Gameweek 9 brought a return to Fantasy Premier League (FPL) normality – whatever that is – after a month of international breaks and postponements.
There are seven rounds of top-flight action between now and the World Cup break which starts in mid-November, giving a congested schedule to the seven English sides with European commitments.
This article sees us assess the clubs and players with, in theory, the strongest and weakest runs of matches over the next seven Gameweeks.
Our colour-coded Season Ticker is the primary source for this piece; using this tool as a Premium Member, you can sort by difficulty, rank by attacking and defensive potential or find budget rotation pairings. You can even set your own difficulty ratings, should you disagree with our own.
You can see a tutorial on the Season Ticker here.
OVERVIEW
BEST FIXTURES
CRYSTAL PALACE
Over one million FPL managers have bought Wilfried Zaha (£7.3m) since Gameweek 5, in anticipation of such an enticing fixture run. It’s easy to see why, as four goals from six matches have followed a strong end to the previous campaign that brought eight from 13.
This sea of blue fixtures contains four of the seven leakiest defences for expected goals conceded (xGC), so penalty taker Zaha could make a mockery of his mid-priced midfielder classification.
Yet Palace’s problem so far is that they also linger amongst the xGC sufferers, in sharp contrast to last season where they finished with the fifth-best. Only Manchester City had conceded fewer ‘big chances’.
Still, FPL managers seem happy to pin the blame on an unkind fixture computer and have faith that Patrick Vieira will sort out a backline with affordable assets like Marc Guehi (£4.3m) and goalkeeper Vicente Guaita (£4.5m).
BOURNEMOUTH
Those active on FPL Twitter will have noticed the frequent mentions of Dominic Solanke (£5.7m). The cheap forward is popular in recent Wildcards due to having great fixtures at a price that enables premium players alongside him.
However, the Cherries’ underlying stats are terrible. Their number of goal attempts (51) is by far the lowest, even playing once more than the next-worst Crystal Palace (75) and Chelsea (83). Furthermore, everybody has at least twice their expected goals (xG) tally of 3.65.
Defensively, a surprising three clean sheets have already arrived for Jordan Zemura (£4.4m), Chris Mepham (£4.4m) and co but the data doesn’t look there either.
Selecting a Bournemouth player right now would purely be fixtured-based.
EVERTON
Saturday’s win at Southampton made it two-in-a-row for the Toffees and extends their unbeaten run to six matches. Tipped for relegation in pre-season, the recruitment of wise Premier League heads like James Tarkowski (£4.4m), Conor Coady (£4.8m) and the returning Idrissa Gueye (£5.0m) has provided a solid base to start from.
In fact, no team has conceded fewer goals than Everton’s seven, meaning investment in Tarkowski and Jordan Pickford (£4.5m) could rise for this set of fixtures. It’s just a shame that cheap Nathan Patterson (£4.1m) is expected to miss the next few weeks with a knee injury.
Those wanting attacking coverage may have to look in midfield, as Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£7.9m) is about to eat into Neal Maupay‘s (£6.1m) minutes. There is Anthony Gordon (£5.6m) and Demarai Gray (£5.5m), although Alex Iwobi (£5.5m) has more points due to three assists from the last four outings.
MANCHESTER UNITED
Next up for Everton is Manchester United, which is also labelled as a nice fixture for Erik ten Hag to bounce back after the 6-3 derby defeat.
It may seem surprising that this run of games is deemed one of the best, as Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and West Ham United are all good teams, but the algorithm believes it’s time to jump on some of their assets.
An injury plus postponements greatly reduced Marcus Rashford‘s (£6.5m) ownership, not helped by the impact of Anthony Martial (£6.9m) once the Frenchman replaced him on Sunday. Two goals quickly arrived, creating competition for the lone forward spot.
Perhaps spending more to get Jadon Sancho (£7.3m) or Antony (£7.5m) would be best, as the latter has now netted in both of his league games. Right-back Diogo Dalot (£4.5m) has played all but five minutes.
ALSO CONSIDER
Elsewhere, only Wolves have scored fewer goals than Aston Villa and West Ham, making it hard to get fully onboard with names like Ollie Watkins (£7.2m), Leon Bailey (£4.7m) and Lucas Paqueta (£6.0m).
At least Jarrod Bowen (£8.1m) is finally off the mark for this season due to his 14-point haul against Wolves. The match also brought Gianluca Scamacca‘s (£6.7m) first league goal for the Hammers, although his minutes will get shared with Michail Antonio (£7.2m).
It provided a clean sheet for Kurt Zouma (£4.5m) and Vladimir Coufal (£4.4m) whilst Villa defenders such as Tyrone Mings (£4.3m) collected their second successive shut-out.
To the shock of Danny Ward (£4.1m) and James Justin (£4.3m) owners, Leicester City kept their own clean sheet on Monday night as they demolished Nottingham Forest 4-0.
The star of the show was James Maddison (£8.1m), bought en masse for the Foxes’ wonderful fixture run. His 600,000 new managers were given an 18-point reward, with differential Harvey Barnes (£6.9m) also on the scoresheet.
Despite the Season Ticker deeming Liverpool’s set of opponents as the fourth-toughest, it suddenly becomes the best when ranked by relative difficulty, followed by Spurs and Chelsea.
WORST FIXTURES
ARSENAL
The league leaders are at the bottom of the Season Ticker but only because of their Gameweek 12 absence. Cancelled so that Arsenal can rearrange a Europa League clash with PSV Eindhoven, the Man City match is the only known FPL blank right now.
Remove that individual week from the ticker – which is possible by clicking the trash icon above 12 – and the Gunners’ fixture run rises to mid-table. Meetings with Liverpool (H) and Chelsea (a) are still difficult but neither Jurgen Klopp nor Graham Potter will relish facing in-form Gabriel Jesus (£8.0m), Gabriel Martinelli (£6.6m) and Bukayo Saka (£7.8m).
Those that own William Saliba (£5.0m) or Gabriel (£5.1m) may have to sell to field 11 players during Blank Gameweek 12 but, ideally, they’d be kept for the clean sheet potential that surrounds it.
MANCHESTER CITY
Like with Arsenal, the placing of Man City is deceptive, as they have the seventh-best fixtures once Gameweek 12 is discarded.
Five of FPL’s seven most-selected players will not participate, so managers have a dilemma about which three to keep and therefore bench through to the other side, where a promising schedule continues.
Either a sequence of one-week transfers will navigate this, or some managers may prefer to just play with ten men that week for the greater good. Another option is to sell Joao Cancelo (£7.2m) or in-form Kevin De Bruyne (£12.4m) beforehand, depending on how you think the trip to Liverpool will go.
With 82.5 per cent ownership and three consecutive home hat-tricks, selling the yet-to-blank phenomenon Erling Haaland (£12.1m) isn’t a viable option, is it?
SOUTHAMPTON
Moving on to Southampton, supporters will be worried about losing their last three games versus Everton, Aston Villa and Wolves.
Being the only side yet to clean sheet dents the appeal of defenders Kyle Walker-Peters (£4.5m) and Armel Bella-Kotchap (£4.5m), despite the tall German centre-back amassing nine goal attempts so far. Having set-piece maestro James Ward-Prowse (£6.5m) around ensures there will be more.
Further up the pitch, it’s hard to predict who Ralph Hasenhuttl will select beyond Ward-Prowse and Che Adams (£6.4m), as Joe Aribo (£5.4m) has scored twice but still isn’t regularly starting.
BRENTFORD
The 560,000 new owners of Ivan Toney (£7.3m) will disagree with the ticker, as Brentford’s forward was mostly chosen because of a perceived nice route to the World Cup.
Drawing 0-0 at Bournemouth was Toney’s second blank since his hat-trick of Gameweek 6 and may already have managers regretting the purchase. Then again, he has no rotation worries, takes penalties and will still expect at least a couple of goals from the next six outings.
In goal, David Raya (£4.5m) entered Gameweek 9 with the joint-most saves but, when collecting a clean sheet at the Cherries, wasn’t tested into making any at all. Until then, he had collected at least one point in every match for reaching three saves.
