The Premier League fixtures are now released for 2023/24 – so let the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) planning commence!
FPL has yet to relaunch, of course, but we are at least able to assess which teams we should invest in and which we should avoid from a fixture difficulty perspective.
We will be taking a look at the top-flight teams with less favourable schedules later on but first we turn our attention to those sides with the best runs of opening fixtures on paper.
The primary focus in this article will be on a six-Gameweek lookahead but we will scrutinise the shorter and longer-term prospects where appropriate.
SEASON TICKER OUTLOOK
Our Season Ticker has been updated, with the opening six Gameweeks sorted by difficulty below:
Subscribers to Fantasy Football Scout can use this helpful tool to pick out the best and worst runs of matches for each club, sort by rotation pairings, use their own customised difficulty ratings and more.
BEST FIXTURES
MANCHESTER CITY
Erling Haaland perma-captain and a Manchester City triple-up?
The fixture schedulers have once again been kind to Pep Guardiola’s troops, which will only heighten interest in their players in FPL.
Like last season, the reigning champions are the only Premier League team who avoid a big-six side in the first six Gameweeks.
It’s actually an even longer run of these ‘easier’ matches this season, with a trip to Wolverhampton Wanderers to come in Gameweek 7.
Rotation is typically cited as a reason not to overload on City assets but with the UEFA Champions League not starting until after Gameweek 5, Pep Guardiola’s tinkering should be kept to a relative minimum initially.
Yes, there’ll be the usual week-to-week tweaks depending on opposition: a Riyad Mahrez here and a Bernardo Silva there.
But by and large, you’d expect most of the big guns to feature in every game. In 2022/23, seven players started the first four league matches, while Nathan Ake was only deprived of a chance to do so thanks to injury:
Above: Man City’s appearance information in the first four Gameweeks of 2022/23
The one difference this season is that there is a UEFA Super Cup to be contested in between Gameweeks 1 and 2 but with City playing Burnley in the Friday night game on the opening weekend, there should be ample recovery time between matches.
As for the early Premier League opposition, there are four fixtures against teams who came up from the Championship this season or the previous year: Burnley, Sheffield United, Fulham and Nottingham Forest. Steve Cooper’s side had the worst away record in the division in 2022/23, so there’ll be hauls aplenty expected from that fixture.
The visit of Newcastle United in Gameweek 2 is the one big test, although City still managed to score five goals against last season’s joint-best Premier League defence.
ARSENAL
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