The Champions League is back, and with it the question that returns every year: who will rotate. The league phase began this week, and it features five Premier League clubs — Arsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United. The Gameweek 4 deadline falls on Saturday at 13:30 UK, two to four days after their European fixtures.
That has a direct bearing on the squad you set this weekend.
How matchday one went
| Club | Fixture | Result | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aston Villa | away Club Brugge | 2:3 | Tuesday |
| Man City | away Porto | 0:2 | Tuesday |
| Liverpool | home Atlético | 2:1 | Wednesday |
| Arsenal | away Napoli | 0:1 | Wednesday |
| Man Utd | home Sabah | plays tonight | Thursday |
All four clubs that have played so far won. Villa came from behind in Bruges, Haaland scored both goals at Porto, Liverpool turned their game around against Atlético through Mac Allister and Szoboszlai, and Arsenal won in Naples through Ødegaard.
How much rest before Gameweek 4
This is the key table. The fewer days between a European fixture and a league one, the more likely a manager is to shuffle the side.
| Club | Champions League | GW4 fixture | Days of rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Man City | Tuesday | Sun 16:30, away Man Utd | 5 |
| Aston Villa | Tuesday | Sat 15:00, home Forest | 4 |
| Liverpool | Wednesday | Sat 15:00, home Fulham | 3 |
| Arsenal | Wednesday | Sat 20:00, away Sunderland | 3 |
| Man Utd | Thursday | Sun 16:30, home Man City | 3 |
The most interesting conclusion concerns the Manchester derby. Manchester City played on Tuesday and get five days to recover. Manchester United do not play until tonight, so they get three. In a fixture that is already the hardest of the round for both sides, a two-day gap in recovery is an argument no difficulty table shows.
On the other hand, United host Sabah tonight — much weaker opposition, and exactly the kind of game where a manager rests his first choices. We will see the team sheet this evening, and it will say more than any forecast.
Gakpo: the detail the injury flag does not carry
Cody Gakpo carries a “75% chance of playing” flag and a thigh injury in the game. That is the bare information. Three things emerged around the Champions League that are worth adding:
- the problem is an adductor issue, and he picked it up in the weekend game against Ipswich, not on international duty;
- he sat out the Atlético game as a precaution — he was not in the squad, though he had trained;
- Andoni Iraola said afterwards that Gakpo could return for Saturday’s game against Fulham.
That changes the picture. A player rested from a European tie so he is fit for the league is in a different position from one who is simply injured.
Our model reacted to the flag: Gakpo’s rating fell from 90 to 87 and he dropped out of the “strong buy” group. That is an automatic response to the note in the game — the model does not read press conferences, so it does not know what the manager said. If Gakpo starts against Fulham, the rating will recover on its own.
In practice: do not panic-sell him, but do not buy him blind before Saturday either. The deadline is 13:30, the Fulham game is at 15:00 — you will see the line-up after squads lock.
Who is in form after the European week
| Player | Club | In the Champions League | Our rating | GW4 fixture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Szoboszlai | Liverpool | scored v Atlético | 90 | home Fulham (2) |
| Haaland | Man City | two goals at Porto | 88 | away Man Utd (4) |
| Saka | Arsenal | win in Naples | 89 | away Sunderland (3) |
Szoboszlai is one of only two players in the game with a “strong buy” verdict — alongside Chelsea’s Morgan Rogers, who did not play at all this European week, because Chelsea are not in Europe. That is an argument easy to overlook: a club without European football is a club without rotation.
New flags after the international break
Three have appeared since Tuesday that affect a meaningful number of squads:
- Gakpo (Liverpool, 14.2% ownership) — described above;
- Matty Cash (Aston Villa, 6.7%) — muscular injury, 75%;
- Amar Dedić (Newcastle, 3.4%) — hamstring, 75%.
Unchanged: O’Reilly at City still carries a flag on 14.6% ownership, Mateta is back around 11 October, Rodon not until 21 November. Watkins, Beto, Scarlett and Richarlison are still sitting in squads despite having left the league — we listed them all in Tuesday’s article.
What this means before Saturday
- The deadline is Saturday at 13:30, not Friday evening — still the most important line of the week.
- Players from Chelsea, Palace, Brentford and other clubs outside Europe carry no rotation risk this week.
- With Liverpool and Arsenal, allow for changes — three days after a European tie is not much.
- In the Manchester derby, City have two more days of rest than United.
- If you own Gakpo, wait for Iraola’s Friday press conference.
- Champions League matchday two is not until 13 and 14 October, so this factor disappears for the next few weeks.
All ratings are in the AI Rankings, the difficulty run is in the Fixture Ticker, and a ready-made fifteen is in the Recommended Squad. Full injury notes are in the Injury Centre.
You can also join our mini league — code 3ix1cw. In Gameweek 3 our league scored eighteen points above the global average, as we covered in the review.
Our ratings are generated by an AI model from official FPL data, refreshed hourly. The numbers are from Thursday 10 September. Champions League results are per UEFA and sports media reports; Manchester United’s fixture is tonight.