With the first month of the new season on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to look at fixtures for August in advance for planning an initial team and any transfers to be made in August. Below I’ve focused on the top seven teams and sorted them in terms of teams with the best fixtures in August.
West Ham (7 games)
Man City (H)
Forest (A)
Europa Conference League Playoff
Brighton (H)
Europa Conference League Playoff
Villa (A)
Spurs (H)
I’ve placed West Ham at the top of this list for one reason only – fixture volume. They have 2 additional fixtures in August with the Europa Conference League Playoff fixture coming into play. If it wasn’t for this, they would probably be bottom of the list. I don’t like their opening fixture as they host Man City and I’m not keen on their fixture against Spurs either. However, depending on their draw for the European games, they may be able to make up some points here. In terms of their players, there’s only three I’d consider at the moment – that’s Bowen, Antonio and Benrahma. I could be tempted by one of their defenders for the middle 5 fixtures in this run but it will all depend on team budget and player values.
Man City (5 games)
West Ham (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Newcastle (A)
Palace (H)
Forest (H)
City haven’t got the best opening fixture if you want to get off to a really good start, however, their final four games of the month are very appealing considering they don’t face another top 7 team. Given they are the current Premier League champions and will be going deep into all competitions, I’ll be going as heavy as possible with their players.
Arsenal (5 games)
Palace (A)
Leicester (H)
Bournemouth (A)
Fulham (H)
Villa (H)
Arsenal have a favorable opening month, they avoid playing any of the top four and have a nice home fixture against Fulham. My biggest question mark would be against their consistency to get results so I’m not sure I’ll include many, if any, of their players but some may be worth considering early doors if they represent good value.
Liverpool (5 games)
Fulham (A)
Palace (H)
Man Utd (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Newcastle (H)
Liverpool also have a good opening set of fixtures. They’ve got three home games and open away at newly promoted Fulham. I’d expect them to come out of the blocks quickly given how close they ran City in the Premier League last season. There are a number of their players who would be of interest to me as well – obviously Salah could be this season’s essential pick and I’d be happy with any of their backline.
Man Utd (5 games)
Brighton (H)
Brentford (A)
Liverpool (H)
Southampton (A)
Leicester (A)
I’ve put Man Utd above Chelsea and Spurs based on fixtures alone. However, if form came into play they would probably be at the bottom of this article. I made the mistake of having a number of their players at the start of last season due to good fixtures and it massively backfired. Despite two really nice opening fixtures, I’m not sure I’m brave enough to start with any of their players this season – even if there are a few bargains to be had.
Chelsea (5 games)
Everton (A)
Spurs (H)
Leeds (A)
Leicester (H)
Southampton (H)
On paper, Chelsea’s fixtures are slightly more difficult than Man Utd’s. If you want to get off to a flying start, I’m not sure I fancy their opening fixtures away at Everton and then home to Spurs. I can see them easily beating Everton but you never know which Spurs team will turn up. Having said that, I’d imagine I will be looking to have plenty of Chelsea coverage across the season as they aren’t far behind Liverpool and Man City in terms of consistent good results.
Spurs (5 games)
Southampton (H)
Chelsea (A)
Wolves (H)
Forest (A)
West Ham (A)
I’ve placed Spurs at the bottom of the list due to away fixtures against Chelsea and West Ham during the month. I’d also place them in a similar bracket to Arsenal where they are capable of good results but aren’t consistent enough. As we approach the start of the season, we will also ask ourselves the same question we ask every year “Do we start with Kane or not”. At this stage, I’m not sure what I’ll do myself but he’s almost certain to be up there as one of the highest scorers again this season.
It’s also worth noting that I’ve focused on the teams involved in Europe this season. However, there is an early round of EFL Cup fixtures in August, these involve clubs who aren’t in Europe and there could be potential for picking up extra points in these games if you fancy an early gamble.
Which players do we think will be impacted with the new five sub allowance? You have to think most City attacking assets will be impacted for a start. Son, Kulusevski, Nunez, Jota, Diaz etc will probably see a reduction in minutes over the season too.
When you throw that in with the challenging pricing it makes it really difficult this time around. I might just use my 5 transfers in August to see how teams start/line up and then jump on some early bandwagons.
Having thought about it, I don’t think it really impacted my strategy when it was introduced during the empty stadium Covid times. Maybe nothing much will really change and we’re all worrying about nothing.
I think the biggest change to think about is unlimited transfers during the World Cup this season. Think it makes building team value quite important until that break period as we’d want to be able to choose from as many different players as possible.
That’s a really good point!