The busy Christmas schedule often causes carnage on the team sheet, with fast turnaround times and fatigue leading to injuries and rotation.
The unpredictability of team news doesn’t help the situation.
Press conferences can take place after the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) deadlines over the festive period, or they can take the form of embargoed sections filmed in the aftermath of the previous match. This isn’t ideal for breaking injury news, as the Premier League managers probably won’t be able to tell us much more.
So let’s take a Gameweek by Gameweek look at what we can expect over Christmas and New Year. Deadline times are in GMT.
GAME WEEK 18
Despite Christmas Day getting in the way, Gameweek 18 is probably our best pick for team news for the next four Gameweeks.
It’s a relatively long run-up to the Boxing Day deadline, with little action during the week, so we expect many Premier League managers to face the media this week.
Arne Slot, David Moyes, Nuno Espirito Santo And Eddie Howe are among those already scheduled for Tuesday, with the full list to follow tomorrow.
And Christmas Eve is usually not an obstacle to holding press conferences. Last year we had eight ‘live’ pressers (and some embargoed quotes) on December 24th. That followed the ten we had on December 23rd.
Ruben Amorim is one of the managers who will meet the media on Christmas Eve this year.
There may be exceptions. We already knew that Pep Guardiola will not hold a press conference for Gameweek 18although he “will do TV instead”. That will likely be a one-on-one interview, as we’ve seen in the past, and he may still be asked about team news in it.
With Arsenal and Crystal Palace clashing in the EFL Cup tomorrow, Mikel Arteta and Oliver Glasner could opt to do their Gameweek 18 pressers after full-time in that cup tie. If so, the prices will be under embargo until next weekend.
We even have most of Boxing Day (the deadline is much later at 18:30 GMT) to clear any late quotes.
The downside to all this? The press conferences will take place this early in the week. How much can Mr Slot, Moyes and others tell us about the condition of the squad for a match in four days’ time? There is also a chance that injuries will occur in between; The risk of this is much smaller if a pre-match presser takes place the day before a match.
Still, any press conference is better than none – as we’ll discuss in a moment.
GAME WEEK 19
Now for the problematic Gameweeks.
Gameweek 19 was a mess on the team news front last season, while this year has looked the same.
The biggest issues could be injury updates for the eight teams below, all of which play on New Year’s Day:
The deadline for Gameweek 19 is December 30, which will likely be before the managers of the aforementioned eight clubs have seen the media.
Even the managers of the dozens of teams playing on deadline day (see below) could just do their Gameweek 19 pressers straight after full-time in Gameweek 18 (this happened a lot in 2024/25).
So the ‘latest’ FPL team news may be scarce this Gameweek.
GAME WEEK 20
Gameweek 20 could once again be a mixed bag of embargo quotes and actual ‘live’ press conferences. However, unlike Gameweek 19, it’s likely we’ll hear from most/all managers before the deadline.
It’s a deadline for Saturday, so we’ll do that probably get the usual pre-match pressers (usually Friday, as Thursday is New Year’s Day) from some of the dozens of teams in action on December 30 (Arsenal, Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton, Burnley, Chelsea, Everton, Man Utd, Newcastle, Nottm Forest, West Ham And Wolves).
The eight games that played on New Year’s Day (Brentford, C Palace, Fulham, Leeds, Liverpool, Man City, Sunderland And Tracks) are the greatest uncertainties. Expect most of these managers to answer questions immediately after full-time gameweek 19, with quotes embargoed until Friday.
The 2022/23 season is the closest to this season’s switch from December 30 to January 3. There were very few independent presses going on at the time.
GAME WEEK 21
Some semblance of normality may return for the midweek matches below. Press conferences for West Ham and Nottm Forest on Monday, most of the rest of the division on Tuesday. That’s the theory anyway.
The problem child is Arsenal-Liverpool on Thursday. Mikel Arteta and Arne Slot could be in the media spotlight on Wednesday, January 7, a day after the Gameweek 21 deadline.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Long story short: get those banks in order! Some cheap ones to play substitutes, such as Omar Alderete (£4.0 million) and Joe Rodon (£4.1m), could be very useful over Christmas.
They may be necessary as some clubs keep us in the dark about their latest team news in matchweek 19-21 and the press conferences that take place very early in matchweek 18.
Take Liverpool as an example. There’s a good chance we won’t make it each team news from Arne Slot in Gameweek 19 or 21, while Gameweek 20 might just be embargo quotes, of little use, from after the match on New Year’s Day.
Let the madness begin…
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