Teams With The Easiest Upcoming Fixtures

Six teams have kind fixtures on paper. The model only trusts a handful of the players inside them.

The read. Arsenal and Manchester United top our fixture screen for attacking returns across the next six, and both runs are genuinely soft: Arsenal open with Coventry at home before Villa, Chelsea, Sunderland, Brighton and Leeds; United face Hull, Ipswich, Everton, City, Fulham and Tottenham. Yet the standout name in the Arsenal group isn't a forward at all — our model ranks Gabriel (£8.0m, a quarter of managers own him) first, with Raya (£6.0m) next and Calafiori (£5.5m) the value angle. That tells you where Arsenal's points are most reliably concentrated, even though their clean-sheet outlook is only middling.

United's list is more conventional. Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m, owned by nearly half the game) leads, and he carries our largest projected total of any midfielder here. Behind him, Mbeumo and Cunha (both £8.0m, both under 16% owned) are the differentials — priced identically, projected similarly, and both in a side whose fixtures look kind at both ends.

Haaland (£15.5m) remains the highest-projected single asset in this set for City, who have a favourable run through Bournemouth, Palace, Coventry, United, Sunderland and Liverpool. Liverpool and Chelsea sit a tier below: Szoboszlai (£7.0m) and João Pedro (£7.5m) are the model's preferred routes in, both already widely owned, so neither moves you far from the crowd.

The nuance. "Easy fixtures" is not one thing. Brighton's schedule looks decent for goals but our clean-sheet outlook for them is the worst in this group — Verbruggen at £4.5m is cheap cover, not a source of upside, and the real intrigue is Minteh (£6.0m, essentially unowned). Equally, Arsenal's attacking fixtures being kind doesn't automatically make their defence a set-and-forget: the shutdown projection there is average, so Gabriel's case rests on his goal threat as much as clean sheets.

FPL VERDICT.

• Buy: Gabriel (£8.0m) — the best-ranked asset in the best attacking run, and a defender who scores.
• Buy/hold: Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) — hold if owned; the fixtures justify the price tag.
• Captain: Haaland (£15.5m) at home to Bournemouth.
• Watch: Mbeumo, Cunha and Minteh — cheap access to kind fixtures at low ownership.
• Avoid as upside: Brighton defenders.