How is FPL fixture difficulty calculated?

The ticker shows FPL’s own Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR). FPL rates every fixture from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest) for each of the two teams, mainly on the strength of the opponent. Colour-coded so easy runs (green) and tough stretches (red) are obvious at a glance.

What is a fixture swing in FPL?

A team’s fixture difficulty changing sharply over the next few gameweeks. Spotting upcoming easy runs early is one of the highest-EV transfer signals in FPL.

When are FPL fixtures updated?

Within one hour of any change from the official Premier League schedule. Postponements, double gameweeks, and blank gameweeks are reflected automatically.

FPL Fixture Ticker & Difficulty (FDR) 2026/27

The official FPL fixture difficulty, for every team at once

The ticker shows every Premier League team's upcoming fixtures, colour-coded by FPL's own Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR) for the gameweeks you choose, from dark green for the easiest fixtures to dark red for the hardest. Each match is rated from both sides, so the same game can be a 2 for one team and a 4 for the other.

We show FPL's ratings because, in our testing, they were hard to beat: richer ways of rating each opponent did not predict FPL points any better. What we add is how much difficulty matters. A hard fixture costs a defender far more than a midfielder, because the clean sheet goes with it, so our projections scale each fixture by how much that level of difficulty has moved real FPL points for players in the same position over past seasons.

Fixture swings are transfer signals

The most valuable thing this page shows isn't any single rating - it is the swing: a team whose fixtures flip from red to green (or back) over the next three to six gameweeks. Getting ahead of an easy run before the crowd piles in is one of the highest-value transfer moves in FPL, and it is also how you time wildcards and bench boosts. Sort the ticker by the gameweek range you care about, look for the sharpest colour changes, then check the ratings of that team's key players before committing a transfer.

Double and blank gameweeks appear automatically as the schedule changes, and the team planner uses these same difficulty ratings when it optimises your transfers over the coming gameweeks - so what you see here is exactly what the optimiser sees.

Frequently asked questions

How is FPL fixture difficulty calculated?: The ticker shows FPL’s own Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR). FPL rates every fixture from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest) for each of the two teams, mainly on the strength of the opponent. Colour-coded so easy runs (green) and tough stretches (red) are obvious at a glance.
What is a fixture swing in FPL?: A team’s fixture difficulty changing sharply over the next few gameweeks. Spotting upcoming easy runs early is one of the highest-EV transfer signals in FPL.
When are FPL fixtures updated?: Within one hour of any change from the official Premier League schedule. Postponements, double gameweeks, and blank gameweeks are reflected automatically.