You have signed up, joined a league, and now you are staring at a list of ten Premier League fixtures wondering what on earth to predict. Sound familiar?

Your first gameweek can feel overwhelming. There are ten matches, each needs a score, and you have no idea if you should go with your gut, check the stats, or just put 1-1 for everything. This walkthrough takes you through the whole process so you know exactly what to do.

Before the gameweek starts

Step 1: Check the fixture list

Head to the Play page on ScoreBadger and you will see every fixture for the current gameweek. Each match card shows the two teams, the kickoff time, and a countdown to the deadline.

Take a few minutes to scan the full list. Some matches will jump out as obvious - a strong home side against a struggling away team, for example. Others will feel like a coin flip. That is completely normal.

Step 2: Do some quick research

You do not need to spend hours on this. Five minutes is enough for your first week. Check:

The league table - who is near the top, who is near the bottom?
Recent form - have any teams won or lost their last three or four?
Home or away - is the home team strong at their ground? (They usually are.)

If you want to go deeper, our guide on reading form tables shows you how to extract more from the stats. But for your first week, just knowing the basics is plenty.

Making your predictions

Step 3: Start with the matches you feel confident about

Do not try to predict all ten matches in order. Start with the fixtures where you have a strong feeling. Maybe you know Liverpool are in great form at home, or you reckon a particular derby will be tight. Do those first.

For matches you feel confident about, commit to a specific scoreline. If you think the home side wins, decide on the margin. A 2-0 or 2-1 home win is more common than a 4-0 thrashing, so lean towards realistic scores unless you have a good reason not to.

Step 4: Handle the tricky matches

For fixtures you are less sure about, here are a few default strategies that work well:

Two evenly matched teams? Go 1-1. Draws are underrated and earn you the result point more often than you would expect.
Home favourite but not dominant? Try 2-1. It is the most common scoreline in Premier League history.
Away favourite? Go 0-1 or 1-2. Away teams score fewer goals on average, so keep it tight.
Bottom side at home? Consider a 1-1 draw. Lower-table teams at home are often better than their league position suggests.

These are not magic formulas. They are just sensible starting points that beat random guessing. Understanding how exact scores and correct results are scored differently will help you calibrate your risk.

Step 5: Submit before the deadline

This is the bit people trip up on. Each match has its own deadline - it locks at kickoff. If there is a Friday night match, that one locks on Friday even though the rest of the gameweek might not kick off until Saturday.

The countdown timer on each fixture card makes this clear. Submit your predictions early in the week and you will not have to worry about last-minute panics. You can always edit them later, right up until kickoff.

After the matches

Step 6: Check your results

Once the matches finish, head to the Results page to see how you did. You will see each of your predictions alongside the actual result, with your points shown for each match.

Do not be discouraged if your first week is not great. Most new predictors score between 3 and 8 points in a typical gameweek. Getting even one exact score (3 points) in your first week is a good result.

Step 7: Learn from it

After your first gameweek, take two minutes to think about:

Did you predict too many high-scoring games?
Were your results broadly right but the scores off?
Did you miss any obvious patterns, like a strong home side winning?
Were there any upsets you could not have predicted?

Do not beat yourself up about upsets. Nobody predicts Leicester winning 3-0 at the Etihad. The points come from getting the bread-and-butter fixtures right week after week.

Tips for the weeks ahead

Track your patterns. After three or four gameweeks, you will start to notice your own tendencies. Maybe you over-predict home wins, or you never predict draws. Knowing your biases helps you correct them.

Do not chase exact scores. The 3-point bonus for an exact score is great, but trying to predict 3-2 thrillers every week will cost you. Most matches end with three or fewer total goals. Sticking to sensible scorelines like 1-0, 2-1, and 1-1 is a smarter long-term strategy.

Join a league. Predictions are more fun when you are competing against people you know. If you have not already, set up a league with your mates - it takes two minutes and gives you something to argue about in the group chat.

Read up on strategy. As you get more comfortable, start factoring in home advantage and form data. These are the two simplest ways to improve your accuracy without spending hours on research.

The most important thing

Do not overthink it. Your first gameweek is about getting a feel for how prediction games work, not about topping the leaderboard. The players who do well over a full season are the ones who submit every week, learn from their results, and gradually refine their approach.

The best time to start predicting is right now. The second-best time is next gameweek. Either way, just get your predictions in and see what happens.

Keep reading

Avoid the most common pitfalls with our guide to mistakes every new predictor makes. Most of them are easy to fix once you know what to look for.

Want to understand the scoring system inside out? Exact Score vs Correct Result breaks down when each type of point matters most.

Ready to go? Start making your predictions on the Premier League prediction game - it is free and takes less than a minute to sign up.

Your First Gameweek: A Step-by-Step Prediction Walkthrough