals who didn't play during a break had a new flag by the next deadline (38 of 197). The likely reason: many had pulled out of their squads with a knock that FPL only listed later, at the club's press conference.

Why does it feel like everyone comes back injured?

Measured from the last deadline before a break to the first one after it, 7.8% of fit regulars pick up a new flag, against 5.3% in a normal week. Most of that gap isn't international football:

1. A break is two weeks, not one. Two-week gaps without internationals (the winter break, FA Cup weekends) show almost the same rise: 7.0%.
2. Injuries from the last club match surface during the break. A player hurt on the Saturday before the break pulls out of his national squad, then appears in the club's press conference ten days later. It looks like a break injury, but it happened in the Premier League. This break's list shows it: 17 of the 37 players newly flagged since the Gameweek 5 deadline were flagged before the first international was played.
3. Two weeks of news lands at once. Flags that would normally trickle out across two gameweeks all arrive before one deadline.

How we tested it

• Injuries: FPL's own team news. We used archived copies (from the Wayback Machine) of FPL's player data at every deadline since 2022/23, plus one on the Wednesday of each break: each player's status, chance of playing and news text. A new injury flag means a player who was fully available at one snapshot is marked injured or doubtful at the next with an injury-type reason: injury, knock, illness or unknown. Suspensions, loans, "lack of match fitness" and Africa Cup of Nations / Asian Cup call-ups (listed by FPL as "International Duty") don't count.
• Who played for their country: line-ups of 3,067 national-team matches (senior and youth, every confederation) from ESPN, matched to FPL players by name.
• Players: Premier League regulars only, meaning they started at least two of their club's last four league matches. They also had to be fully fit at the start.
• The break itself: the clock starts on the Wednesday of each break, after the last club matches and before the internationals, and stops at the next FPL deadline. That keeps injuries from the last club round out of the comparison.
• The stay-at-home group only includes players who didn't play for their country at any point that season. Internationals who miss a break are excluded from it, because many of them are carrying knocks FPL hasn't flagged yet (the 19% above), which would make staying at home look far riskier than it is.
• Breaks covered: 12 of the 14 breaks from September 2022 to March 2026. September 2022 and October 2024 are missing because an archived snapshot is missing at one end.

The caveats

• Flags aren't diagnoses. "75% chance of playing" covers everything from a precaution to a real problem, and news appears when clubs choose to publish it.
• The groups aren't identical. Non-internationals are, on average, less prominent players. But in normal weeks they're flagged at the same rate as internationals, so the difference during breaks isn't about who they are.
• The 2022 World Cup is too small a sample to say much. Of the 76 Premier League regulars who played at the tournament, 3 came back with a new flag, against 8 of 88 non-internationals who stayed.
• Around 1,300 player-breaks is enough to spot a large effect, not a small one. The comparison with a normal club week (4.6% vs 5.3%) can't rule out a small difference in either direction.

What it means for your FPL team

• Don't sell a player just because he's away with his country. The risk is about the same as a normal gameweek.
• Watch for players who miss their country's matches. If a regular international sits out or pulls out, treat it as a warning sign before the deadline.
• Check the news before the deadline. Many of the flags that matter this break came from Gameweek 5, and the clubs' press conferences in the days before the deadline will update most of the 75% flags above.
• Watch the press conferences for Isak, Konsa, Gakpo and Scott. They're the most-owned players flagged after playing for their countries, and Scott is down to 50%. Our injury list updates as FPL's news changes.

When Gameweek 6 kicks off, follow FPL bonus points live: every player's BPS, provisional bonus and points breakdown, updated during the matches, so you'll see straight away whether the flagged players above started and how long they lasted. FPL DEFCON live does the same for defensive contribution points. For planning beyond Gameweek 6, the fixture difficulty ratings show who has the kindest run after the break.