Why FPL managers should pay attention to Leeds and West Ham’s fixture swings

Scoutcast regular Seb Wassell, who finished 389th in the world last season, looks beyond the possible Double Gameweek teams to two sides with excellent upcoming matches.

With all eyes on the upcoming (and as yet unconfirmed) Double Gameweek, it would be easy for us to overlook the small but significant swing in fixtures that is taking place in the next couple of weeks.

Two teams that have provided some popular assets recently in Chelsea and Leicester City see relatively tough ends to the season, whilst Leeds United and West Ham United appear at the very top of our Season Ticker, offering us an attractive opportunity to switch things up.

As we can see, there is a clear opportunity around Gameweeks 34 and 35 to make these moves.

It is worth noting that we are anticipating a Double Gameweek in either Gameweek 35 or Gameweek 36, with the corresponding week then becoming a blank. The most popular expectation of how this plays out would see Chelsea face Man City (away) and Arsenal (home) whilst Leicester face Newcastle (home) and Man United (away) in Gameweek 35, with both blanking in Gameweek 36.

With both of these sides having good fixtures in Gameweek 34 – Chelsea face Fulham at home and Leicester face Southampton away – the optimal time to make the Chelsea/Leicester to Leeds/West Ham move seems to be Gameweek 36. Leeds and West Ham have decent enough fixtures, although no double, between now and then, however, so an early transfer is not off the cards. Of course, this will depend on your own team and chip situation.

Leeds United

Leeds have changed a lot since the first half of the season. I have chosen the ranges of Gameweeks 1-15 and Gameweeks 16-33 as there has been a meaningful shift in style and statistics between those two periods. They do not quite represent the two halves of the campaign, but they are not far off.