The Scout picks out clubs and players who can be paired together effectively in opening squads in 2025/26 Fantasy Premier League and give FPL managers a great run of early fixtures.
Nottingham Forest and Fulham
If you're looking to own a defender from Nottingham Forest in your opening squad to profit from their kind early schedule, then having a Fulham defender as back-up option could be handy.
By rotating them (starting one and benching the other) according to whoever has the easier fixture, you would face only ONE of last season's top 11 clubs over the opening six Gameweeks.
This takes place on the opening weekend of the season, where Forest entertain Brentford.
See: How and why to rotate your defenders
While Nuno Espirito Santo's side admittedly do the vast majority of the leg work in the table below, Fulham's home encounter with Leeds United in Gameweek 4 gives you a chance to bench your Forest assets when they visit Arsenal in the same round of fixtures.
Indeed, Fulham's contest with Leeds is one of THREE successive matches against a promoted club. Forest visit Burnley in Gameweek 5 and then host Sunderland in Gameweek 6.
According to the Fixture Difficulty Ratings (FDR) - where the easiest possible matches are ranked as No 1 and the hardest are ranked as No 5 – as many as FOUR of the first six matches of a Forest/Fulham pairing score only two.
Nottingham Forest and Fulham rotation, Gameweeks 1-6
| GW | Club | Fixture | FDR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nottingham Forest | Brentford (H) | 3 |
| 2 | Nottingham Forest | Crystal Palace (A) | 3 |
| 3 | Nottingham Forest | West Ham (H) | 2 |
| 4 | Fulham | Leeds (H) | 2 |
| 5 | Nottingham Forest | Burnley (A) | 2 |
| 6 | Nottingham Forest | Sunderland (H) | 2 |
*1 = easiest possible fixture, 5 = hardest possible fixture
Who will be the best budget picks?
The pricing of Nikola Milenkovic, in particular, may ultimately determine how managers view the Forest defence in 2025/26 Fantasy.
Having kept 13 clean sheets last season – second only to the 14 of Liverpool – it’s a fair assumption that Forest’s backline regulars will no longer have a starting price of £4.5m this time around.
If Milenkovic and the rest of his defenders come in at £5.0m, the Serb’s far superior goal threat makes him the go-to pick here. But if Milenkovic moves to £5.5m in acknowledgement of his greater attacking potential, then you’d expect Murillo, Ola Aina and Neco Williams to be less expensive at £5.0m.
If you can stomach benching a £5.0m defender on occasion, then Fulham’s match against Leeds in Gameweek 4 looks tailor-made for Antonee Robinson.
Although the Cottagers collected a mere five clean sheets last season, their attacking left-back produced a career-high 10 assists.
