Home » Fantasy Football Tips Fantasy Premier League Defensive Forecast For Gameweek 1-5 Fantasy Premier League Defensive Forecast For Gameweek 1-5

We’ve created a defensive forecast to help visualise the clean sheet potential of each team in their opening five fixtures of the Fantasy Premier League 2016/17 season.

We are trying to bring a different angle to the discussion and at a glance you’ll notice our forecast differs from the ‘fixture trackers’ you will have seen in recent weeks. With this in mind, we feel it’s essential that we thoroughly explain what we’ve created.

Description Of Forecast:

The table below displays every Premier League team’s clean sheet potential for each fixture between Gameweek 1 to Gameweek 5, based on form last season.

Each team was ranked from 1-20 in two different categories: average number of goals conceded and average number of goals scored. The data range was the entire 2015/16 season.

Most goals scored = Highest Rank

Most goals conceded = Highest Rank

As the three promoted teams will face tougher opposition in the Premier League, we’ve added a 25% handicap to their goals scored rank and a 50% handicap to their goals conceded rank.

For each fixture the team’s goal scoring rank is added to their opposition’s goals conceded rank. The lower the number, the more chance of that team scoring in the fixture.

Every team’s goalscoring rank for each game week has been coloured in accordance to this key:

Fantasy Premier League Defensive Forecast For Gameweek 1-5:

The best possible rank a team can get for a single gameweek is 2 and the worst is 40. We’ve also made the Google Drive document available to those who would like to see the individual rankings for each fixture.

Observations from the table:

Tottenham and Manchester United top the table thanks to their disciplined defensive performances last season that saw them both concede a league lowest of just 35.

The table suggests that Tottenham are likely to keep a clean sheet in their first five Premier League matches, with Crystal Palace (H) and Stoke (A) being the most likely fixtures.

Manchester United on the other hand are very likely to not concede in their first three away matches as they face new boys Hull, Bournemouth and Watford.

Leicester travel to the KC Stadium on the opening day of the season and the table suggests they’ll get their title defence off to a good start with a clean sheet. Home matches against Swansea and Burnley also shouldn’t trouble the Foxes defensively.

Arsenal have a tough opening two fixtures with Liverpool (H) followed by Leicester (A), both teams had no trouble finding the net last season averaging 1.66 and 1.79 goals per game respectively. Afterwards things brighten up with Watford (A), Southampton (H) and Hull (A); three fixtures that could very likely bring clean sheets.

Southampton start the Premier League campaign with a strong run of home matches that include Watford, Sunderland and Swansea. Sandwiched between these fixtures are away visits to Man United and Arsenal that could prove more difficult.

Pep Guardiola has the perfect opportunity to get his debut season off to a great start with opening matches against Sunderland (H) and Stoke (A). Looking further ahead, West Ham (H) and Man United (A) could cause his defence problems and after these fixtures we’ll know whether to invest in City defenders going forward.

West Brom, Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough all then follow closely behind. These three teams have a number of nailed on £4.5m defenders and if you’re looking to rotate three cheap defenders, these could be the clubs to turn to.

The Baggies resolute defence under Tony Pulis can be credited to them holding on to their Premier League status. Last season they conceded 1.26 goals per game on average – a better record than the likes of Liverpool, West Ham and Chelsea.

Middlesbrough rank the highest from the newly promoted clubs and a quick glance at their opening five fixtures will confirm why. Last season they were very tight at the back and conceded an incredibly low 0.67 goals per game in the Championship.

Palace’s new signings Mandanda and Tomkins will no doubt add some reinforcement to Pardew’s back line ahead of the 16/17 campaign. This will be put to test in their opening three home matches against West Brom, Bournemouth and Stoke where they’re forecasted as likely to keep a clean sheet.

West Ham conclude the top half of the table despite their opening away matches against Chelsea and Man City. The Hammers were known to outscore their opponents last season rather than put in tight defensive performances.

The surprise inclusion within the bottom half of the table are 14/15 Champions; Chelsea. Last season is one they’ll be quick to put behind them and following the arrival of Conte & Kante you can expect their defensive displays to improve tenfold. This is probably a good time to remind you again that the forecast is based on last seasons stats alone.

Despite their defences being full of bargain buys, we’d recommend that you steer clear of defenders from Stoke, Burnley, Hull, Bournemouth and Sunderland for the first few weeks. These five are predicted a very tough run and haven’t made any signings to suggest otherwise.

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