It has been an exciting campaign so far. The price hikes on premium players, and the multitude of great options spread across multiple price points, has meant that there are many routes to points, and plenty of variance in squads.

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While we wait for the international break to pass, now is a great time to take a look at the schedule and do some transfer planning. To aid this, our article analyses the fixtures from a number of horizons: short-term, medium-term, and long-term.

Short-term (4 Gameweeks)

Gameweeks 9-12

In the short-term, nobody has better attacking fixtures than Liverpool. With three out of four home games against favourable opposition, Liverpool’s only away fixture is against newly promoted Luton Town.

With five goals and four assists, Mohamed Salah (£12.6m) once again finds himself top (although jointly) of the FPL points table with 59. What’s interesting is that Salah’s underlying statistics are so strong that he is ranked 1st – by a good margin – for xFPL points (65.61).

After generous starts to the season, Chelsea, Spurs and Everton are about to embark on their first difficult patch of fixtures. Chelsea face Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester City in the next four, while Spurs have back-to-back fixtures against Crystal Palace and Chelsea in Gameweeks 10 and 11.

James Maddison (£8.1m) and Son Heung-min (£9.5m) are owned by 38.0% and 34.2% of FPL managers, respectively. According to FPL Statistics, 81.3% of managers in the Top 1k own one of the two, and 28.6% own both. Looking at the shorter-term fixtures, perhaps now is time to think about making a switch.

Medium-term (6 Gameweeks)

Gameweeks 9-14

In both the short and medium term, it is hard to find anyone with better fixtures than Aston Villa. In the next six Gameweeks, Unai Emery’s team faces Luton, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Bournemouth.

Joint-top scorer with the Egyptian King is Ollie Watkins (£8.1m) who has scored 4 goals and is the game’s top assister with 7. Form and fixtures coalesce nicely for Watkins and he could be one of the best medium-term picks available.

A word of warning for those considering bringing him in. While Watkins has improved endlessly during Emery’s reign, he is historically a steady returner of points, his 23-point haul against Burnley being something of a random event – this is covered in more detail in our Over & Under Performers article.

Over the next six Gameweeks, it is the same teams again which have a difficult run. Added into the mix are Newcastle and Brighton, who have something of a mixed bag. The fixtures aren’t terrible – and both teams have great FPL options – but loading up on assets from either team might be worth avoiding.

Long-term (8 Gameweeks)

Gameweeks 9-16

If you prefer to look at a broader Gameweek horizon – useful for those on Wildcard – then Crystal Palace and Brentford come back into the conversation.

With an away match against Newcastle followed immediately after by a visit from Spurs, Crystal Palace players may not be on the radar for those looking as far as Gameweek 10, but beyond that, things get really good.

A shrewd transfer target for Gameweek 11 could be Eberechi Eze (£6.1m). Owned by over 1.4 million managers in Gameweek 1, Eze’s ownership has steadily declined to just over half a million. Consequently, he has suffered four price drops and is now a bargain price at just £6.1m. Eze’s underlying data has been strong despite a lack of returns. According to Opta Stats Sandbox, Eze is ranked 3rd best for shots (27) and seems involved in most of Palace’s attacks.

Extending the schedule horizon does no favours for the struggling teams we have identified earlier in the blog and it is worse for Spurs who are ranked second from bottom in terms of attacking difficulty. West Ham also gets a mention as five out of their next eight games are away from home.

By Matt Whelan

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