Fantasy Premier League - A first look at early strategies for 23/24

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While we wait for the release of player prices and the 23/24 fantasy game to formally begin, managers in the Hive FPL can already begin plotting their strategies based on the release of the Premier League fixture list and the associated 'fixture difficulty' tracker which is a cornerstone of any side's planning throughout the season.

The opening 6 game weeks look like this

EPL teams ranked by fixture difficulty GW1 to GW6 - source

It's always worth taking fixture difficulty based on a previous season's performances with a pinch of salt but if we assume that the sides in the top 6 last year will likely be up and around those positions in this coming season and that the same can be said for those who struggled in the bottom third, then these are key considerations for managers to make...

Man City

Last year’s champions Man City have been gifted a fairly easy start to the 23/24 campaign. 4 of their opening 6 matches come against either promoted sides or those who barely escaped relegation last season. Their 2 tougher opponents in Newcastle and Fulham both travel to the Ethiad.

City of course aren’t famed for making fast starts to the season and Guardiola may spring the odd tactical change that can leave managers with expensive flops - Cancelo for example went from the most expensive FPL defender, to surplus to requirements in the space of a couple of months as City transitioned to a system with 4 centre backs. With the futures of players like Bernado Silva and Riyad Mahrez still very much up in the air, then it's not impossible that Pep will be forced into a tactical reshuffle again.

In that regard, might a player like Phil Foden get more game time than he managed at the end of last season? He put in a couple of monster game weeks pre-Christmas but was otherwise very hit and miss.

The other big question as far as City players are concerned, is what price Haaland will start at? He was £11.5mil at the start of last season but I think we can expect that to head towards the £13mil mark if not higher for 23/24. Given City’s fixture list, you’d expect 80-90% of teams to start with Haaland unless the FPL decide to up his price to £14mil which might actually make the game a little more interesting…

Venue	Total goals	Goals per 90mins
At home	22	1.51
Away	14	0.86

Haaland home and away scoring stats in EPL 22/23

At the same time, he did only score once in his final 8 games of the 2022/23 season (in all competitions) and there is also a significant difference in his scoring rates at home vs away. You'd be a brave man to bet against him but then fortune favours the brave and if everyone is picking him as captain, then really it's a zero sum game.

The final consideration when picking City players is their very busy schedule. They will of course kick the season off with the Charity Shield before travelling to Greece in between GW1 and GW2 to play in the European Super Cup. While a more medium to long term consideration, they also don't have a match scheduled for GW18 on account of their involvement in the World Club Cup.

Arsenal

Runners up Arsenal also have a fairly gentle start to the season. Again, their 2 tougher opponents in United and Spurs both have to make the trip to the Emirates.

The real challenge when picking Arsenal players last season was selecting the correct 1 or 2 midfielders. Saka, Martinelli and Odegaard were all must haves for certain parts of the season and at others went off the boil as far as points scoring was concerned. Of course the price points of the later 2 meant that it wasn't a major issue for managers to carry them even during a fallow period but that is unlikely to be the case this time around. You'd imagine all 3 will now be around the £8mil mark.

And what about Kai Havertz? All eyes will be on where he plays during pre-season and what position FPL gives him. Last year he was listed as a forward and did spend a considerable amount of time as Chelsea's most advanced player. I doubt that Arsenal will misuse him in quite such a manner and the stats below show how poorly suited he is for that role. Is Havertz there to add squad depth or will Arteta be brave enough to play him in the role that Xhaka held last season?

Player	Goals Scored	XG	Dif
Havertz	6	10.8	-4.8
Nketiah	4	8.1	-4.1
Eriksen	1	5.1	-4.1
Calvert-Lewin	1	5.0	-4.0
Willock	3	7.0	-4.0
Schar	1	5.0	-4.0

Biggest difference in non-penalty goals vs expected goals in EPL 2022/23

Other teams with appealing early fixtures

Liverpool - Certainly home fixtures against Bournemouth, Villa and West Ham look appealing but managers might still be a little concerned about Liverpool's unpredictability away from home especially given tougher assignments versus Chelsea and Newcastle.

There's also the ongoing question of whether Liverpool will be able to bring in sufficient reinforcements this summer and of course the future of Jurgen Klopp who is wanted by the German national team.

Chelsea - They surely can't be as bad as they were last season right? All eyes will be on what they achieve in the transfer window and how pre-season goes under a new coach and what is a largely new group of players. Get off to a winning start against Liverpool on the opening day of the season and the whole mood around Stamford Bridge will feel very different, setting the Blues up for a run of winnable games to come.

Brighton - The surprise packages of last season. You'd expect players like Mitoma, March and Enciso to be popular picks again given the attacking intent that Brighton showed under De Zerbi and the fact that their opening 3 fixtures of this campaign all look very winnable.

Bigger challenges for the squad will undoubtedly arrive once midweek fixtures in Europe begin to take their toll but for now, it's likely that most managers will start with 1 or 2 Seagulls in the mix!

https://twitter.com/OfficialBHAFC/status/1662961103624609793?lang=en-GB

Luton - I'm not sure I fully agree that away trips to Brighton and Chelsea can be considered 'grey' (neutral) as far as fixture difficulty is concerned for a newly promoted side. However, Luton will definitely have some cheap players available and their home fixtures against Burnley, West Ham and Wolves could be crucial to defining the early part of their debut season in the Premier League. The players and fans will certainly be up for those key clashes!

Tougher Starts

Newcastle - Playing City and Liverpool within the first 3 weeks of the season is a tough ask while Villa, Brighton and Brentford will all been keen to build on the back of their success last season by getting off to a quick start in 2023/24.

The one key for Newcastle is that they look likely to have one of the more settled squads amongst the sides challenging for top 4 this year. A couple of signings will be coming into to strengthen what they already have but otherwise Eddie Howe will be looking to build on last season.

Man United - A couple of very winnable home matches proceed trips to play both North London clubs while of course Brighton did the double over United last season. Much could depend on the ongoing ownership saga with the Glazers dragging out the sale of the club into its 8th month.

A solution has appeared to be just around the corner on multiple occasions only for the unpopular American family to decide that they'd like to extract a little bit more money from the potential sale. If the debacle drags on much longer then it will have a significant impact on United's pre-season preparations that could only make a tricky start to 23/24 even worse.

https://twitter.com/premierleague/status/1556277380284829698?lang=en-GB

Notts Forest - Forest were woeful away from home for all of last season and start their new campaign with trips to Arsenal, City, United and Chelsea - ouch!

Early captain picks

Is it all about Haaland again this season?

As noted above, you'd imagine that he'll be the most popular pick in the game and given City's start to the campaign a lot of managers will lock him in as their captain too. However, the other leading candidates (at least based on what managers did last year) are also worthy of consideration.

https://twitter.com/OfficialFPL/status/1616093623363465219

By the middle of last season, Haaland featured in over 85% of sides and was the captain pick in the vast majority of those

Marcus Rashford - Is the only one amongst those big name popular picks who starts off the campaign at home with United taking on Wolves, a team that has lost its best player to the Saudi league and almost lost their manager too!

Mo Salah - While Haaland's starting price will inevitably go up, might Salah's come down? The Liverpool forward took a fair bit of slack from FPL managers but still had a very strong season, just not quite to the levels of the year before. GW2 sees Liverpool entertain Bournemouth in a fixture that they won 9-0 at a similar point last season albeit that Salah inexplicably failed to register a goal involvement!

Harry Kane - Mr Dependable has a nice run of matches from GW3 to GW5 where you'd expect him to be on the scoresheet. Eyes will be on Spurs pre-season performances, summer transfers and FPL managers will get a sense of where Spurs and Kane are at with those opening 2 games away at Brentford and home to United before necessarily taking the plunge for the England captain.

An Arsenal player - As noted above, it's much harder to pick a single Arsenal player to deliver with the captain's armband on. However, their opening day fixture against Forest looks particularly juicy so I'd expect the likes of Saka, Jesus, Martinelli and Odegaard to be players under consideration.

International Breaks, European Football and the Transfer Window

The initial part of the season will see an international break after every 4 game weeks. These are both frustrating for most fans (who gives a shit about international qualification matches) and they also make it hard for managers to judge early season form of players and clubs. There are 3 breaks pre-Christmas with the last coming after GW12 in early November.

We've noted that Man City's schedule will be stretched by their participation in the European Super League and World Club Cup but Aston Villa too have a busy start to the season with their Europa Conference League campaign starting with a home and away'play-off' to played mid-week after GW2 and GW3 respectively.

Assuming that Villa progress then it means that from GW5 onwards 7 EPL teams including City, Arsenal, Newcastle, United, Liverpool and Brighton will be involved in midweek games in at least 8 of the following 11 game weeks.

Again, managers will be interested to see how Arsenal cope with their first Champions League campaign in 7 years and how the likes of Newcastle, Villa and Brighton manage their squads given that the 23/24 season sees their first tastes of European football for a long time too.

To a lesser extent, managers will also keep an eye on the EFL Cup which starts between GW3 and GW4. We know that traditionally a lot of EPL sides and particularly those involved in Europe will rotate their squads.

Then of course FPL managers still have to have the uncertainty of the transfer window which won't close until 11pm (BST) on 1 September, just before GW4 fixtures are due to take place. With this shaping up to be a particularly turbulent transfer window, you'd be a brave man/woman to play your first wildcard before the squads are settled and everyone at least comes home fit from that first international break.