Fantasy Premier League: Early EPL fixtures favour Man City, Man Utd to struggle

Fantasy Premier League fans can now start work on their teams for this season, with the English Premier League having announced their official fixtures for the 2019-2020 season today afternoon.

Here are the fixtures for Gameweek 1:

Fantasy Premier League - A Primer

Fantasy Premier League (FPL) is the Official English Premier League fantasy football league and the biggest fantasy football game in the world. It is absolutely free and one can win great prizes if they can devise high-rating teams.

Players can start structuring their teams for the upcoming season starting from June 13, 9 AM BST, with the 380 fixtures for the 2019-2029 released by the Premier League.

Your FPL squad should include 15 players, including two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three strikers, with the total value of the team coming up to no more than £100 million. You can also only select a maximum of three players from any single Premier League team.

Your players will accumulate points based on their performances in various matchweeks and your squad score will be the summation of these individual scores. You can even create a private league and compete among office colleagues, family, and friends!

Opening Gameweek - A Breakdown

On close analysis of each team's beginning set of fixtures, the biggest return on investment will likely be for players from Manchester City, given the easy set of initial fixtures the Cityzens have been allocated.

Apart from a home fixture against Tottenham on August 17, City dont have to face a top-four or top-six side (as per last season's league table) till November. With 10 out of their initial 11 games being relatively easy fixtures, FPL managers are stacking their squads with Manchester City players.

Choosing in-form City players like Bernardo Silva, who was selected as the Player of the Tournament for the recently concluded UEFA Europa Nations League and Raheem Sterling might be the ideal strategy for the initial FPL Gameweeks.

On the other hand, Manchester United have a tough initial set of fixtures. So our advice to even those hardcore United supporters would be: hold on. The Red Devils have to face Europa League winners Chelsea at home for their opening fixture. Tough fixtures against Leicester City and Arsenal are scheduled for September with a clash with Liverpool lined up for October.

With this tough set of initial fixtures and given how erratic and unpredictable the form of Ole Gunnar Solskaer's Manchester United has been off late, our advice is to hold off on selecting United players, at least for the first 3-4 gameweeks.