A ding-dong battle produced plenty for neutral but relatively little for Fantasy managers as the Arsenal and Everton attacks failed to breakdown the defences on show. Here’s the Stock Check from Tuesday’s Gameweek 33 encounter…
On the Up
The Everton Defence
A fourth clean sheet in five for David Moyes’ rearguard ensured that owners of Leighton Baines and Sylvain Distin fetched strong returns over the double Gameweek. The latter has offered outstanding value, having also registered an assist in the win over QPR for a value of 5.3. Before Gameweek 30, Everton had kept just three shut-outs: despite such humble defensive returns, Baines is now comfortably the top scoring defender in the FPL on 153 points.
Kieran Gibbs & Bacary Sagna
While Arsene Wenger looks set to continue rotating his centre-backs, he chose to retain both Gibbs and Sagna tonight, despite having the option to bring in Nacho Monreal and Carl Jenkinson. Given that tonight’s starting full-backs played back-to-back 90 minutes in the space of three days, it seems they’re now established as Arsene Wenger’s first choice in their respective positions. That presumably consigns both Monreal and Jenkinson to bit part roles. It remains to be seen if Wenger rotates and hands them opportunity at Fulham this weekend.
Going Down
Santi Cazorla
Back-to-back blanks left thousands of Fantasy managers disgruntled as the Spaniard offered paltry returns from the Gameweek captaincy. It’s just one goal in the last six now for Cazorla, and that came in the home clash with Reading. Given his inconsistency, we may now see significant sales of Cazorla with Gareth Bale likely to be “most-wanted” should he regain fitness in time for Tottenham’s now confirmed double in Gameweek 36. Given Cazorla’s captaincy flop, Robin Van Persie’s performance at West Ham tomorrow night could now be crucial to many a mini-league.
Lukas Fabianski
The Pole missed out with a rib injury this evening and, having seen his compatriot, Wojciech Szczesny, keep a shut-out on this return to the starting lineup, it now remains to be seen if Fabianski can earn an recall on his return to fitness.
Gervinho
As expected, the Ivorian made way for the return of Theo Walcott to the starting lineup. The recent run of starts brought strong returns for Gervinho but it’s clear that he’ll face a uphill struggle to regain a role in Wenger’s starting XI having been unused on the bench tonight. Those who held or invested in Gervinho for the double Gameweek will either look to sell on or hope for heavy rotation for the weekend trip to the Cottage.
Marouane Fellaini
The Belgian put on superb showing for Everton tonight but, having been dropped into a central midfield role, the performance is likely to cause anxiety amongst his Fantasy owners. With Leon Osman sidelined, David Moyes will have been delighted with Fellaini’s showing and, while he will be expected to be restored in a more attacking role on Osman’s return, Felliani could well be deployed in the engine room for the visit to Sunderland this weekend.
