🚨 GW20: The FPL cheat sheet 📈

⏰ Gameweek 20’s deadline is Saturday, 3rd January, 11:00 GMT ⏰

🚫 Enzo Maresca leaves Chelsea. Calum McFarlane is set to take temporary charge of their Gameweek 20 fixture vs Man City.

😍 We all have a new set of chips.

💰 The January transfer window is open.

🔄 The yellow card suspension threshold is now 10.

🤕 Riccardo Calafiori is ruled out of Gameweek 20.

👍 Iraola is expecting Antoine Semenyo to play for Bournemouth this gameweek.

👌 “We don’t know yet. We have another session today [Friday]…” - Arteta on Declan Rice’s swollen knee injury.

🔥 Yankuba Minteh's scan came back “OK” and he will train today [Friday] with Brighton [@Chris_Nighty at Sky Sports].

Alright?

They say start the year as you mean to go on.

Yes, you started 2026 with a captaincy blank.

And it’s a cruel coincidence that your midfield happened to score 2, 0, 2 and 6 points last gameweek.

And fine, 100% of your arrows have been red so far in the year of the horse.

But just like a prized mare with furlongs ahead of her, your race isn’t run just yet.

Let’s look ahead to Gameweek 20 in the vague hope that this year will be different.

(spoiler: it probably won’t be).

We're tired of hiding it: We love Fotmob.

We’re planning to go round its house, knock on its door and show it a series of flashcards that profess our love.

Here’s a preview of what we’ve written on them:

Check it out here, but don’t blame us when you develop a crush.

Lazy summary: Try not to scoff your chips right away.

Your chips have refreshed, which means you have a Triple Captain, Bench Boost, Free Hit and Wildcard at your disposal.

But just like the McCains you airfried before reading this newsletter, they’re still piping hot. If you eat them too soon, you’ll probably burn the inside of your soul.

We can hear you from here. You’re saying, “I understand the logic for saving my Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain…but surely it’s smart to play my Wildcard if I need to?”

Three reasons not to play your Wildcard yet

1) The transfer window opened on Thursday and won’t close until the start of February. It's also World Cup season, which could prompt more transfers as players seek out more minutes to try to make the competition squads.

2) As we always bang on about, the Wildcard is best paired with the Bench Boost.

3) There are also Double and Blank Gameweeks to consider. A well-timed Wildcard can often make them easier to navigate and capitalise on.

The truth is, you probably don’t need to play your Wildcard. You just want to, because it’s fun and liberating to make wholesale changes to your team. But in reality, you’re likely a few transfers away from a perfectly reasonable team. Hold it if you can.

Lazy summary: There are some fixture swings you should know about.

One feature of LazyFPL Premium that we don’t talk about enough is the fixture ticker.

It shows every fixture (including other competitions), it can be toggled based on attacking and defensive difficulty, and it can show you good fixture rotations for your bench options (e.g. Brighton and West Ham’s fixtures dovetail beautifully over the next eight gameweeks. Who knew?).

But for this section, it also has an incredible tab called “Fixture Swings”, which allows users to compare previous and future Premier League fixtures for every club.

Here’s a screenshot of the fixture swing toggle for this gameweek:

We’re not going to force you to zoom in on this, so we’ve taken the liberty of bullet-pointing three important bits:

1) Spurs have a nice run

Spurs have been through the wringer a bit over the last six gameweeks, but that’s set to change. Sunderland (H), Bournemouth (A), West Ham (H) and Burnley (A) await, and despite this showing attacker-friendly fixtures, it’s a nice run for their defenders too. Is Micky van de Ven back on the menu?

Villa, Sunderland and Everton also benefit from a nice swing.

2) Liverpool’s fields of green are about to end.

Liverpool have enjoyed a generational run of kind fixtures over December, but that’s about to come to an end. After Fulham (A) this gameweek, they’ve got Arsenal (A), Burnley (H), Bournemouth (A), Newcastle (H) and Man City (H) waiting for them.

3) Aston Villa and Bournemouth will both have excellent runs from Gameweek 24.

If Ollie Watkins is going to become part of the canon of the 25/26 season, it’ll happen during Aston Villa’s fixture run between Gameweek 24 and 30.

Bournemouth without Antoine Semenyo (reports strongly suggest he’ll depart the club this month) are an unknown quantity, but popular picks like Marcos Senesi might well be worth a look during the same stretch.

Lazy summary: It’s Erling Haaland.

It’s always hard to know what will happen to a team when the manager departs.

The new manager bounce is an actual phenomenon (as evidenced by the Premier League itself in this article), but that doesn’t mean every club is guaranteed an upturn in form.

In Chelsea’s case, Calum McFarlane will be hoping to have the same impact that previous interim managers - yes, we’re looking at you, Roberto Di Matteo - had at the club.

But travelling to Man City is a fruity challenge, and he’ll be tackling it without a now-suspended Moisés Caicedo.

So yeah, Erling Haaland gets our armband. Man United, Arsenal and Liverpool all travel in Gameweek 20, which makes the decision easier.

Year of the horse. Year of the Norse. Captain Haaland.

The Professor is uncharacteristically stuck this week. He hasn’t landed on a move yet.

The Yankuba Minteh update is a welcome (and surprising) boost, which means he’s more likely to roll a transfer than he might’ve been before.

But at this time of year, anything could happen.

One thing he has decided on is his captain. No prizes for guessing who gets it:

1) Brennan Johnson will move to Crystal Palace (Fabrizio Romano).

2) Pascal Groß returns to Brighton on a permanent transfer from Borussia Dortmund.

Look, we know it’s a shorter-than-usual edition, but y’know, sometimes there just isn’t that much to report on. You can’t complain - you’re lazy, and brevity ought to be your friend.

Besides, we’re back again on - checks calendar - Monday. We’ll see you ahead of Gameweek 21 for more of the same.

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.