Our regular frisk of the fixtures sees us assess the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) clubs and players with – in theory – the strongest run of league matches over the festive period.
We’ll take a glance at those with less favourable schedules in a follow-up piece.
Generally we take a look at the next six matches in this article but we’ll extend this to seven Gameweeks here, which takes us all the way to the New Year’s Day set of fixtures.
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.
We’ll also point you in the direction of our look at the turnaround times between the December matches below:
BEST FIXTURES
MANCHESTER UNITED
Ralf Rangnick couldn’t have timed his arrival much better in terms of giving himself the best chance of handing Manchester United a new manager bounce.
Stiffer tests against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea are now out of the way and United now remarkably don’t face another ‘big six’ club until Gameweek 28 in March, when they visit their cross-city rivals.
All of their opponents from now until the end of 2021 are, at the time of writing, in the bottom half of the table, too.
Crystal Palace, who provide the opposition in Gameweek 15, looked like being a tougher test a fortnight ago but injuries to Joachim Andersen (£4.5m) and James McArthur (£4.4m) have slightly derailed the Eagles of late and Joel Ward (£4.5m) will be suspended at the weekend.
In terms of FPL transfer targets, that’s more difficult, as we’ve yet to see what shape and personnel Rangnick favours. Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.4m) was benched in Gameweek 13, for example; was that Carrick’s decision alone or was, as some conspiracy theorists suggest, the veteran German pulling the strings already?
Jadon Sancho (£8.9m) is certainly garnering a bit of interest, given that he seems to have the attributes to thrive in Rangnick’s set-up, but we may have to wait a game or two to see just who looks like flourishing in a new-look United side.
MANCHESTER CITY
Pinpointing the best City assets is tricky for a different reason, as we enter the time of the season when Pep Guardiola’s starting XIs become even harder to second-guess.
Still, we’re not likely to be selling the likes of Joao Cancelo (£6.7m) even if the odd rest might be forthcoming in December.
City also have the advantage of a Champions League dead rubber on December 7, in between Gameweeks 15 and 16, and a full week of rest in between Gameweels 18 and 19, when seven other Premier League clubs are in EFL Cup quarter-final action.
As for the league fixtures themselves, some porous defences (Watford, Newcastle and Leicester have just one clean sheet between them this season) will provide inviting opposition for the likes of Ilkay Gundogan (£7.3m) and, if fit, Phil Foden (£8.2m), while Wolves and Leeds are hardly firing on all cylinders at the other end of the pitch, averaging less than one goal per game at the time of writing.
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
The jury is still out on Antonio Conte’s Tottenham Hotspur, at least ahead of Thursday’s clash with Brentford.
Still, that encounter with the Bees is the first of three meetings with newly-promoted clubs between now and the New Year, while Leicester’s leaky backline – who haven’t kept a clean sheet since the opening day – means that the Gameweek 17 encounter at the King Power Stadium ought to really be a bluer shade on the ticker for the likes of Harry Kane (£12.3m) and Son Heung-min (£10.4m).
We might also have a juicy-looking Double Gameweek 21 for Spurs, should certain events in the EFL Cup quarter-finals transpire.
Gameweek 16 might still be a jumping-off point for many Fantasy managers in order to fund moves for Manchester United’s premium assets, as the backlines of Brighton, Liverpool and Crystal Palace (at least from open play in the Eagles’ case) have been three of the better-performing rearguards this season.
ALSO CONSIDER
The Gameweek 21 clash between Liverpool (wol | AVL | NEW | tot | LEE | lei | che) and Chelsea (whu | LEE | EVE | wol | avl | BHA | LIV) is the primary reason why these two title challengers don’t feature higher up the Season Ticker in the period studied but reduce the lookahead to six Gameweeks and the outlook is rosier.
Back-to-back home matches for both clubs in Gameweeks 16 and 17 certainly catch the eye, albeit that does come after a tougher test for the Blues away at West Ham on Saturday.
The clean sheet prospects for Reece James (£6.3m) et al look particularly bright in between, with Leeds, Everton, Wolves and Brighton all in the bottom half for goals scored over the last six matches. Steven Gerrard seems to be making Aston Villa more of a compact, conservative team, too: the Villans are second-bottom for both possession and expected goals under his rule.
Gameweek 18 looks like a good time to be targeting West Ham United (CHE | bur | ars | NOR | SOU | wat | cry) players again after their tough recent run but there is also an appealing match against Burnley sandwiched by trickier-looking London derbies: the Clarets have kept only two clean sheets all season, and one of those was against Norwich.
Burnley (new | WHU | WAT | avl | EVE | mun | lee) themselves have some decent fixtures littered amongst some harder-on-paper tests and we know from past experience that Sean Dyche tends to eschew rotation even in busy periods, which is a selling point itself with benchings and breathers rife elsewhere. Crystal Palace‘s matches (mun | EVE | SOU | wat | tot | NOR | whu) actually rotate very well with those of Dyche’s troops over the festive season, giving a run of Newcastle (a), Everton (h), Watford (h), Watford (a), Everton (h), Norwich (h) and Leeds (a) through to New Year, should those with sizeable budgets have the cash free to consider to a not-exactly-cheap Maxwel Cornet (£6.1m)/Conor Gallagher (£6.2m) pairing.
And anyone with Ben White (£4.4m) and Tino Livramento (£4.5m) in their squads has a good stretch of games at their disposal from now until the beginning of January. The Arsenal (eve | SOU | WHU | lee | nor | WOL | MCI) and Southampton (BHA | ars | cry | BRE | whu | TOT | NEW) defensive rotation gives a run of Brighton (h), Southampton (h), Crystal Palace (a), Brentford (h), Norwich (a), Wolves (h) and Newcastle (h) up until Gameweek 21.
2 years, 4 months agoDentist time.