FPL Fixtures, the Longview GW32: Which teams should we target and avoid?
Long-term planning is ideal but sometimes difficult to execute. With this in mind, let’s assess FPL fixtures beyond the next couple of weeks.
FPL Fixtures
The Fantasy Football Scout season ticker allows managers to look at an editable period of Gameweeks of their choosing. Managers can delete Gameweeks, change the ratings of games and sort by difficulty. Here is the ticker for the final seven Gameweeks:
The FFScout season ticker also offers separate rankings focused on both attack and defence.
Teams to target
Following our last look at Longview, the top three remains Leicester, Arsenal and Burnley. The Foxes have a great fixture run bar the Gameweek 35 trip to Tottenham and that’s without two games that still need adding – Norwich (H) and Chelsea (a).
Yet the main obstacle stopping managers jumping onto attacking talent like Harvey Barnes and James Maddison is prioritising. More specifically, will Brendan Rodgers now switch his attention to their Europa Conference League run? The winners get automatic Europa League qualification and it’s their best route into continental football next season. If so, there could be rotation frustration.
Although the appeal of being the only side to double in both Gameweeks 31 and 33 disappears now that deadline has passed, Burnley’s fixtures still offer FPL potential. Facing Norwich (a), Southampton (H), Watford (a) and Aston Villa twice can bring returns at both ends of the pitch. It might be worth temporarily keeping Wout Weghorst, Connor Roberts, Ben Mee etc.
The previously-postponed north London derby is pencilled in for Double Gameweek 36, further enhancing the appeal of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Arsenal defenders. It also boosts Spurs assets – currently rated as having the best fixture run from those without a Double Gameweek 33. So there will be no mass sales for Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Dejan Kulusevski or Matt Doherty, barring injury.
The biggest risers from our last Longview are Watford, now that Liverpool (a) is out of the way. There are home matches against relegation rivals Leeds, Brentford and Burnley, with an unarranged Everton game to come. On the other hand, they are Watford. Assets like Emmanuel Dennis and Josh King have a recent record of letting down their owners. At least Ben Foster is a safe second-choice goalkeeper to have, with Cucho Hernandez arguably now their best forward option.
Teams to avoid
No doubt the blanks of Gameweek 33 heavily affect the position of Aston Villa, Leeds and Wolves in these rankings. Whilst the latter two have an ok-looking next weekend and Villa’s games get better from Gameweek 35, those not going the Free Hit 33 route will likely be selling Philippe Coutinho, Raphinha, Conor Coady and Raul Jimenez.
Perhaps goalkeeper Jose Sa can be kept because, curiously, Wolves rank high for clean sheets yet Sa has been forced to make the third-most saves of all stoppers. He gets the best of both worlds – 11 clean sheets, plus 24 save points.
As for Everton, they have made minimal impact on FPL this season. The later additions of Crystal Palace (H) and Watford (a) may add slight appeal to Anthony Gordon and Dominic Calvert-Lewin but probably not much. Games surrounding those will still look nasty.
Longview is a regular segment on the Official FPL Podcast, brought to you each week by Kelly Somers and a selection of experts.
