Fixtures

FPL 2022/23: Who are the best teams to pair in rotation?

We continue our analysis of the newly released 2022/23 Premier League fixture list with a look at which teams rotate well from a Fantasy perspective.

We’re using our customisable Season Ticker for this article, a tool that allows you to filter clubs by rotation amongst other sortable options.

The idea here is to simply find a couple of low-cost Fantasy Premier League (FPL) assets whose fixtures dovetail, either to offer successive home matches or, at the very least, a prolonged spell of favourable opponents.

We’re focusing on budget defensive options, mainly because many Fantasy managers will resist benching premium assets.

In theory, this approach can help maximise the points returns from two low-cost picks, freeing up funds for the premium assets like Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland.

It should be said that the rotation strategy is shunned by some Fantasy managers, as anticipating where a clean sheet or attacking return will come from is often not just as straightforward as picking the player with a home match or better-on-paper fixture. The move towards ‘big at the back’ also means fewer of us will consider having two £4.5m-and-under defenders in our squads.

HOME/AWAY ROTATION PAIRINGS IN 2022/23

There are 10 pairings that alternate home fixtures perfectly next season (credit goes to Fantasy Football Scout user Portsmouth Bubblejet for the research):

Paired team 1Paired team 2
ArsenalTottenham Hotspur
Aston VillaBournemouth
Brighton and Hove AlbionLeeds United
ChelseaFulham
Leicester CityNottingham Forest
LiverpoolEverton
Manchester CityManchester United
Newcastle UnitedSouthampton
West Ham UnitedBrentford
Wolverhampton WanderersCrystal Palace

Some of the above couplings are decided by geographical proximity, created by the need to spread police resourcing: Liverpool/Everton, Manchester United/Manchester City and Spurs/Arsenal being notable examples.

And a number of these combinations are largely irrelevant when it comes to rotation pairings because of the price tags associated with at least one of the respective clubs’ assets and their ability to score points on the road – Fantasy managers aren’t likely to alternate benchings for Kieran Tierney or Ivan Perisic simply because they have an away fixture, for example.

So for more realistic pairings, we have to box a little bit more clever.

BEST ROTATION PAIRINGS: GAMEWEEKS 1-16

For these pairings, we’ll look no further than Gameweek 16. It’s after that point that the Premier League takes a six-week break for the World Cup, which will be a good time to take stock. Wildcards or – if we are given them – unlimited transfers will also be flying at this point.

BRENTFORD/NEWCASTLE

Pairing Brentford and Newcastle through to Gameweek 15 avoids any meeting with a side that finished in the top seven last season.

A third of the 15 matches are against newly promoted clubs, while there are two home fixtures against an Everton side who had a woeful away record in 2021/22 and a brace of meetings with a Wolverhampton Wanderes outfit who were the division’s fourth-lowest scorers.

We’ve stopped before Gameweek 16 as Manchester City and Chelsea provide the opposition in the final round of matches before the World Cup.

There should be plenty of Brentford defensive options in the £4.5m bracket, although it remains to be seen how FPL price up Newcastle assets such as Dan Burn given the money being pumped into the club. We can certainly forget about full-backs Matt Targett and Kieran Trippier being any cheaper than £5.0m.

FPL managers might just want to ‘set and forget’ Bees assets such as David Raya anyway: Thomas Frank’s troops don’t meet one of last season’s top four until Gameweek 12, while Manchester City, Spurs and Liverpool aren’t concerns until November onwards.

WOLVES/WEST HAM
377 Comments Post a Comment
  1. gooberman
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    1 year, 9 months ago

    My thoughts on player prices. I think FPL get the prices hugely wrong every season. The premium player prices are way too high in terms of the points they get proportionate to their price compared to the cheaper players. Let's have a look at some of the premiums from last season.

    Salah starting price 12.5m. Total points 265.
    Saka starting price 6.5m. Total points 179.
    Maddison starting price 7m. Total points 181.
    Bowen starting price 6.5m. Total points 206.

    We can see here that Salah's price is almost double that of those other players but his points total is nowhere near double.

    It's an even worse scenario when looking at the forwards.

    Kane starting price 12.5m. Total points 192.
    Ronaldo starting price 12.5m. Total points 159.
    Toney starting price 6.5m. Total points 139.
    Dennis starting price 5m. Total points 134.

    Total points compared to the prices is massively disproportionate. Based on these prices, Kane should be scoring double that of Toney and Dennis so around 270-280pts but he has scored nowhere near that.

    So this means they have got the pricing way off. Yes the more expensive players are getting more points in general than the cheaper players but the actual difference in points is not at all proportionate to the prices. I hope FPL learn from this and adjust prices accordingly but I suspect they wont and we will still see Salah and Kane etc extortionately priced again.

    I am seeing a lot of speculation on twitter that we will see TAA priced at 8-8.5m. Whilst I agree that a player who scores over 200pts should not perhaps be priced at 7.5m, if FPL are using the same pricing criteria as previous seasons then there is not logic whatsoever in pricing TAA any higher than 7.5m again.

    He scored 210pts in the 19/20 season which is more than his score last season (208) but he was priced at 7.5m the following season. Also Robertson scored 213 in the 18/19 season which is still the record I believe yet he was priced at 7m the following season. So why are people thinking TAA will be 8-8.5m next season? It wouldn't make any sense unless FPL are planning on completely re-structuring their pricing criteria.

    1. Nomar
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      The pricing is deliberately designed to be prohibitive, though. Otherwise everyone would have the same premium players in abundance.

      This season, it’s probable that managers are going to have to make serious choices about which players they have to forego to a much larger degree than before.

    2. Now I'm Panicking
      • 9 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      You've just cherry picked the high scoring mid-priced players. No one had Bowen in GW1.

      1. gooberman
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        There are many other midfielders who I haven't mentioned who were also around half Salah's price but scored more than half of his points total - Zaha, Ward Prowse, Raphinha, Trossard, Gallagher etc.

        1. Now I'm Panicking
          • 9 Years
          1 year, 9 months ago

          Now list the ones that didn't

        2. Pasqualinho
          • 14 Years
          1 year, 9 months ago

          And there are quite a few who are around his price who scored far fewer than half his points, so good luck! That’s the game.

        3. LangerznMash
          • 7 Years
          1 year, 9 months ago

          It's like picking a needle out a hay stack though. Salah is guaranteed 200+ points but for every Dennis there are 4 players like Barnes, Armstrong, Benteke, Daka...

          1. gooberman
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            1 year, 9 months ago

            Yeah fair I guess but I would hazard a guess that they wont price the specific players I have mentioned proportionately according to their points totals of last year. For example Kane will probably be priced around 5-6m more than Toney despite scoring only 53pts more which would be disproportionate.

            1. LangerznMash
              • 7 Years
              1 year, 9 months ago

              You also gotta factor in Kane as captain pick.

        4. LangerznMash
          • 7 Years
          1 year, 9 months ago

          Even if you picked a squad with all the best value players in, it would still have Salah in or you wouldn't come close to using your £100m budget.

          This squad started at only £97.5 mil...

          Ramsdale 4.5, Foster 4.0
          TAA 7.5, Robbo 7.0, Cancelo 6.0, James 5.5, Cash 5.0
          Salah 12.5, Son 10.0, Bowen 6.5, Saka 6.5, Gallagher 5.5
          Toney 6.5, Pukki 6.0, Dennis 5.0

          absolutely no one had more than two of Pukki, Toney, Dennis, Bowen, Saka and Gallagher for GW1.

      2. Big boy Bowen
        • 7 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        My rival did lol, and Benrahma

    3. TheBiffas
      • 3 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      So much wrong with this post

      1. gooberman
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        what exactly?

        1. circusmonkey
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 13 Years
          1 year, 9 months ago

          I replied below in the wrong post.

      2. gooberman
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        I will quote this post when the game is released and we see KDB and Kane priced at 4m more than Bowen despite scoring less points.

    4. FPL Insanity
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 2 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      If you've ever built a footy coupon for work or friends, you'll know you don't just have 20 games of massive odds on shots like Man City vs Norwich and Celtic vs Dundee. It's the same when pricing players like TAA at 7.5m, because you want your participants to have some level of difficulty in playing your game. There is a big chunk of luck in FPL but you want to draw out as much skill as possible at the same time. Cheers

    5. Eze Really?
      • 9 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      A nice read but "variance is required" it is not the points, but the group points. Salah for example who was exceptional 1st part of the season was a captain and worth double his points tally. There are +- 300 points on offer for captain alone. Team variance the key not the points. When templates arrive, this is a problem. FPL Towers don't have a crystal ball but they must move with the times though.

    6. RedLightning
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 13 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      You can't replace one player with two players - you have to have exactly 15 in your squad.
      So you should only compare one player with another one, or two players with another two.

      Also, you shouldn't ignore the captaincy factor.
      If you perma-captain Salah, then you should double his points total when calculating his value.
      Or if you have two captains that rotate home and away, then you should increase both their points totals by 50%.

      And if you select only the best value players, then you won't be using all your budget and their combined points total will not be great. To increase your overall score each week you will need to replace some of your value players with others that are more expensive but will score more points.

      Value (points divided by price) is a misleading stat anyway. It doesn't allow for the fact that part of a player's price is a fixed overhead (4.0m or 4.5m depending on position). If the fixed overhead were to be changed and the total budget adjusted accordingly (for example if every price was increased by 10m and the total budget was increased by 150m) then this would have no effect whatever on the real relative values of the players, but the artificial ratios of points divided by prices would be different and so would the order of the best-value players according to this stat.

    7. nobwak
      • 8 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Don’t pick Salah then if he’s such poor value.

    8. Grande Tubarão
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 2 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Why don’t you use all this knowledge to just pick the likes of Saka, Maddison, Bowen, etc. And just win FPL?

    9. yousunkmybattleship
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Cherry picking and hindsight are wonderful things

      1. gooberman
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        Its not hindsight though. The evidence is there every season that the premium players are hugely over priced compared to other players.

        A good example is the defenders. The top scoring defenders have been hitting the 200pts mark for many seasons and these totals will typically be around 50pts fewer than the best performing premium priced mids and forwards however still FPL price them 5-6m less again the following season which is hugely disproportionate.

        1. CantSpellFailWithoutFAI
          • 1 Year
          1 year, 9 months ago

          It is literally hindsight though. You are using the points they have scored since those prices were set. Bowen's 21/22 score was an unknown variable at the time they picked 6.5m. What we did know was he had scores 44 (19/20 half season) and 141 (19/20). Using the 141 we would get 21.69 points per million. Salah had regressed down to 231 (19/20) and 233 (20/21) in recent seasons so we come out at 18.56 points per million. Given captaincy potential that would mean you'd be looking at Salah as being better value.

          Hard to do much on the forwards as Toney and Dennis were new to the league but as others have said, there were plenty of forwards who came in worse PPM than Kane

          1. gooberman
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 12 Years
            1 year, 9 months ago

            My previous post perfectly demonstrated and evidenced why its not hindsight with the examples I gave regarding the defenders but still you say its hindsight. lol.

            Yes you are right Bowen's pricing of 6.5 was proportionate based on his previous seasons performances.

            However I can almost guarantee and I will quote your post that when the new game is released, Bowen will be around 4m less than KDB and Kane despite getting more points and again the defenders will be around 5m cheaper despite matching their points showing yet again how disproportionately inflated the premium players are priced at.

            Some will argue that Bowen had an unusual season and may not hit the same heights again next season whereas Kane and KDB are seasoned 200pts+ scorers. I would say to that yes I 100% agree and Kane and KDB should be higher priced higher but a 4m difference? No way. Completely disproportionate. Accurate pricing would be to price Kane and KDB at 11m and Bowen 9m but Im confident this is unlikely to happen.

            1. CantSpellFailWithoutFAI
              • 1 Year
              1 year, 9 months ago

              It is still "hindsight" though as the exact players that outperform isn't known when prices are being set. I always expect the best value pick is not going to be a Salah/Kane/KDB, however knowing who will be the ones to outdo hthem is the challenge. Even at 6.5m Bowen was still a niche enough pick (at his ownership trough he was in under 65k teams and had fallen to 6.3m). It turned out he was a bargain but that's not something we can tell before time. Raphinha had about 10 times the ownership of Bowen in GW1 so this suggests who we generally thought was the better value at the start of the season

              You are correct in that defender value has been stronger. You're point about defenders topping 200 regularly is a tad skewed though. Trent has now done it twice, Robbo, Cancelo and VVD have all done it once. I expect these should get big price increases as the modern game has now shifted to include FBs in the attack way more for a few seasons now. The issue is that the opportunity cost of going for expensive defenders is that your squad then hits issues in affording any sort of playing bench (there is also a minor twist in that your baseline defender is 0.5m cheaper than the corresponding midfielder).I also think the DM/fodder options in mid/fwd should be dropped to 4m. That would negate the opportunity cost and therefore put the defs on a level field with the other positions

  2. Nomar
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 14 Years
    1 year, 9 months ago

    Out of interest, how many £4.5m keepers do people genuinely think there will be this season?

    I think max of 6: Fulham, Bournemouth, Forest, Southampton, Brentford and/or possibly Leeds.

    Cannot see Newcastle, Brighton, Everton or Palace keepers at that price point this time.

    1. Rassi
      • 9 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Why not Everton?

    2. Zimo
      • 5 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Pickford should be 4.5

      1. Nomar
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 14 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        Should, yes, but he’s England no 1 and they will probably think Everton will be better this season.

      2. TheBiffas
        • 3 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        No chance

    3. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
      • 10 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Ramsdale will be a handy pick at 4.0

    4. Andy_Social
      • 11 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Those 6, plus some backup keepers at big clubs.

    5. Herogrows
      • 2 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      It would be immense for a Leeds 4.5 keeper

    6. LangerznMash
      • 7 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      If Meslier or Raya are £4.5m then surely everyone will have one or both of them. I fully expect them both to score around 130 points again making their value around 29.
      Raya missed 14 games last season and the Leeds defence was devastated by injuries and suspensions (most games missed in the league).

      1. LangerznMash
        • 7 Years
        1 year, 9 months ago

        ignore the word *again*

  3. circusmonkey
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    1 year, 9 months ago

    Look up some old articles by 'Hedge'. He looks at incremental points and prices, not just raw points per million. The cheapest squad is £64m so you actually have £36m to spend and you assess that in increments.

    1. circusmonkey
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      1 year, 9 months ago

      Oh, reply to Gooberman.