Double Gameweek 25 for Man Utd and Brighton confirmed

Manchester United and Brighton and Hove Albion will both have a Double Gameweek 25 after the two clubs’ previously postponed fixture was rescheduled for Tuesday 15 February.

United will face Southampton and the Seagulls at home in their double, while Albion travel to relegation-threatened Watford before heading to Old Trafford.

The Premier League announced the new date on Wednesday afternoon when also revealing the television picks for March but no other ‘doubles’ were disclosed in the press release.

Future Double Gameweek announcements could theoretically still follow before we get to the Gameweek 24 deadline.

Some further rearrangements could be rubber-stamped after the completion of the FA Cup fourth round on Sunday 6 February, for instance. The fifth round of this competition takes place in the midweek after Gameweek 27, so any Premier League team already eliminated from the cup by this point could have one of their outstanding league fixtures accommodated then (eg Aston Villa v Burnley):

Above graphic courtesy of Legomane

TOP 10K OWNERSHIP OF MAN UTD AND BRIGHTON PLAYERS

Using LiveFPL’s top 10,000 ownership figures as a gauge of active Fantasy managers, there are just under two assets from Manchester United (1.423) and Brighton (0.54) combined in the average FPL squad.

The most-owned players from the two sides, as of Gameweek 23, are as follows:

INITIAL REACTION TO DOUBLE GAMEWEEK 25

We’re back to the same old question about whether players with two matches in a Double Gameweek, despite misgivings over form and ease of fixtures, are worth trusting over more proven assets who have just the one game.

Mohamed Salah (£12.7m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£12.2m) are part of the latter crowd; do we overlook their appealing matches against Burnley and Norwich City respectively for two bites at the cherry with the underperforming Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.5m) and the hot-and-cold Bruno Fernandes (£11.7m)?

Salah in particular averages almost doubles the number of points per match than the premium United pair, so if those means are reproduced in Double Gameweek 25, there will be little between any of them.

Fernandes, of course, racked up 23 points in his last Double Gameweek, and there-in lies the temptation when opportunities like this present themselves to us.

One thing you can say about United and Brighton, who blank in Gameweek 24, is that they have decent fixtures either side of the Double Gameweek or after it:

So while the value for money offered by Ronaldo and Fernandes will be debated ad nauseam, the likes of David de Gea (£5.2m), Robert Sanchez (£4.6m) and Leandro Trossard (£6.1m) are fairly low-risk inclusions given that they are unlikely to disrupt the balance of an FPL squad and have decent fixtures around their Double Gameweek.

Albion still have one more outstanding fixture to rearrage, against Spurs, so this could also theoretically be incorporated into a Double Gameweek 26, 28 or 29.