A team’s fixtures can make a big difference to the fantasy points scored by their players. If a team are playing United, Chelsea and Arsenal in a single month, you probably don’t want to be shipping in their players. In fact, you ought to consider shipping them out. Analysing the fixture list and identifying blocks of difficult and easier games will help you in your fantasy team selections. That’s why I have created this little chart to help you out.

Using the chart below you can see at a glance when teams will clash with the “Big 4″ clubs and when they face tricky away games (to Blackburn, Villa, Portsmouth and Everton). On the flipside it will also indicate to you when they play the promoted sides and when they have home games against the teams that flirted with relegation last season (Wigan, Fulham, Bolton and Sunderland).

Local derbies are also classified as difficult games. White blocks are games against mid-table sides based on last season’s league table and it’s those blocks, along with the blue patches, that you’re looking for. Using this chart you should be able to isolated blocks of fixtures for each team to help you identify when you should be considering their players or alternatively, when you should be shipping them out.

I’ll endeavour to keep this table up to date and may also change the status of the colour coding as the season progresses and new difficult/easier opponents emerge.