Features

Premier League 2014/15 Home and Away Rotation

Although those of us who owned Ben Foster and Artur Boruc last year might not agree, a good cheap home/away rotation in defence and midfield can earn Fantasy managers a useful haul of points.

Rotation Blocks Explained

This season’s fixtures appear to offer decent rotation potential. Unlike the German Bundesliga, for example, with its two distinct halves, the Premier League fixture compilers have stuck to their usual practice of splitting the calendar into a number of short rotational blocks.

During each block, the 20 clubs are split into two groups of ten teams – let’s call them Group A and Group B. For the duration of the fixture block, teams from Group A will always play against a team from Group B, but never against another team from Group A. When a new rotational block starts, the two groups are mixed up, so that each club gets the opportunity to play all 19 others home and away.

In 2014-15, there are 11 fixture blocks of varying length. They take place in gameweeks 1-2, 3-6, 7-8, 9-13, 14-21, 22-25, 26-27, 28-31, 32-33, 34-36, 37-38.

It is therefore the lengthiest two blocks in the first half of the season (GW 9-13 and particularly GW 14-21) that allow us to set up some potentially fruitful team rotations.

There is one unusual factor this season though. Due to the odd-numbered length of one rotation block (GW 9-13), some teams have a distinct imbalance in the number of home and away matches around October and November. In other words:

–          Burnley and West Brom play 5 out of 7 matches at home between GW 8 & GW 14

–          Hull and Aston Villa play 5 out of 7 matches away between GW 8 & GW 14

Given Aston Villa’s awful fixtures from GW 4-8, they would appear to be a no-go area in Fantasy terms until GW 15.

Club by Club Home and Away Patterns

Arsenal:

Perfect Rotation: Tottenham (38 games)

Good: West Ham (34 games), QPR (30), Aston Villa (28)

Poor: Crystal Palace (4 games), Chelsea (8), West Brom (10)

Aston Villa:

Perfect Rotation: West Brom (38 games)

Good: Man Utd (34 games), Burnley (30), Sunderland (30), Arsenal (28)

Poor: Man City (4 games), Hull (8), Newcastle (8), Spurs (10)

Burnley

Perfect Rotation: Hull City (38 games)

Good: Aston Villa (30 games), Stoke (30)

Poor: Swansea (8 games), West Brom (8)

Chelsea

Perfect Rotation: QPR (38 games)

Good: West Ham (34 games), Tottenham (30), Newcastle (28)

Poor: Crystal Palace (4 games), Arsenal (8), Sunderland (10)

Crystal Palace

Perfect Rotation: West Ham (38 games)

Good: Tottenham (34 games), QPR (34), Liverpool (30)

Poor: Arsenal (4 games), Chelsea (4), Everton (8)

Everton

Perfect Rotation: Liverpool (38 games)

Good: West Ham (30 games), Southampton (30)

Poor: Crystal Palace (8 games), Leicester (8)

Hull City

Perfect Rotation: Burnley (38 games)

Good: Swansea City (30 games), West Brom (30)

Poor: Stoke City (8 games), Aston Villa (8)

Leicester City

Perfect Rotation: Southampton (38 games)

Good: Liverpool (30 games)

Poor: Everton (8 games)

Liverpool

Perfect Rotation: Everton (38 games)

Good: Leicester City (30 games), Crystal Palace (30)

Poor: Southampton (8 games), West Ham (8)

Manchester City

Perfect Rotation: Manchester United (38 games)

Good: Sunderland (34 games), West Brom (34)

Poor: Aston Villa (4 games), Newcastle (4)

Manchester United

Perfect Rotation: Manchester City (38 games)

Good: Aston Villa (34 games), Newcastle (34)

Poor: Sunderland (4 games), West Brom (4)

Newcastle

Perfect Rotation: Sunderland (38 games)

Good: Manchester Utd (34 games), Swansea (30), West Brom (30), Chelsea (28)

Poor: Manchester City (4 games), Stoke (8), Aston Villa (8), QPR (10)

QPR

Perfect Rotation: Chelsea (38 games)

Good: Crystal Palace (34 games), Arsenal (30), Sunderland (28)

Poor: West Ham (4 games), Tottenham (8), Newcastle (10)

Southampton

Perfect Rotation: Leicester (38 games)

Good: Everton (30 games)

Poor: Liverpool (8 games)

Stoke City

Perfect Rotation: Swansea City (38 games)

Good: Burnley (30 games), Sunderland (30)

Poor: Hull City (8 games), Newcastle (8)

Sunderland

Perfect Rotation: Newcastle (38 games)

Good: Manchester City (34 games), Stoke (30), Aston Villa (30), QPR (28)

Poor: Manchester Utd (4 games), Swansea (8), West Brom (8), Chelsea (10)

Swansea City

Perfect Rotation: Stoke City (38 games)

Good: Hull City (30 games), Newcastle (30)

Poor: Burnley (8 games), Sunderland (8)

Tottenham

Perfect Rotation: Arsenal (38 games)

Good: Crystal Palace (34 games), Chelsea (30), West Brom (28)

Poor: West Ham (4 games), QPR (8), Aston Villa (10)

West Brom

Perfect Rotation: Aston Villa (38 games)

Good: Man City (34 games), Hull (30), Newcastle (30), Spurs (28)

Poor: Man Utd (4 games), Burnley (8), Sunderland (8), Arsenal (10)

West Ham

Perfect Rotation: Crystal Palace (38 games)

Good: Arsenal (34 games), Chelsea (34), Everton (30)

Poor: Tottenham (4 games), QPR (4), Liverpool (8)

16 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Saniul
    • 11 Years
    9 years, 9 months ago

    Hull-Burnley and Palace-West Ham look good for defender rotations.
    Any other obvious ones I'm missing?

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    1. Epic Fail
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      9 years, 9 months ago

      Man City and Man Utd.

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    2. Moin
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      9 years, 9 months ago

      Stoke-Swansea..

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      1. Couti & the Below5th
        • 11 Years
        9 years, 9 months ago

        Just what you want from a pairing with these two - good rotation with actual decent fixtures (not just home/away clouding judgment), and shonky away form in the last few years.

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    3. JK - Cønt ⭐
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      9 years, 9 months ago

      Stoke and Swansea is worth monitoring, really nice rotation until the Jan wc window

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    4. Dino
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      9 years, 8 months ago

      Palace Wham minimum will likely be 10m for two defenders, a bit pricey for rotation.

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  2. Moin
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 10 Years
    9 years, 9 months ago

    Awesome Work! bookmarked this page!

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  3. Guy Demel's SH
    • 11 Years
    9 years, 9 months ago

    Nice work, thanks.

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  4. tm245
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 9 months ago

    Wow, great work. Mods, will there be a special archive for the most helpful community articles like this one? If so, that would be awesome.

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  5. GTS
    • 10 Years
    9 years, 9 months ago

    I'm getting excited now for FPL!
    Great work again PB!

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  6. DonTheSpecialOne
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    9 years, 8 months ago

    Brilliant

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  7. Dhanesh Prabhu
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    9 years, 8 months ago

    This, this is just awesome work.

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  8. Dino
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 14 Years
    9 years, 8 months ago

    Great work PB, I wasn't aware of the blocks of rotation thing, very interesting.

    Just looking at the rotations again does get the FPL juices flowing.

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  9. wildwild
    • 10 Years
    9 years, 8 months ago

    Do we have a date for when the FPL site will be updated and open for the 2014/2015 season?

    Thanks

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  10. Portsmouth Bubblejet
    • 13 Years
    9 years, 8 months ago

    I've now put my 2014/15 FPL home & away rotation spreadsheet for each team online as a PDF file. Hope it's visible to non-Dropbox users.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/17c93xfxbxpliua/FPL%20HA%20Rotation%202014-15.pdf

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  11. Messiah Hazard
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    9 years, 8 months ago

    McD game:

    Cilessen (10)
    Vlaar (11) De Vrij (13) Rojo Hummels
    Willian (5) Wijnaldum (11) Lahm Kroos
    Robben (3X2) Messi

    Bench: Boateng, Garay, Mascherano, Muller

    Mascherano in for Willian
    Mueller in for Robben

    Should I leave Garay and Boateng on the bench? Or what should I do woth them?

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