Man, finding this stuff feels like a full-time job sometimes. The official Premier League fixture release for the 2024/25 season dropped a few weeks back, and immediately, every FPL manager worth his salt lost his mind trying to map out the Double Gameweeks (DGWs).
I started this hunt late, frankly. I was swamped. We had a massive issue at home, dealing with a drainage problem that decided to explode right when the PL schedule was announced. I spent three days wrestling with contractors and looking at pipes instead of looking at football fixtures. I felt like I was already three Gameweeks behind before GW1 had even kicked off.
The Scramble: How I Dug Up the Raw Data
Once I finally got the house semi-sorted and could actually breathe, I jumped straight into it. You know how it is. You try to look for the easy answer, but every site just has clickbait predicting DGWs without any real meat.
My first step wasn’t even searching for “Double Gameweek FPL.” That’s a beginner mistake. It just gives you garbage speculation. I smashed the keys searching for the official Premier League fixture list PDF. I needed the foundation. I needed the postponements waiting to happen. I knew the DGWs wouldn’t be officially confirmed by FPL until January or February, but the raw data for predicting them is available now.
I finally pulled up the official, raw fixture grid. This is where the real work started. I transferred the whole schedule into a basic spreadsheet. I didn’t use any fancy tools; just basic Excel skills I learned back in college when I was supposed to be doing my coursework but was actually drafting fantasy lineups.
What was I looking for? Cup dates.
- I cross-referenced the PL fixture dates with the confirmed FA Cup rounds and League Cup final dates. I needed to see the conflict points.
- I highlighted every fixture involving teams that historically make deep runs in the cup competitions (the usual suspects: City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, etc.).
- I circled potential conflict weeks. If a PL match is scheduled on the same weekend as an FA Cup Fifth Round tie, and one of those teams is still in the cup, BOOM. That game is getting postponed. That postponed game creates a DGW later.
This process of elimination and prediction took me a solid three hours. I had to go back twice because I missed one of the early League Cup third round dates the first time around. By the end, I had a working, unofficial list of likely postponements, which translates directly to where the DGWs will likely fall in the spring.
Why the Rush? A Lesson Learned the Hard Way
Now, you might be thinking, “Mate, why are you spending three hours on a spreadsheet when the official FPL calendar isn’t even out?”
Because last year, I made a huge, costly mistake. And it wasn’t a small one. It actually taught me to respect these fixture announcements more than anything else.
I was in my main mini-league, the high-stakes one. Fifty quid buy-in, proper serious business. I was doing great, top three going into the Christmas period. Then came the big Blank Gameweek (BGW) announcement. I totally missed the exact timing because I was completely absorbed in trying to secure a big promotion at work. I was burning the midnight oil, ignoring everything else.
I forgot to set my team for the BGW. Seriously.
I logged in Sunday morning, ready to check the scores, and realized I had seven players blanking. Seven! My rank plummeted. I went from top three to outside the top fifty in one weekend. I eventually dragged myself back up, but the emotional damage was done. I lost the league by about twenty points, and I know exactly where those twenty points went—they vanished in that single, tragic BGW where I fielded half a team.
My wife still laughs about it. She says the look on my face when I realized my mistake was priceless. But I had put in the effort all season, and one moment of professional distraction cost me the cash and the bragging rights.
So this year? No chance. I vowed I would meticulously dissect the fixture list the second it dropped, even if it meant delaying sleep or dealing with a flooding kitchen. If I predict the DGWs and BGWs now, I can start planning my chip strategy (Wildcard, Free Hit) months in advance. You can’t just react in FPL; you have to preemptively scheme.
The Outcome: My Early DGW Predictions
What did all that effort reveal?
The key takeaway is that the raw schedule is already screaming about two major postponement clusters that will create DGWs.
Here’s what my practice log currently shows for the 2024/25 Double Gameweeks:
- The Early Spring Cluster: Looks like a small DGW, probably Gameweek 29 or 30. This is based primarily on League Cup involvement. Not huge, maybe only four teams max, but vital for planning early transfers.
- The Mega-Chaos Cluster: The big one always comes late. Based on the scheduled FA Cup dates clashing with key PL fixtures, we are absolutely heading for a massive DGW likely around Gameweek 34 or 35. That’s where all the big postponed games will land and where you need to save your Bench Boost or Free Hit.
- The Final Push: There’s a high possibility of a final, smaller DGW right near the end, maybe GW 37, dependent on how deep English teams go in European competitions, forcing one final rescheduling shuffle. You have to monitor those European progresses closely.
The practice was successful because I didn’t wait for the official confirmation. I took the raw data and hammered out the probability myself. The full, confirmed schedule won’t be released until much later, but by identifying the postponement triggers now, you’ve got a huge advantage. Don’t wait for the FPL app to tell you; get the raw PL data and map it out. That’s the only way to stay ahead of the curve, mate. Don’t end up losing fifty quid like I did.