Player picks win gameweeks; fixture runs win drafts. Before locking a 2026/27 squad, it pays to know which teams the schedule actually favours — so we have taken the Statz fixture difficulty ratings (1 = easiest, 5 = hardest) from the FPL fixture ticker and averaged every side's opening six gameweeks, from the season's start on 21 August through early October. The headline: nobody gets a red carpet this year, but four teams share the kindest road in.
Four sides open with an average fixture difficulty of 2.83 — the best in the league:
The pattern is obvious: the three promoted sides — Ipswich, Hull and Coventry — supply most of the easiest-rated fixtures in the opening block, so the teams that meet them early ride the softest schedule.
Arsenal average 3.00 but their run is bookended beautifully: Coventry at home first, Leeds at home sixth, with the Villa, Chelsea and Sunderland tests packed in between. Chelsea and Brighton also land on 3.00, each with two easiest-rated fixtures in the block.
The run to avoid belongs to Bournemouth: 3.67 average and not a single fixture rated easier than 3 — Manchester City away first, then Everton, Newcastle, Brentford, Liverpool and Chelsea. Fulham (3.33) are not far behind. That matters for the template: Bournemouth's £7.5m Eli Kroupi is a popular mid-price pick, and his side has the hardest opening schedule in the league.
Fixture runs are a tiebreaker, not a strategy — elite players score against anyone. Where the schedule earns real weight is in the cheap seats: budget defenders and keepers live on clean sheets, and clean sheets track fixtures. Everton's kind run strengthens the case for Vitaliy Mykolenko at £4.5m, and Manchester United's Hull-then-Ipswich entry does the same for Luke Shaw — both feature in our cheap defenders guide.
The ratings refresh continuously, so check the live grid on the Statz fixture ticker — you can sort by any gameweek range — and stress-test your draft against the schedule in the My Team planner before the 21 August kick-off.
Which team has the best opening fixtures in FPL 2026/27? Four teams tie on a 2.83 average difficulty for the first six gameweeks: Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Newcastle.
Which team has the worst opening fixtures in FPL 2026/27? Bournemouth — a 3.67 average with no fixture rated easier than 3 in the first six gameweeks, starting at Manchester City.
When does FPL 2026/27 start? Gameweek 1 kicks off on 21 August 2026.