What is the FPL fixture difficulty rating (FDR)
By Arasi Rex · Updated 14 August 2026 · 6 min read
The FPL fixture difficulty rating, or FDR, is the score Fantasy Premier League attaches to each club's upcoming fixtures so managers can plan their transfers and captaincy before a kick-off. A fixture against a side that finished near the top rates hardest, a home game against a promoted side rates easiest, and the exercise exists because a bare fixture list tells you nothing about the order of difficulty. This guide explains how the FPL fixture difficulty rating works, how we grade it transparently from the 2025/26 final table, and what gameweeks 7 to 10 of the 2026/27 season look like once you do.
How the FPL fixture difficulty rating works
FDR is shorthand for how hard an upcoming match looks on paper. Managers use it as the first screen when deciding who to buy, who to bench and who to captain, because a captain who scores double against a weak opponent is worth more than the same armband in a title game. What the rating is not is a hidden number handed down from on high, so our version is public. Base difficulty comes from the opponent's league position: 6 minus the opponent position rounded up to the nearest group of four. That grades a fixture against a side that finished 1st to 4th as 5, the hardest, and a fixture against a side that finished 17th to 20th as 1, the easiest. An away fixture adds one point of difficulty, capped at 5.
Here is the model applied to a slice of the 2026/27 list, gameweeks 7 to 10, each club rated against its opponent's 2025/26 finishing position:
| Gameweek | Fixture | Home FDR | Away FDR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Man City v Ipswich Town | 1 | 5 |
| 7 | Nott'm Forest v Arsenal | 5 | 3 |
| 7 | Leeds v Man Utd | 5 | 3 |
| 7 | Spurs v Coventry City | 1 | 2 |
| 8 | Aston Villa v Man City | 5 | 5 |
| 8 | Arsenal v Everton | 2 | 5 |
| 9 | Liverpool v Arsenal | 5 | 5 |
| 9 | Man City v Brighton | 4 | 5 |
| 10 | Arsenal v Hull City | 1 | 5 |
| 10 | Man Utd v Aston Villa | 5 | 5 |
The pattern does the explaining. Man City go from a 1-rated home game against Ipswich Town to a 5-rated trip to Aston Villa inside two gameweeks, a swing that the raw fixture grid hides and the grade exposes. Arsenal, the defending champions, rate 3 for a trip to Nott'm Forest, then host Everton at 2 and Hull City at 1 either side of a 5-rated visit to Liverpool. Brighton's away run is the quiet killer: trips to Liverpool and Man City in gameweeks 8 and 9, both rated 5. And three fixtures rate 5 for both sides, Aston Villa v Man City, Liverpool v Arsenal and Man Utd v Aston Villa, the exact games to check before committing a captain.
How the rating is built and why it shifts
Early in a season there is no current table to rate from, so the house rule is to use the previous season's final positions and say so explicitly. That is why this reading of gameweeks 7 to 10 leans on the completed 2025/26 table, where Arsenal finished top on 85 points and Man City second on 78. The promoted trio of Coventry City, Hull City and Ipswich Town carry no top-flight position at all, so they sit at the bottom of the scale, which is the biggest single distortion in an early-season rating: the easiest grades belong to whoever hosts them. As the season runs, the source table is replaced by the live standings and the ratings shift with them. A ranking built from last May is only ever a starting point, and a rating that never moved would stop being useful by October.
Common ways managers misread the fixture difficulty rating
FDR is a difficulty ranking, not a scoreline forecast, and the gap between the two is where points get lost. A rating of 1 against a promoted side such as Coventry City, Hull City or Ipswich Town still means a live opponent; the grade measures how hard the fixture looks, not whether the win is guaranteed. The away adjustment matters more than casual readers expect: a trip to Arsenal rates 5 for Everton in gameweek 8, identical to what a home game against a top-four side earns, because the away penalty pushes the number to the cap. Form also fights the model, since the rating follows the table while results do their own thing, the argument laid out in our form versus fixtures guide. And the rating is only useful if you can act on it: a 15-player squad, 11 starters, a £100.0m budget and a maximum of three players per club mean a soft run you cannot buy into is not a soft run at all.
Related context
The rating sits inside a wider set of FPL rules worth knowing before it drives your transfers. Captaincy multiplies a player's score by two, which is why FDR tends to decide armbands more than any other planning tool, and a transfer beyond the free allowance costs four points, so chasing a fixture into a sideways move can be an expensive swap. For the mechanics of the game's own difficulty grid, our guide to reading the FPL fixture grid is the companion read, and the captaincy strategy guide covers the same fixtures from an armband angle. The gameweek 1 guide explains when the planning window closes, and our fixture difficulty page keeps the rating current through the season.
Treat the FPL fixture difficulty rating as a ranking rather than a verdict. It grades which fixtures deserve your transfers and your captain across gameweeks 7 to 10, but the number only earns its keep when it changes what you actually do on the strength of it.
Key takeaways
- FDR rates every fixture for difficulty: our model grades opponents that finished 1st to 4th as 5 and 17th to 20th as 1, with away games adding a point capped at 5.
- Early-season ratings use the previous season's final table, where Arsenal (85 points) and Man City (78) rated 5 for every away opponent in this window.
- Man City swing from a 1-rated home game against Ipswich Town to a 5-rated trip to Aston Villa inside two gameweeks.
- Arsenal rate 2 at home to Everton and 1 at home to Hull City with a 5-rated visit to Liverpool between.
- Three fixtures rate 5 for both sides: Aston Villa v Man City, Liverpool v Arsenal and Man Utd v Aston Villa.
FAQ
What does FDR stand for in FPL?
FDR stands for fixture difficulty rating, the score Fantasy Premier League attaches to each club's upcoming fixtures so managers can plan transfers and captaincy.
How is the FPL fixture difficulty rating calculated?
The official game uses its own model. Our transparent version grades from league position: opponents that finished 1st to 4th rate 5, 17th to 20th rate 1, and away games add a point capped at 5. Early in a season we use the previous season's final table and say so.
Which fixtures rate hardest in gameweeks 7 to 10 of 2026/27?
By our model, three ties rate 5 for both sides: Aston Villa v Man City, Liverpool v Arsenal and Man Utd v Aston Villa. Everton's trip to Arsenal in gameweek 8 also rates 5, the hardest grade the FPL fixture difficulty rating produces.