The Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 18 deadline on Friday evening is the first of four in the space of 11 days, with the congested schedule, as it always does, sure to test the strength and depth of FPL managers’ squads as rotation bites.
Our last Frisking the Fixtures piece cast an eye over the best and worst fixture runs over the festive period, while we also previously looked at how many minutes various Fantasy assets played over Christmas and New Year last season.
In this latter article, we briefly discussed how Liverpool’s schedule looked the kindest in terms of rest days in between games – though the Reds’ fixture difficulty was among the worst in the division.
While our thunder was somewhat stolen by this excellent BBC Sport piece yesterday, we had planned to revisit this topic in our final pre-Christmas analysis at the fixture calendar ahead of Gameweek 18.
We have taken a look at all 20 Premier League clubs and totted up the total number of rest days each team has between their Gameweek 18 and 21 fixtures – though as we’ll discuss, the late kick-off times of many Gameweek 21 games may also aid in the recovery of any tired limbs.
Rest Days: 10
Liverpool
As mentioned above, the TV schedulers have dealt Liverpool (wol, NEW, ARS, mci) a decent hand over Christmas – even if the Premier League fixture computer hasn’t.
The Reds’ festive campaign gets underway this Friday night with a trip to Wolves, with a double-header at Anfield preceding a daunting away fixture at the Etihad on Thursday 3 January.
No other Premier League club has it quite so good in terms of recovery time, with Jurgen Klopp’s troops enjoying ten days without a game over Christmas and New Year.
A whopping 312 hours separates the culmination of their match at Molineux with kick-off at Eastlands – that’s almost 100 hours more than their Merseyside rivals have to play with (212.5 – see below).
That would seem to bode well for owners of Mohamed Salah (£13.1m), Andrew Robertson (£6.6m), Sadio Mane (£9.6m) and co, who have already experienced Klopp’s rotation roulette (admittedly enforced, in some cases) earlier this month and indeed over Christmas in 2017/18.
One caveat to the good news is that the Reds have only 72.5 hours and two complete rest days between the fixtures against Newcastle and Arsenal in Gameweeks 19 and 20, with the home match against the Magpies – unquestionably the most appealing of Liverpool’s upcoming four matches – perhaps the game in which we are most likely to see rotation in earnest.
Fantasy managers will perhaps recall Klopp’s wholesale changes at Turf Moor on New Year’s Day 2018, though admittedly the Reds had only been in action 48 hours before that encounter.
Klopp would surely name his strongest possible side for the matches against Arsenal and City, though there may be one or two tweaks between those two matches (Klopp might entertain the idea of a 4-2-3-1 against the Gunners, for instance, a system that would appear unlikely when the Reds visit Manchester five days later).
Rest Days: 9
Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers
Nuno Espirito Santo built a reputation as the Fantasy managers’ friend in the opening two months of 2018/19, naming an unchanged line-up for the first nine Gameweeks of the season.
While the Wolves’ head coach has tinkered on a semi-regular basis ever since, the West Midlands club’s spaced-out run over the coming fortnight (LIV, ful, tot, CRY) will hopefully deter widespread meddling from Santo.
Owners of Raul Jimenez (£6.2m) and Joao Moutinho (£5.2m) have certainly been given a glimpse of what Santo is capable of when the fixture calendar gets congested, with both players having been rested to the bench (Santo took issue with the word “rested” in his subsequent presser) for the win over Newcastle a fortnight ago – this despite Wolves having the kindest Gameweek 14-16 schedule in the division with seven rest days in between their trips to Cardiff and Tyneside.
Two matches in London are separated by just 72 hours in Gameweeks 19 and 20, so those two fixtures would perhaps seem the likeliest to see rotation from the Wolves head coach – though a positive omen for Matt Doherty‘s (£5.2m) owners is that the Irish wing-back started all four of his side’s Championship fixtures over the 2017 festive period.
After Liverpool, Manchester City enjoy the most amount of time (292 hours) in between full-time in Gameweek 18 and kick-off in Gameweek 21.
Like Wolves, the Citizens have nine rest days over the festive period but also don’t take on Klopp’s side until the late evening of Thursday 3 January.
The Christmas period is hyped up to the rafters (we’re as guilty of that as anybody) and indeed for a large chunk of Premier League clubs and managers, we are entering into unknown territory as to the magnitude of the rotation we can expect over the coming four-match stretch.
For teams such as Manchester City, though, this is a fortnight like many others throughout the campaign.
Pep Guardiola’s side face a Saturday-Wednesday-Sunday-Thursday schedule this year (CRY, lei, sou, LIV), which is actually more favourable than some of the weeks that have preceded it.
There is, of course, no Champions League or Carabao Cup match in which some of our Fantasy assets could be conveniently rotated.
Last season, Sergio Aguero (£11.2m), Raheem Sterling (£11.6m) and Leroy Sane (£9.7m) all dropped to the bench for one of City’s four festive fixtures, starting the other three.
The defending champions have an extra two days rest this year but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a similar scenario this Christmas, with many of the most-owned City players warming the bench for one of their side’s four upcoming matches – Riyad Mahrez‘s arrival (£8.5m) makes it all-the-more expected in Sterling’s case.
Sane is increasingly been viewed as the most “nailed” City wide player in Benjamin Mendy‘s (£6.2m) absence, though of course the French full-back was also unavailable for the festive calendar in 2017/18 and Sane made a cameo substitute’s appearance then, too.
The German winger was at least handed a breather against Leicester City in the EFL Cup earlier this week, which many of his owners will be hoping sees him through to FA Cup third round weekend.
Rest Days: 8
AFC Bournemouth, Brighton and Hove Albion, Burnley, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Huddersfield Town, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Southampton, Watford, West Ham United
More than half of the clubs in the English top flight play on both Saturday 22 December and Wednesday 2 January (plus twice in between), leaving eight rest days in between Gameweeks 18 and 21.
Of these 11 sides, Manchester United (car, HUD, BOU, new) have – marginally – the fewest hours (266) between the two matches that bookend this sequence.
After the sacking of Jose Mourinho, the Red Devils are something of an unknown quantity going into this run of games, with Ole Gunnar Solksjaer getting precious little time with his new charges ahead of a gruelling Christmas and New Year.
Our Season Ticker ranks United as having the second-best run of fixtures over the next four Gameweeks, with only West Ham United (WAT, sou, bur, BHA) rivalling them on our algorithm.
It will be interesting to see if Solksjaer can resurrect Paul Pogba‘s (£7.8m) failing United career; the Frenchman proved that fatigue wasn’t a factor this time last season by playing all 360 minutes of his side’s Premier League games over the festive period.
Chelsea (LEI, wat, cry, SOU) are third on our Season Ticker, with the Blues one of just four teams – the others being West Ham, Manchester United and Spurs – to avoid another member of the “big six” over the next four Gameweeks.
An “easy” fixture run (if there is such a thing) over Christmas could, of course, only serve to make rotation more of a prospect.
Could Maurizio Sarri contemplate beating Southampton at Stamford Bridge, for example, without the need to run Eden Hazard (£11.0m) into the ground? The Chelsea boss had previously said that the Belgian couldn’t play ten games in 30 days, though the good news for his owners to date is that the matches he has missed/been benched for in the last month (PAOK, Vidi and Bournemouth) have come in either the Europa League or Carabao Cup.
One other potentially significant factor is the fact that Chelsea have to do far less travelling over Christmas than the other 19 clubs in the division, with both of their away games being London derbies of sorts.
Elsewhere, Wilfried Zaha (£6.7m) and Callum Wilson (£6.9m) started all four Yuletide matches for Crystal Palace and Bournemouth last season despite having fewer rest days than they have in 2018/19, which possibly bodes well for their Fantasy owners this time around.
Rest Days: 7
Arsenal, Cardiff City, Fulham, Leicester City
These four clubs face a Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday itinerary over the next fortnight, though Fantasy interest among this quartet of teams will surely be mostly focused on Arsenal (BUR, bha, liv, FUL) assets.
While playing twice a week is second-nature to the Gunners, who have featured in European competition in every season from 1996/97 onwards, Unai Emery has largely blooded second-string players in both the Europa League and (until Wednesday) Carabao Cup this campaign.
We are yet to see how the new Arsenal head coach copes with the rigours of four Premier League matches in the space of 11 days, though Gameweeks 14-16 offered us a little insight as Emery started seven players – including Sead Kolasinac (£5.1m), Hector Bellerin (£5.5m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.5m) – in all three league fixtures contested over the space of seven days.
But for injury and suspension to Rob Holding (£4.4m) and Granit Xhaka (£5.3m), the number of ever-presents would likely have been nine.
If rotation does materialise, then it could be either side of Gameweek 20: this is when the Gunners face Liverpool at Anfield, a match that Emery will undoubtedly want to be at full strength for.
Back-to-back defeats against Southampton and Spurs (in the EFL Cup) might be a blessing in disguise for owners of Arsenal assets, however, as Emery will be keen to bounce back to winning ways and can ill-afford to drop more points in the race for a Champions League place.
Rest Days: 6
Everton, Tottenham Hotspur
Marco Silva has been kind to those Fantasy managers who own Richarlison (£7.1m) and/or Gylfi Sigurdsson (£7.4m) this season, starting the mid-price midfielders in every league match in which they have been available for selection.
Lucas Digne (£5.0m) has started every Premier League game since he displaced Leighton Baines (£5.1m) in Gameweek 4, meanwhile, and Silva’s line-ups have been one of the easiest to predict in recent months since the likes of Andre Gomes (£5.1m) and Yerry Mina (£5.4m) returned to fitness.
Everton’s (TOT, bur, bha, LEI) schedule this Christmas is the most brutal in the division, however, with the Toffees getting only two rest days in between each of their four fixtures.
The disagreeable nature of Everton’s timetable is compounded by the fact they kick off at tea-time this Sunday and at lunchtime on Tuesday 1 January, leaving only 212.5 hours in between.
Silva then might be tempted to rotate even the most “secure” of Everton assets over the festive period, though it should be noted that Richarlison played all bar eight minutes of Watford’s quartet of Christmas games last season when managed by his current boss at Goodison Park.
In fact, six of Watford’s starting XI played all four games, with three of those ever-presents being midfielders (including Richarlison). A fourth midfielder, Abdoulaye Doucoure (£5.9m), only missed one match through suspension.
The Hornets only had one extra day’s rest than Everton do this year, to give some context.
Even if rotation doesn’t happen on a grand scale, then fatigue has to be a consideration for those mulling over assets from the blue half of Merseyside over Christmas.
Spurs (eve, BOU, WOL, car) are the only other club whose schedule comes close to matching Everton’s, though the Lilywhites at least don’t kick off until 17:30 GMT on New Year’s Day to give them a tad more respite.
Not one Spurs outfielder has escaped rotation over the last four Gameweeks, with all of their available midfielders and attackers making at least one cameo appearance off the bench and/or remaining an unused substitute over that period.
We can surely expect that scenario to be repeated over the coming four matches.
Dele Alli (£8.9m), Christian Eriksen (£9.3m) and Son Heung-min (£8.5m) started all four fixtures over Christmas and New Year last season, though Pochettino wasn’t quite blessed with the same number of fit, in-form midfielders he has at his disposal in 2018/19.
Harry Kane‘s (£12.6m) benching in Gameweek 16 – ahead of the clash with Barcelona in the Champions League – was a reminder that even the most expensive striker in FPL is not exempt from the threat of rotation when the fixtures pile up.
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