Six Tips for Navigating the Tricky FPL Festive Fixture Period

In his latest article, Pras – who has finished inside the top 40k in each of the last seven seasons – shares his Six Tips for Navigating the Tricky FPL Festive Fixture Period in which we’ll see seven Fantasy Premier League (FPL) deadlines in 31 days.

The timing for my article comes a week after fixture swings for Arsenal, Brighton and Hove Albion and Chelsea – many of whom already delivered. I won’t therefore dwell on fixtures, too much.

Instead, I will focus this month’s article on a topic that I genuinely feel is a “skill” element in the game – how to navigate the busy festive period.

It is a time when content is scarce due to tight deadlines. One small injury means potentially three to four Gameweeks out. Most tricky of all to navigate is, of course, rotation.

This time of year separates the engaged managers from the casuals. In this period, I will lay out some of my “must-dos” that I apply to my team during this period.

1. Consider teams with easier schedules

The most obvious one first. Teams that have kinder schedules are less likely to rotate. This could include not being in Europe / Carabao Cup, having more spaced-out fixtures or less travel.

On fixture scheduling, this excellent article from Neale summarises everything well.

My takeaway from the key teams is as follows:

Manchester City: No Carabao Cup, so one extra free midweek compared to other top teams. Also, a fun fact: they are the early kick-off in Gameweeks 17, 18, 19 and 21. There is some hope yet for Rico Lewis (£4.8m) owners to get some starting clues.
Arsenal, whilst having no respite in midweeks, are not leaving London until January 4. Away ties against West Ham United, Fulham, Crystal Palace and Brentford all dovetail the home ties. Even their European and Carabao Cup fixtures in December are at home!
Liverpool have a punishing schedule in Gameweeks 13-15 with the dreaded Sun-Wed-Sat games, but a kinder schedule after that over Christmas. Aston Villa follow almost exactly the same pattern.
Teams in the UEFA Europa League/Conference League such as Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Chelsea do have midweek games. But by and large, I see enough minutes management not to worry too much.
Finally, popular teams not in Europe gain in prominence. I would include Brighton, Newcastle United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bournemouth in this category. With the exception of Newcastle, these teams are even out of the Carabao Cup. That means another midweek rest between Gameweeks 16 and 17.

2. Focus on players with secure minutes

The last thing you want is rotation panic adding to the other headaches that pile up. What is worse is that in many cases, the good picks still come on to cameo – so a deeper bench isn’t even the solution. I strongly veer towards the side of ‘boring’ during this period, especially for positions with lower upside. Think Riccardo Calafiori (£5.8m) vs Gabriel Magalhaes (£6.2m), Pervis Estupinan (£5.0m) vs Jan Paul van Hecke (£4.5m), Pedro Neto (£6.2m) vs Eberechi Eze (£6.6m), Luis Diaz (£7.6m) vs Bryan Mbeumo (£7.9m) etc.