FPL Gameweek 1 Planner: Fixture Difficulty, Chip Timing and Projected Points

Everything below comes from the TACTIX fixture-difficulty model, which rates every Premier League club’s next 6 gameweeks using our own venue-adjusted team ratings — the same engine behind our published, settled track record — rather than the generic FDR. Difficulty runs 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest).

Fixture Runs Over the Next 6 Gameweeks

Sorted by average difficulty across the whole horizon, so a soft opener followed by a brutal run does not flatter a side.

Kindest runs

• Man Utd — 2.33/5
• Fulham — 2.5/5
• Ipswich Town — 2.5/5
• Bournemouth — 2.67/5
• Everton — 2.67/5

Toughest runs

• Liverpool — 3.5/5
• Chelsea — 3.5/5
• Brighton — 3.5/5
• Sunderland — 3.33/5
• Man City — 3.33/5

Gameweek Shape

Every club plays exactly once in each of GW1–GW6. There are no blanks and no doubles in this horizon, which is normal early in a season — they arrive once cup rearrangements start. That matters for chips, and it is why most of them are a hold below.

Chip Guidance

Each chip is judged against a rule fixed in advance, printed with the verdict. Where no gameweek clears the bar we say hold rather than naming one — a chip recommendation you can always produce is not a recommendation.

• Wildcard — target GW4. Fixtures turn from GW4: Everton (3.67→1.67), Hull City (4→2), Ipswich Town (3→2) all improve materially, which is what a Wildcard is for.
• Bench Boost — hold. No gameweek in this horizon has 4+ teams playing twice, so there is no Bench Boost week to name yet. Hold it.
• Triple Captain — hold. No team in this horizon has a double gameweek soft enough to triple-captain (the bar is an average difficulty of 2.6 or better). Hold it.
• Free Hit — hold. No gameweek in this horizon blanks 5+ teams, so a Free Hit would be spent on a week you can field a normal XI in. Hold it.

Fixture Swings

Average difficulty in the first half of the horizon versus the second. A large positive swing is a run that is about to get easier.

Projected Points for Gameweek 1

Top three by projected points in each position, from the model’s view of this gameweek only.

Goalkeepers

• Kelleher (BRE, £5m) — projected 3.65 pts vs TOT (H)
• Henderson (CRY, £5m) — projected 3.65 pts vs EVE (A) — carrying a doubt, check the team news
• Pickford (EVE, £5.5m) — projected 3.65 pts vs CRY (H)

Defenders

• Tarkowski (EVE, £6m) — projected 3.77 pts vs CRY (H)
• Mitchell (CRY, £4.5m) — projected 3.74 pts vs EVE (A)
• Kayode (BRE, £4.5m) — projected 3.72 pts vs TOT (H)

Midfielders

• B.Fernandes (MUN, £12m) — projected 2.83 pts vs HUL (A)
• E.Le Fée (SUN, £6m) — projected 2.51 pts vs IPS (A)
• Lukić (IPS, £5m) — projected 2.44 pts vs SUN (H)

Forwards

• Thiago (BRE, £8m) — projected 2.38 pts vs TOT (H)
• Awoniyi (COV, £5.5m) — projected 2.33 pts vs ARS (A)
• Watkins (AVL, £8m) — projected 2.18 pts vs BHA (A)

The full table for every position is on the TACTIX FPL hub. The fixture matrix is free; the complete projection table is part of Pro.

Method

Projections are built from real minutes and involvement this season, combined with our venue-adjusted opponent ratings. Every figure here is a likelihood estimate, never a promise — how the model works and how it has actually done.

This post is generated from TACTIX’s match data by our software and checked automatically. How it works →