FIXTURES 2015/16 PL:Which teams have the best and which worst?

[Ralfbergs]

So, Premier League published the official fixture list today:
http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news ... eased.html

I know it is quite early to already have an analysis of it, but what has everyone already noticed about it - any teams with really good fixtures, which team do you reckon might have the strongest start out of the top teams?

For me, I have noticed 2 things:
1) Everton will have really crazy fixtures at the beginning of the season, playing all last year's top 8 in first 10 matches
2) It seems that the new teams have fairly good fixtures for the beginning, some better, some worse, but I think last year it was worse for some of them.

[Ralfbergs]

Club by club guide here: http://www1.skysports.com/football/news ... -in-opener

[gooberman]

You got in first. Just posted a similar thread and then saw yours. Deleted mine now. The opening 3 fixtures for the top 3 don't look particularly appealing and there could be some merit in running without players from those teams for the first 3 games which could make opening squad selection interesting.

[MoSe]

here's the FA article too

http://www.thefa.com/news/2015/jun/2015 ... s-released
with a pdf to download: http://the-fa.com/cm8Wlp

[Billy Bongo]

Bournemouth Watford rotate home and away, and Bournmouth have good early fixtures. Looks like that's where we will looking for the cheap defenders early on

[gooberman]

Does the season normally start as early as 8th August? It was the 16th last season.

[Carlos Kickaball]

It's earlier this year, there was some world cup thing going on before last season.

Good thread.

Home/away rotation pairs take 2, I hope this is right now:

Bournemouth - Watford
Arsenal - Spurs
Chelsea - West Ham
Everton - Liverpool
Leicester - Swansea
United - City
Norwich - Southampton
Stoke - Palace
WBA - Villa
Sunderland - Newcastle

I have a feeling we'll be seeing Ruth_NZ on FISO soon.

[liquidfootball2]

Man Utd look good early on, if Rvp sold then Rooney could be first captain

Avoiding any Everton for first ten fixtures

[gooberman]

Man Utd look good early on, if Rvp sold then Rooney could be first captain

Avoiding any Everton for first ten fixtures

Good call. Awful first 10. Although I'm not sure their players would be much of a consideration anyway. With Baines seemingly no longer on pens, even he no longer looks appealing.

[liquidfootball2]

It's earlier this year, there was some world cup thing going on before last season.

Good thread.

Home/away rotation pairs take 2, I hope this is right now:

Bournemouth - Watford
Arsenal - Spurs
Chelsea - West Ham
Everton - Liverpool
Leicester - Swansea
United - City
Norwich - Southampton
Stoke - Palace
WBA - Villa
Sunderland - Newcastle

I have a feeling we'll be seeing Ruth_NZ on FISO soon.

Hope you're right, one of the ffs posters i really rate.

[Aldershot Rejects]

Not convinced by United's first ten - lots of top half sides there. From 31st October though, they have a great run of fixtures.

Leicester and Sunderland both have pretty good early fixtures

[liquidfootball2]

Looking at SPURS, villa, NEWC, swansea then international break and transfer window closed so popular time for wc.

[Stemania]

No real standouts for me. All the top four have pretty similar middling starts with Man u and Arsenal ever so slightly better perhaps.

Liverpool have a really odd mix of excellent home games and horrible away games - that might be tricky for us to manage (and for Brendon).

Everton awful. Avoid. Spurs very decent. Southampton look like they have a very good run again.

Newcastle extremely tough , Swansea mixed to tough. WHU pretty good, especially at home. Villa pretty good. Leicester and Sunderland look the best of the midtable-to-bottom-halftable teams. All the rest fairly middling.

The good fixture runs have perhaps fallen to Norwich and Bournemouth.


(advantage Chelsea in the title race getting to play City without Aguero)

[Billy Bongo]

Stoke Palace rotation? Murray Bojan lol

[Stemania]

I have a feeling we'll be seeing Ruth_NZ on FISO soon.

Hope you're right, one of the ffs posters i really rate.

Yes that would be good. In my limited FFS experience one of the best too, though no idea why he's spending so much time reviewing and half previewing each of last season's teams so early.

[Carlos Kickaball]

An early season ticker.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1877315559

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?res ... wBal9a90PE

Thanks to THE BLUE OF LEICESTER, on FFS.

[Stemania]

If Aguero makes it back for GW3/4 as expected then his first five home fixtures are WAT, WHU, NEW, BOU, NOR in a sexy 8 week fixture stretch!!

[From4corners]

(advantage Chelsea in the title race getting to play City without Aguero)

Why is that then? Because of Copa America? Surely Aguero, as well as Zabaleta, will play that game. Chelsea would potentially miss Oscar and Willian then, and to a lesser extent Ramires and Cuadrado.

[Ralfbergs]

If Aguero makes it back for GW3/4 as expected then his first five home fixtures are WAT, WHU, NEW, BOU, NOR in a sexy 8 week fixture stretch!!

Have you heard anything about A.Sanchez? Just hadn't read so much news lately, heard only what Mourinho said about Chelsea players. I'm wondering if he will be rested for first matches too or is it unknown at the moment?

[Stemania]

I think all the Copa America latter stage participants will likely miss the first couple of PL fixtures (a subset of Sanchez, Aguero, ADM, Falcao, Enner Valencia, Montero, Rojo, Zabaleta, Demichelis, Fernandinho, Filipe Luis, Willian, Coutinho, Cuadrado, Ospina, Morgan(!), Coates, Lamela) - maybe the defenders/GK have a better chance.

It's probably true of the U21 players as well (i.e., Kane, Berahino, Redmond, Stones, Jenkinson, Ings) .

[Billy Bongo]

An early season ticker.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1877315559

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?res ... wBal9a90PE

Thanks to THE BLUE OF LEICESTER, on FFS.

Using that Lei Brom Swans Bournemouth plus Chelsea def looking good

[Ralfbergs]

I think all the Copa America latter stage participants will likely miss the first couple of PL fixtures (a subset of Sanchez, Aguero, ADM, Falcao, Enner Valencia, Montero, Rojo, Zabaleta, Demichelis, Fernandinho, Filipe Luis, Willian, Coutinho, Cuadrado, Ospina, Morgan(!), Coates, Lamela) - maybe the defenders/GK have a better chance.

It's probably true of the U21 players as well (i.e., Kane, Berahino, Redmond, Stones, Jenkinson, Ings) .

I find it a bit weird though if so many of these will be rested - for example, Aguero had his last match last year in the final against Germany on 13th July, season started in 16th August - Aguero played and scored a goal.
This year the final of Copa America is on 4th July, season starts on 8th August. Basically the same difference. Ok I get that Aguero might be rested and Sanchez as being crucial for their clubs and maybe they'll want them to get back their fatigue. But as for most of the others, I really doubt that they will be rested. I get why Mourinho might rest his players - they had FA Cup too, and a longer season and they aren't his regulars really anyway (maybe except for Willian at some parts of the season).

[Stemania]

for example, Aguero had his last match last year in the final against Germany on 13th July, season started in 16th August - Aguero played and scored a goal.

Yes, but he didn't start a game till GW3. The players will still be in and around the squads, but all of them making it to the latter stages will be a big benching risk early on.

[asm_fanz]

Maybe an other argument for an early WC

[Ralfbergs]

for example, Aguero had his last match last year in the final against Germany on 13th July, season started in 16th August - Aguero played and scored a goal.

Yes, but he didn't start a game till GW3. The players will still be in and around the squads, but all of them making it to the latter stages will be a big benching risk early on.

Hmm, yeah, didn't notice that Aguero scored after coming on as a sub. I guess you're right then, either way, will have to wait and see which teams get into those latter stages there and how many of those players were actually actively involved.

[Mo Bot]

Bournemouth/Watford works pretty well at first glance. Hopefully There will be a couple of 4.0's

[Mav3rick]

Rotations look really difficult to implement for any length of time (ie. Winter wildcard), especially two way pairings for keepers.

As mentioned above, Bournemouth/Watford works reasonably well but not for ever and isn't great. There are some options on three way rotations with combinations of West Ham/Swansea and a cheap pairing from Bournemouth and Sunderland (also Sun/New is OK after the first few games) that could get you to GW21 but its hardly a cheap rotation.

I need to look more closely at the expected cheaper teams but I'm wondering how easy rotation is going to be with fixtures the way they are.

West Ham do rotate well with a few of the chepaer teams, at least for the first quarter of the season and that might be a route I start with.

[Mav3rick]

So I spent some time today updating my FPL spreadsheet with some new code to show fixtures for 2 and 3 way rotation of selected teams... Basically a simplified version of what FPL Wizard does, but using RomynPG's excellent fixture spreadsheet as the source data.

I plugged in a few fixture pairings (for GKs first) for teams that I'd hope/expect to have a 4.5 keeper (AVL, BOR, LEI, NOR, NEW, SUN, WAT) and got some interesting preliminary results (these are all conclusions drawn up to GW23 as that's the end of the winter wildcard):

• The two best pairings on fixture strength are Leicester/Newcastle and Sunderland/Newcastle
• The best single keeper is Leicester
• Watford don't really work well with anyone based on fixture strength. Unless they have a 4.0 keeper, they should probably be avoided.
• Of the possible 5.0 keepers, Swansea seem to have the best fixture strength

Watford (alone) - 14.84
Watford/Bournemouth - 18.40 (24% boost)

Norwich (alone) - 15.03
Norwich/Newcastle - 20.00 (33% boost)

Bournemouth (alone) - 15.86
Bournemouth/Leicester - 20.00 (26% boost)

Aston Villa (alone) - 17.42
Aston Villa/Leicester - 20.91 (20% boost in fixture strength)

Newcastle (alone) - 17.83
Newcastle/Sunderland - 21.30 (19.5% boost)

Leicester (alone) - 18.25
Leicester/Newcastle - 21.30 (17% boost)

Sunderland/Newcastle fixtures:


Leicester/Newcastle fixtures:


A 5.0 keeper from SWA (20.91) or STO (21.50) might be better for the same money. WBA have really bad fixture strength so despite Pulis they should probably be avoided.

The smartest single keeper solution may well be just picking a Leicester keeper until GW 12 (19.67), and then switching to a Newcastle one (18.03), which would give you a single keeper rating of 18.89 (although this is only slightly better than sticking with Leicester the entire time). If you've got the budget and a spare transfer, then starting with WHM and switching to Swansea at around GW12 gives you a combined rating of 20.41.

I think that if Fabianski is priced at 5.0 then I would take him over a 4.5/4.5 pairing, since the two best ones don't seem that much better and you could be on the wrong side of the fixtures. The choice between a single 4.5 keeper and Fabianski will be hard, but will depend on what can be done elsewhere with the extra 0.5.

I'll have a look at some 3-way rotations for defenders tomorrow.

[Mav3rick]

And to complete the work I can do at the moment, the best 3-way rotation I can see for the potential cheap defenders is Leicester, Sunderland, Newcastle, which gives these fixtures (playing 1 from 3 defenders):



In terms of potential 5.0/4.0 combinations from likely teams that *may* have defenders in those ranges (5.0 - Swansea, Palace, WBA, Stoke, West Ham; 4.0 -Bournemouth, Norwich, Watford), the best I can do for a 9.0 pairing in defence (I doubt these will work in goal due to lack of 4.0 keepers) is Swansea or Stoke and Bournemouth, which rank at 22.12 (remember this is the same likely price as a pairing from New/Sun which ranks at 21.30).

If you can spare a transfer, then the best I can do with a 3 way rotation combines both the above approached. You'd start with West Ham (5.0), Bournemouth (4.0) and Norwich (4.0) and in GW 10 switch from WHM to Swansea which you stick with until the wild card.

Overall, that gives you a rating of 23.94 and is the best I can do for an expected 13.0 investment.

Stoke deserve some special mention, although not great in FPL points terms last season that might *maybe* mean a price reduction of their keepers if we're lucky from 5.0 to 4.5 (I don't think it will happen, but maybe there's an outside chance). Butland may or may not make a difference (if Begovic leaves) and even though Stoke aren't the defence that they were under Pulis, they might be worth a look at the right price. They have good fixture rotation with almost everyone else in the cheap keeper bracket which really is the attraction. If they their keepers/defenders come in at 5.0 then I think there may be better options elsewhere but if 4.5 starters are available they'll be a team to look at.

[The Dazzler]

Good work Mav!