Drafting for Early Fixtures 24/25

For four years now, I have been looking at early fixtures and how to get the most out of them to maximize your team player value and win out of the gates. This strategy, however, takes looking at fixtures to the extreme. One part trade advice, one part draft advice, and a generous helping of our Fixture Difficulty Tracker. For more incredible analysis and draft help check out our 24/25 Draft Kit and our Pricing Plans.

Michael Gary Scott: "The early worm gets the worm!"

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Fixture Difficulty Tracker

Hands down, this is one of the greatest tools on our site. The tracker includes not just positional fixture difficulty ratings, but customizable periods as well. You can set 2 toggles: one for positions and the second one for number of fixtures. Say you are looking for a forward with favourable matchups in the first 3 games: boom! Set the toggles and you have your list of teams to look at. It is as great as it is easy to use. Please take your time and play around with it, then come back and read the rest of the article.

The tracker is for our subscribers. If you are looking to gain access to this incredible tool, look to purchase our Ultimate Pass here.

Early Fixtures are Key

Ok, so this is a no-brainer and pretty obvious to everyone who plays some form of fantasy football: when valuing a player for a certain period of time, you have to look at the fixtures/matchups they are facing in that period. In this article, I am proposing a tactic that takes this to the extreme. Overvaluing early fixtures on draft day, early waiver wire claims, free agent claims, and trade moves is a risky tactic. But it is one that can be successful in leagues that have trade-happy managers. It goes without saying that you, as a manager, have to have a knack for trading, as this strategy relies on getting early value on your picks and then ruthlessly trading them out on a high.

For this article, I will be looking at the first 5 fixtures. After those first few matchups, player valuations will start to set in, and making trades will be much easier, especially for players that had great starts to the season. If the player has excelled in the first few games, look to trade them out as early as Gameweek 3 or 4.

Building Your Roster to Trade Them Away

General Rules

• Draft players who have easy early fixtures (I will be looking at fixtures up until the first international break)

• Do not draft players with difficult early fixtures - especially in the late rounds.

• Draft players whose positions on the team are fairly nailed on. You cannot afford to wait for a long time for their value to materialize.

• Do not draft or get players you will have trouble letting go of for personal reasons.

• Do not draft players that have injuries or other commitments (Olympics) that will prevent them from starting GW1.

You can check out which players we recommended last season here.

Forwards

Ricardo "Frankie" Muniz (mun, LEI, ips, WHU, NEW) - Muniz came onto the scene as Fulham were still reeling from Mitrovic's late defection to Saudi Arabia, which left them without a proven senior goal-scorer. After some early trial and error from Silva, Muniz found his groove and went on an incredible scoring run to cement his spot in the Second Half of the Season XI. Starting the season against shot-conceding masters and injury-ravaged Man United and then facing 2 promoted teams is a dream start. He is drafted fairly highly, but a goal or 2 in the first 3 games will have everyone excited again, so it would be the best time to trade him out after GW3.

Trade target: Jota/Nunez, whichever has fewer starts at that time.

Chris Wood (BOU, sou, WOL, liv, bha) - Another second-half-of-the-season hero, Wood has firmly established his spot in Nuno's starting XI and should provide decent value all season as the focal point of Forest's attack. However, an early purple patch against Bournemeouth and newly promoted Southampton in the first 2 games might give drafters a window to upgrade.

Trade target: Jesus or Mateta seem like decent targets assuming they have not produced the goods in the first 2.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin (BHA, tot, BOU, avl, lei) - DCL keeps his spot in the early targets list from last season and as much as the first 2 games against Brighton and Spurs don't look that easy, the overall first 5 matchups add up to one of the easiest schedules for forwards. With his injury history, you won't be able to get premium value, even if he bangs in the first few, but a conservative upgrade should be on the cards.

Trade target: CHO, Semenyo, Johnson

Midfielders

Emile Smith-Rowe (mun, LEI, ips, WHU, NEW) - The former Arsenal man has finally gotten his big-money move, and he should slot straight into the starting XI with ease. He is being drafted around round 10 in mocks, but I expect that he will rise to an 8th-rounder when real drafts come around. That is a pretty steep premium to pay for a largely unproven asset, who I don't see offering steady long-term value, so if you are thinking of picking him up, definitely do that with a view of shifting him early as Fulham's schedule turns after the first few and while he could be a decent ghoster in an out-and-out winger role (different to where he lined up for Arsenal) if you can upgrade, you should always take the chance to do so.

Trade target: Kulusevski, Grealish, KDH are all drafted a bit ahead of him based on ADP, so should be attainable.

Dominik Szoboszlai (ips, BRF, mun, NOT, BOU) - You knew it was coming when you saw it was Totti writing this, didn't you? Liverpool's early schedule is one of the best around and I firmly believe that Szobó will begin the season in the Starting XI, not only that, but he will be the number 10. This also means that he will be very involved in all the attacks, so I expect him to flourish. As much as I think he is decent value for all-season consideration, most of you ae not as emotionally invested as I am, so let's see the trade targets.

Trade target: Maddison, McNeil, Mitoma, the 3 Ms should be decent targets.

Harvey Barnes (SOU, bou, TOT, wol, ful) - Another personal favourite of mine, whose cruel injury last season and Gordon's excellent form have resulted in a very low valuation and him being considered a late-round punt. With Gordon arriving back late from Euro duty, Barnes doing a full pre-season and reports of Almiron leaving, it looks like there are in fact relatively few players for those attacking spots. So Barnes will likely be relied upon, especially early season.

Tarde target: Grealish, Elliott, Enciso, if they have a spot.

Defenders

Joachim Andersen (brf, WHU, che, LEI, MUN) - The early season schedule will be make or break Palace. Everyone, especially Fantrax managers, is excited about what Palace and Glasner can do. Brentford, West Ham and Leicester should provide enough aerial threat for Anderson to dominate.

Trade target: Schar or Pinnock.

Andy Robertson (ips, BRF, mun, NOT, BOU) - I have already mentioned how great Liverpool's fixtures are to start the season. Robertson had been expected to lose value last season as he should have been the one picking up the slack for TAA. He ended up reverting to his reliable old self until his unfortunate injury. It will be very difficult to upgrade on Robbo, but always worth trying. This suggestion comes with a caveat. If in fact Robbo is carrying that Euros knock, pass on him and check out Qunasah in later rounds, who could hit the ground running.

Trade target: Trippier, if he stays.

Timothy Castagne (mun, LEI, ips, WHU, NEW) - There isn't much more that can be said about Fulham's schedule as we also included a Fulham mid and fwd in this writeup. He is traditionally an attacking fullback, but he is overshadowed by breakout teammate Antonee "Jedi" Robinson. Castagne does not currently make our top 150 ranks, so it is safe to assume that he will be available very late in drafts.

Trade Target: Maatsen

Check out our Fixture Difficulty tracker for more information.

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