FPL Gameweek 8 Planner: TACTIX Research, Thu 22 Oct

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).

TACTIX FPL Gameweek 8 planner, as of 22 October 2026: fixture difficulty is rated for 20 Premier League clubs across the next 6 gameweeks, from TACTIX's venue-adjusted team ratings, with projected points for Gameweek 8 across 494 players.

Captain Picks for Gameweek 8

The rule, fixed before the numbers came in: the captain and vice-captain are the two highest projected midfielders or forwards in the starting eleven of the TACTIX squad (a legal 15-man FPL squad within the £100.0m budget) without a doubt flag — the same XI and the same armband as the FPL hub. The pick is the model’s, and projected points are a likelihood estimate, never a promise.

• Captain: Haaland (MCI, FWD, £15.7m) — projected 5.86 pts vs AVL (A)
• Vice-captain: Gonzalo (FUL, FWD, £6.1m) — projected 4.89 pts vs COV (A)

Why Haaland: Haaland is projected 5.86 points against AVL (A) (the TACTIX projection for Gameweek 8). His chance of scoring against AVL (A) is projected at 44%. Minutes come from his last five club matches: 88 expected. He has 43 FPL points from his last five club matches. He is first on penalties (FPL’s penalty order), which the projection counts.

Why Gonzalo: Gonzalo is projected 4.89 points against COV (A) (the TACTIX projection for Gameweek 8). His chance of scoring against COV (A) is projected at 46%. Minutes come from his last five club matches: 83 expected. He has 10 FPL points from his last five club matches. He is first on penalties (FPL’s penalty order), which the projection counts.

Also in the running:

• Barry (EVE, FWD, £5.7m) — projected 4.88 pts vs ARS (A)

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

• Coventry City — 2/5
• Aston Villa — 2.33/5
• Chelsea — 2.5/5
• Ipswich Town — 2.5/5
• Spurs — 2.5/5

Toughest runs

• Man City — 3.5/5
• Sunderland — 3.33/5
• Nott'm Forest — 3.33/5
• Newcastle — 3.33/5
• Man Utd — 3.33/5

Gameweek Shape

Every club plays exactly once in each of GW8–GW13. 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 GW11. Fixtures turn from GW11: Spurs (3.67→1.33), Aston Villa (3.33→1.33), Liverpool (4.33→2.33) 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.

Four Names for Gameweek 8

From 494 projected players, the model’s three captain options and its defence pick for this gameweek:

• Haaland (MCI, FWD) — captain option 1
• Gonzalo (FUL, FWD) — captain option 2
• Barry (EVE, FWD) — captain option 3
• Murillo (NFO, DEF) — the defence pick

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 v2: expected FPL points from the TACTIX match model’s expected goals for each fixture (its clean-sheet market where it has one), each player’s share of his club’s xG and xA (last 8 matches, shrunk to his position), minutes from his last five club matches, penalties from FPL’s order, bonus, defensive contributions, saves and cards — scored with FPL’s own points table, read from the game each day. Doubles are summed. Fixtures the match model has not forecast yet use expected goals fitted from TACTIX team ratings (10 model, 50 ratings-fitted). Not modelled: own goals, red cards, penalty saves and misses. Every figure here is a likelihood estimate, never a promise — how the model works and how it has actually done.

Earlier Planners in This Series

• FPL Gameweek 7 planner: TACTIX research, Thu 15 Oct
• FPL Gameweek 6 planner: the data, Thu 8 Oct
• FPL Gameweek 5 planner: fixture difficulty, chip timing and projected points

Related: How accurate the model is

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