Here’s our 2nd fantasy premier league double gameweeks and blanks article. With the 4th round now out of the way I thought I would produce a schedule so we could monitor the 2 potential blank gameweeks of GW28, GW31 and GW34. I’ll update them again after the 4th round replays on Tuesday and Wednesday February 4th and 5th
fantasy premier league double gameweeks and blanks – monitoring potential blank gameweeks
Summary
This article is all about which games are staying in GW28, GW31 and GW34 as both teams have been knocked out of the cup and postponements are not required.
After the EFL semis the games in GW28, GW31 and GW34 guaranteed to be on are:
GW28
All games on except:
Aston Villa v Sheffield United
Man City v Arsenal
The FPL site has taken both these fixtures out of GW28
GW31
Burnley v Watford
Wolves v Bournemouth
GW34
West Ham v Burnley
Teams with games in all 3 potential blank weeks
Just Burnley
It’s worth noting that this will obviously expand after the 4th round FA Cup replays (between GW25& GW26) and the 5th round FA Cup games (between GW28 & GW29 no replays)
A few introductory words
First of all you might find it useful to read my background article on the fantasy premier league double gameweeks and blanks as I won’t repeat the fundamentals here.
However, in very short terms blank gameweeks are where fixtures are removed due to clashes with FA Cup and EFL Cup and can’t be accommodated within the same gameweek. When they are removed from a gameweek this creates blanks in the fixtures. When they are postponed to another gameweek teams end up playing twice, hence the term double gameweek.
The caveat on everything is that we predict doubles and blanks on the basis that games can’t be located to midweeks where there are European cup games irrespective of the teams or even English team involvement in those European games. There have been exceptions but not many.
It’s worth remembering that which games go to which postponement locations is difficult to predict.
Here’s a potential timetable:
BLANK GW28 – EFL finalists postponements – Aston Villa v Sheffield Utd and Man City v Arsenal postponed. No location for the either game yet
BLANK GW31 – FA Cup quarter finalists PL matches postponed
DOUBLE GW34 – Potential location for postponements
BLANK GW34 – FA Cup semi finalists PL matches postponed. A blank and double!
DOUBLE GW37 – Potential location for postponements
Without going into detail initial some initial options on chip strategy are as follows. It will be fixture dependent and does assume you have all your chips in place.
FTs = Use free transfers WC = wildcard, FH is free hit and BB = bench boost.
By the way I haven’t done any work on what to do without a WC or FH. Rob Reid and Andrew Whitfield and Costas Chari have used their wildcards and I’m hoping they will provide some guidance as they navigate the with his team.
There’s also Joseph Crilleys transfer planner on our subscription Patreon site which will be updated for doubles and blanks as information is known to give you practical guidance on navigating them with or without chips
A word about GW28 and the triple postponement GW25/GW26 potential effect
If Man City or Arsenal or Sheffield United make it to the semi finals of the FA Cup that’s 3 postponed games for 2 locations. The FA might want to get ahead of the game and put these into GW25 or GW26. They had better be quick though. Needs monitoring.
Here’s GW28 with the postponed games in red
The FA Cup 4th round replays and 5th round draws
This is from the BBC Football website
between GW25 & GW26
between GW28 & GW29 no replays
Gameweek 31
GW31 is where the quarter finals will be held and the quarter finalists fixtures postponed.
So this schedule outlines the GW31 fixtures. The intention is to show which fixtures won’t be affected by postponements. Fixtures that are safe within that gameweek and will go ahead as both teams have been knocked out of the FA Cup are in green.
Remember GW31 conflicts with the quarter finals so we still have to navigate through the 5th round FA Cup to see which fixtures will remain.
The schedule shows the GW31 teams 5th round opponent. If the team has been knocked out of the FA Cup it says OUT.
Remember this is more about monitoring which games are left in GW31 to help plan for that. I’m not going to get on to the potential fixtures for double gameweeks yet.
I’ll continuously update it and post it on the site
Gameweek 34
GW34 is where the semi finals will be held and the semi finalists fixtures postponed. Bizzarely it is also a midweek home for postponements so could also be a double gameweek. How it works out will depend on the fixtures themselves.
This is for the postponed semi finalists fixtures. I did this although there’s no need to think about it particularly as for certainty there needs to be a 4th round, 5th round and quarters before it crystallises.
Here it is anyway.
And the warning…
Hope it all makes sense and is correct. I have no special knowledge in this area I’ve just tried to join the dots and make sense of the potential situation based on past precedents. If I have made any errors please tell me in the comments section. It will be gratefully received.
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Potential blanks and double gameweeks
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