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

We’ve created an attacking forecast to help visualise the goalscoring 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 attacking 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 scored and average number of goals conceded. The data range was the entire 2015/16 season.

Most goals scored = Lowest Rank

Most goals conceded = Lowest 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 Attacking 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:

Manchester City and Tottenham are expected to fire out of the gates this season with by far the highest attacking potential from the opening five gameweeks.

Manchester City were lethal in attack last season, averaging a league highest average of 1.87 goals per game. In their opening five matches they host the two worst defences that survived relegation, Sunderland (1.63 goals conceded per game) and Bournemouth (1.76 goals conceded per game).

Although our table suggests that City will score the most, Tottenham are forecasted to bring the most consistent goalscoring returns with all five matches ranked at ‘likely’ or higher. As well as hosting previously mentioned Sunderland, they also travel to Everton and Stoke who last season both conceded an average of 1.45 goals per game.

Leicester take on two of the new boys over the first five weeks, travelling to Hull on Gameweek 1 before hosting Burnley on Gameweek 5. Sandwiched between are fixtures against Arsenal (H) and Liverpool (A) which based on last season don’t flag up as any concern. However, it’s important to note that this season they start their title defence and will need to pick up momentum early to avoid their season panning out like Chelsea’s (Champions in 14/15, 10th in 15/16).

According to the table, West Ham are likely to score in all of their opening matches despite facing up against Chelsea and Man City. The Hammers were solid in attacking last season and after welcoming some promising new attacking midfielders, we expect them to pick up where they left off last season averaging 1.71 goals per game.

Chelsea join Tottenham and West Ham as the only teams who are ‘likely’ to score in all five of their opening fixtures. Despite having a disappointing campaign in 2015/16 season, they still managed to average 1.55 goals per game. The opening day derby match against West Ham should arrive with goals as usual, then fixtures against Watford, Burnley and Swansea should see the Conte’s Blues click into gear.

After their tough opener against Tottenham, Everton have the challenge of squeezing one past a Tony Pulis defence before an easier run against Stoke (H), Sunderland (A) and Middlesbrough (H).

Southampton and Liverpool are expected to find the net in four of their five opening matches, with our table suggesting possible blanks against Man United (A) and Tottenham (A) respectively. Southampton’s attack has been served a huge blow as they lost both Graziano Pellè and Sadio Mane, who were the club’s joint top goalscorers in the Premier League last season with 11 goals each.

Burnley place just outside the top ten and are the highest ranked of the new arrivals. They scored the most goals in the Championship last season (72, tied with Brighton & Brentford) and our table indicates they could score in four of their five opening matches.

Swansea’s first two matches of the Premier League 2016/17 campaign are against newly promoted Burnley (A) and Hull (H). Last season they averaged a mere 1.10 goals per game which they’ll look to improve on this season with arguably the easiest opening two matches.

Bournemouth and Crystal Palace will be hoping their new attacking signings can help them through what’s forecasted as a tough opening month for the pair. Middlesbrough and Hull will be looking to upset the odds with a couple of wins from their opening fixtures.

Meanwhile, Stoke and Watford will be looking to improve on their previous seasons which showed promising runs of form. West Brom on the other hand showed that they’re in desperate need of a consistent goalscorer or they could end up back in the relegation dogfight.

We’ve recently launched our new Fplbet Members Group for the Premier League 2016/17 season. If you’re an avid FPL players looking to discuss fantasy with an active community of experienced players, follow the instructions on the Members Page to gain entry.