Here’s our 2nd fantasy premier league double gameweeks and blanks article. Before the 1st fourth round FA Cup tie tonight I thought I would produce a schedule so we could monitor the 2 potential blank gameweeks of GW31 and GW33. I’ll update them as the weekend goes on. Now updated for Sundays games.
fantasy premier league double gameweeks and blanks – monitoring potential blanks GW31 & GW33 ( Now updated for Sundays games)
Summary
This article is all about which games are staying in GW31 and GW33 as both teams have been knocked out of the cup and postponements are not required. Until the 5th round draw is made predicting which teams will stay in the Cup and therefore benefit from DGWs is pointless and misleading. The 5th round draw is on Monday 28th January.
After Sunday’s games the games in GW31 and GW33 guaranteed to be on are:
GW31
Bournemouth v Newcastle
Burnley v Leicester
Fulham v Liverpool
West Ham v Huddersfield
GW33
Bournemouth v Burnley
Everton v Arsenal
Huddersfield v Leicester
Southampton v Liverpool
Teams with games in both
Bournemouth – Wilson, Fraser
Burnley – Barnes
Leicester – Vardy, Pereira
Liverpool – Alisson, Alexander Arnold (when fit) Gomez (when fit) Salah, Mane, Firmino
Huddersfield – no one. Maybe Lossl
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 well as my fixture ease article where I talk about the upcoming blank GW27
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. 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.
Here’s a potential timetable:
DOUBLE GW25 – Everton v Man City means both clubs have a DGW. Man City (Arsenal H, Everton A). Everton (Wolves H, Man City H)
BLANK GW27 – EFL finalists postponements – Everton v Man City postponed and Chelsea v Brighton postponed. No location for the latter game yet
BLANK GW31 – FACup quarter finalists postponements
DOUBLE GW32 – potential location for postponements
BLANK GW33 – FACup semi finalists postponements
DOUBLE GW35 – potential location for postponements
Without going into detail initial thinking on chip strategy is:
WC = wildcard, FH is free hit and BB is bench boost.
I do talk about strategy in my early FFGeek team article. Things could become alot clearer after the 4th round FA Cup games and the 5th round draw which is on Monday 28 January 7pm on the BBC.
GW31 below is important as my thinking at present is to navigate it with transfers rather than any chips.
By the way I haven’t done any work on what to do without a WC or FH. Rob Reid has used his wildcard and I’m hoping he will provide some guidance as he navigates them with his team.
Gameweek 31
Now updated for Sundays games
GW31 is where the quarter finals will be held and the quarter finalists fixtures postponed.
So this schedule outlines in bold 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. Those fixtures will be drawn on Monday 28th January at 7pm on the BBC.
The schedule shows the GW31 teams 4th round opponent and the win odds and draw odds assuming a £1 stake. If the team was knocked out in the 3rd round it says OUT.
So for example Man City play Burnley at home in the FA Cup. Man City are £1.06 to win and the game is £12.00 to draw. Man City play Man Utd in GW31. Both teams would need to be knocked out either in the 4th or 5th rounds of the FA Cup for the fixture to go ahead.
Remember this is more about monitoring which games are left in GW31 to help plan for that. We need the 5th round draw to more accurately estimate double gameweeks.
Now updated for Sunday’s games
Gameweek 33
Now updated for Sunday’s games
GW33 is where the semi finals will be held and the semi finalists fixtures postponed.
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.
Now updated for Sunday’s game
I’ll update this over the weekend
Now updated for Sunday’s games
Hope it all makes sense and is correct. I have no special knowledge in this area I’ve just tried to join the doubts 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.
If you want to see how FPL players performed over the season or just in GW23 see our underlying stats article for that gameweek
See also the teams of 10 top FPL managers who have finished in the top 10k for the last 3 seasons as well as the Geeks team and plans
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