The Fantasy Premier League’s fixture classification is a handy feature that provides managers with a quick overview of upcoming fixtures, using a colour coordinated 1-5 classification system.
When considering whether or not to make a particular transfer, managers can quickly check the player’s upcoming fixtures and shake their head with dismay should they be confronted by a sea of red 4s and 5s.
Alternatively, if presented with a string of green 1s and 2s, managers may dare to pull the trigger on that Timothy Fosu-Mensah transfer that they’ve been waiting to execute.
However, classification is only a useful tool for FPL manager if the difficulty ratings assigned to each fixture are accurate.
It seems to me that this is not the case and that some of the difficulty ratings appear to be a little skewed. This article aims to take a closer look at FPL’s fixture classification to find out whether different ratings should be applied.
FPL’s Fixture Difficulty Ratings
Each team is assigned two difficulty ratings, one for a home fixture against them, one for an away fixture against them, thus in total we have 40 ratings, each on a scale of one to five. The breakdown of those ratings is as follows:
Difficulty rating 1 appears only twice: Burnley (H), Huddersfield (H)
Difficulty rating 2 appears 21 times
Difficulty rating 3 appears four times: Leicester (A), Burnley (A), Southampton (A), Everton (H)
Difficulty rating 4 appears 10 times
Difficulty rating 5 appears three times: (Chelsea (A), Chelsea (H), Tottenham (A)
The numbers suggest that just over half of the fixtures are of a similar level of difficulty (2), but is this the case?
What does the data say?
Below is a table showing results versus each team last season, it does not include the three relegated or three promoted teams. It should be read as follows:
Playing Tottenham away (* = away) the 19 other premier league teams accumulated a total of 2 points, having recorded 0 wins, two draws and 17 defeats, scoring a total of nine goals and conceding 47.
This of course shows that last season Tottenham away was the most difficult fixture and as we can also see, Burnley at home was the easiest.
Now obviously last season’s results are not a perfect predictor of will happen this season. They do not reflect each clubs strengthening over the summer or a number of other factors but the results are still a reasonable indicator.
Whilst consulting the table (and using our common sense), it would seem as though at least some of the fixtures should be reclassified. For instance all 12 fixtures versus the top six clubs (playing each team home and away) are assigned a difficulty rating of four, with the exception of Chelsea home and away and Tottenham away, which are ranked 5. This seems reasonable at first glance, however, it suggests that playing Manchester City (favourites for the title) away is preferable to playing Chelsea at home. Is that really the case?
Mid-Table Mayhem
Of greater concern are some of the mid-table teams’ classifications.
We can see that last season playing Bournemouth away was the 15th most difficult fixture from a total of 40 (including the relegated teams which are not shown in the table), away at Stoke was 16th. Yet both these fixtures, which are known to be testing, are assigned a difficulty rating of 2. This is the same as playing Brighton, Swansea or Watford at home. To put that into context Brighton are joint second favourites to be relegated and again looking at our table, we see that a home fixture against Swansea or Watford was one of the easiest fixtures last season. A total of 42 points were accumulated against Watford at home (away from Vicarage Road) and 41 vs Swansea, this is compared to a meagre 22 away at Bournemouth and 24 at Stoke. A difference of 20 points is huge and suggests that the fixtures should not be classified as the same, or even a similar level of difficulty.
For me, Bournemouth away should certainly be rated as a 3 and Brighton, Swansea and Watford at home should probably each be reclassified as a 1.
There are other fixtures which also appear to be classified incorrectly, although, those mentioned are the standout candidates in my opinion.
Final Thought
So, when looking at a player’s upcoming fixtures, be sure to consider each and every one of them. Yes, the uninterrupted string of green 1s and 2s does look pretty; but would you still be calling up your agent at midnight on a Friday, telling him to transfer in Jonjo Shelvey before his price rises, if those string of fixtures contained some less enticing grey 3s?
6 years, 9 months agoFPL do seem to have low hopes for Bournemouth.
Take Daniels - one of last season's highest scoring defenders yet only costs 5.0. Others for mid table sides with that sort of score would be 5.5.
No wonder he's one of the highest owned defenders - seems most managers can spot a bargain and also are igoring FPL's ratings for Bournemouth's figures.