Planning for a double game week is a very effective way to get ahead of your rivals in FPL. The maths is simple, the more fixtures your players play, the more likely they are to score points. Therefore, we’ve put together this list of game weeks to help you understand when the remaining double game weeks are coming in FPL.
Before I start, credit goes to @BenCrellin on Twitter, for sharing his spreadsheet that predicts the likeliness of double and blank game weeks for us FPL managers. His account is the source for most of the information below. Give him a follow if you’d like updates to the double game weeks throughout the season.
Remaining double game weeks
The likely list of potential double game weeks is below, however, nothing is officially confirmed yet, so this list could change.
- Game week 34
- Game week 35 or 36
- Game week 37
In the list above, there are different probabilities of whether the double game week is likely to go ahead. So i’ll go through the probability for each one in chronological order.
Game week 34
Game week 34 is quite likely to be a double due to the way FA cup fixtures have fallen. It could however also be a blank game week. The teams likely to double in this game week are:
- Crystal Palace vs West Ham and Newcastle
- Everton vs Nottingham Forest and Liverpool
- Newcastle vs Manchester United and Crystal Palace
- Sheffield United vs Burnley and Manchester United
Here, only either Newcastle or Sheffield United can double because both teams are set to plan Man United. Man United can only play one fixture though.
As mentioned, there are potentially more teams that could have a double, and also some teams could blank.
Game week 35 or 36
Either of these game weeks could be a double, but likely not both. Also, it will only be a very small game week, with potentially only Brighton and Chelsea having the double game week.
Game week 37
This one looks to be the biggest double of the season with most teams doubling.
- Arsenal vs Man United and Wolves or Chelsea (depending on whether DGW 35 or 36 goes ahead)
- Bournemouth vs Wolves and Brentford
- Brighton vs Newcastle and Chelsea or Man City (dependant on the same as above)
- Chelsea vs Nottingham Forest and Brighton, Arsenal or Spurs
- Everton vs Sheffield and Liverpool
- Liverpool vs Aston Villa and Fulham or Everton
- Man City vs Fulham and Spurs or Brighton
- Man United vs Arsenal and Newcastle or Sheffield United
- Nottingham Forest vs Brighton and Man United or Crystal Palace
- Spurs vs Burnley and Man City or Chelsea
- Wolves vs Crystal Palace and Arsenal or Bournemouth
As you can see, many of these fixtures depends on what happens in the weeks prior. There are lots of teams with lots of fixtures to play. They will all get played, of course, however, it’s just a matter of when. We can still use this information to plan around which teams have the most fixtures, and who still has to play the easiest opponents.
How can we use this info to get ahead in FPL?
Now we know who is playing who, it is still somewhat unclear when each fixture will happen. We will know more information as we get closer to the time, but we can still start planning now by looking at how many games each team has remaining.
Chelsea have played the least game with only having played 27 fixtures. This means their players should be top of our transfer lists. They have 11 matches to play in just 9 game weeks which means 2 double game weeks. We should straight away be prioritising Cole Palmer, who priced at £5.7m at this time, should have an easy way into our midfield.
That leaves the following teams having played 28 fixtures, meaning they will play one double, and anyone not mentioned below have played 29, so won’t have a double (except Chelsea who have played 27, as mentioned above).
- Arsenal
- Liverpool
- Man City
- Spurs
- Man United
- Brighton
- Wolves
- Newcastle
- Bournemouth
- Crystal Palace
- Everton
- Sheffield United
The good news here is that most of the strongest teams are due to play double game weeks, and most teams in the bottom half are not.
Therefore, the obvious ideal strategy is to focus on players from
- Chelsea
- Arsenal
- Liverpool
- Man City
- Spurs
And also any talisman from any of the other clubs such as Eze/Olise from Crystal Palace and Solanke from Bournemouth.
When to use your remaining chips
Depending on which chips you have left to play, order of priority would be GW37 first, then 34, then 35/36.
Using your wildcard to plan around the GW37 double could set you up for a nice bench boost. You could easily field a full 11 and bench with double game week players, considering the amount of fixtures.
The free hit chip would be a great option for any game week, but remember, you can’t use it on the same week as other chips, so plan carefully to get the most out of your bench boost and triple captain too, if you still have those left.
