Say What?

Say What – your guide to the footballing quotes worth quoting – is back to cut through the confusing new world of alternative truth that seems to have landed, uninvited, in our collective laps.

So we’ve got Arsene Wenger on the Plan B that led to Arsenal’s heroic win over high-flying Watford, Jose Mourinho revealing why he’ll never be a petulant wasp-chewer and Dmitri Payet on loyalty.

And after a liberal dose of fact-checking, we can reveal that there’s actually Pep on his love of Jesus, Eden’s tactical paradise and nothing at all Biblical about Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

There’s also Everton’s issues (for us), Crouch’s rival and a flying Swan. All these facts are ahead of you, and that’s the truth.

So Long, Sergio?

Remember the good old days when being a reality TV star didn’t get you the nuclear codes and not having Sergio Aguero in your side was about as wise as allowing a reality TV star to get the nuclear codes?

How innocent those times seem now.

Sergio’s still in 19.5% of our squads, but we’re getting no bang for our buck, with 12.8 producing one goal in five matches and the creeping feeling that the most expensive player in the Fantasy Premier League could be little more than an impact sub from now on.

And all because Pep has found Jesus, and a fruity Jesus at that.

“You never know, it’s like a watermelon – you have to open and see if it is good or not.”

Fruit and footballers have a long history, from Nicklas Bendtner (prize plum) to Carlos Tevez (ugli), although it turns out Guardiola was speaking figuratively.

“He’s a young talent. But he has a huge mentality. He’s so aggressive. He wants to become a good player. He has dreams and he has things he wants to do in the future in his career. That helps a lot. He wants to do something in the world of football and, of course, we are going to try to help him get it for us.”

So should we all leap aboard the bandwagon? More than 76,000 FPL managers already have, making him the most popular buy of the Gameweek, while Sergio’s loitering around the top ten for transfers-out.

But Guardiola’s keen to stress that the two strikers are not necessarily incompatible.

“They can play together. Aguero is so important for us. He knows and everyone knows we cannot succeed without his contributions. I sit with my staff and we take the decisions, and it depends on the performance of the past. I played one defender against Crystal Palace, today I played another one. In this crazy calendar it is impossible to play with the same players all the time.”

‘Playing one defender’ is Guardiola talking figuratively again, I think, although it would explain a lot. But let’s not divert from the main issue here.

Pep’s next comment, describing how the midweek annihilation of West Ham evolved, immediately puts into question his assertion that Aguero is still a key figure.

“In the first 10 or 12 minutes we had problems, we didn’t play well and we were lucky. After that we played well because the three strikers are so quick. We had high pressing, we were able to eliminate their first step and create chances. The average age is 20 years old, you cannot see in Europe strikers younger than Manchester City has. That is good for the club.”

Aguero has struggled to adapt to Pep’s pressing plans this season. And he’s 28. That’s old, apparently.

Old enough, perhaps, to be put out to pasture in the FA Cup and the Champions League – two fields of no interest to FPL managers.

So maybe it is time to call time on one of the greatest FPL players of all, erm, time. A simple swap from Aguero to Jesus gets you 3.8 to spend elsewhere, after all.

Which, if nothing else, proves the assertion that Jesus saves.

Eden In Tactical Paradise

Jose Mourinho went from Messiah to very naughty boy alarmingly quickly at Chelsea, prompting Eden Hazard into a God-awful season last year.

But the Belgian is very much looking on the bright side of life under Antonio Conte, and he’s happy to not let nostalgia get the better of him.

“In tactics and training we do more with Conte. We work a lot of tactical positions and we know exactly what we have to do on the pitch, where I have to go and where the defenders have to go. We know exactly what to do. With Mourinho, he put in a system but we didn’t work lots. We know what to do because we play football, but maybe the automatisms were a little bit different.”

I’m not entirely sure that ‘automatisms’ is a word, but English is not Eden’s first language and seeing as I don’t know what the French for baguette is, he probably deserves a bit of good old fashioned British carte blanche on that one.

However, entre nous, it’s not all joie de vivre with Hazard, en passant.

Just under 30% of managers have stuck by the midfielder through relatively thin times recently. A goal and three assists from his last six matches is okay, but you’d want more for his premium 10.2 price.

Eden, however, might just have an excuse – according this report both he and David Luiz may have been playing with knocks for much of the season, which means for 10.2 you get a slightly-injured, slightly under-performing Belgian.

But selling any Chelsea player carries a high risk of heartbreak at the moment.

And however painful it must have been for Hazard’s owners to know that it would have been their man taking the penalty at Liverpool on Tuesday if he hadn’t been taken off at least Diego Costa had the good grace not to score from it.

So Eden will still be on penalties and, after Arsenal this weekend, he’s got a good run of fixtures to come, which suggests the best policy regarding Hazard probably involves laissez faire, or whatever the French for that is.

Hey Micki – You’re So Dropped (Maybe)

Over at Mourinho’s United, where we’ve already learned that the automatisms are a little bit different, Jose was in unusually gushing form before the Hull match.

The object of his desire was Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who had just turned in a stellar FA Cup performance against Wigan.

“Do you want me to leave Micki out after him being man of the match and playing so well as he did? I can’t!”

It was only Wigan though, Jose. And you are, you know, the manager. You pick the team, right?

“I think the players pick themselves.”

Right. I stand corrected. So what do you do, then?

“I’m just here to analyse what they do and to try to be fair with them. After such a good performance, Micki has to play. It’s simple.”

Logically therefore, given his universally-panned performance against Hull, ‘Micki’ now has to be dropped for the trip to Leicester.

The midfielder, in fact, has flattered to deceive this season – scoring a wonder (offside) goal one minute, doing absolutely nothing of note for five matches the next.

That could explain why only 2.4% of FPL managers have taken the bait and bought him in, although United midfielders in general are not proving overly popular, Paul Pogba (10.8%) notwithstanding.

And with Gameweek 26 already a confirmed blank (and Gameweek 28 looking likely to be another), things will probably stay that way, however tempting their fixture list all the way through to mid-April might be.

And it is.

Tactical Traumas

Everton’s fixtures might not be quite so juicy as United’s, but Bournemouth, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, West Brom and Hull over the next six Gameweeks isn’t half bad.

The Toffees are also unbeaten in six, so it’s little wonder that managers are buying into Ronald Koeman’s team at the moment.

Unfortunately, his tactical flexibility threatens to upset the apple cart. Or, indeed, the toffee apple cart.

Leighton Baines (11.5%) and Seamus Coleman (9.5%) have been popular picks recently, with Mason Holgate (6.9%) and Ross Barkley (6.2%) not so far behind.

The first two have been thriving when used predominantly as wing-backs in a 5-4-1 formation, with Baines scoring 42 points over the last six Gameeeks and Coleman 45.

Holgate, meanwhile, has been a snip at 4.2 when delivering two clean sheets from his last three starts.

At Palace this week, however, Koeman changed things around at half-time, reverting to flat back four, giving Holgate the elbow and putting James McCarthy on to beef up the midfield.

“First of all I thought we had space to play but they had two, maybe three big chances out of the first half, even against five defenders and that wasn’t good. I saw reasons enough to change the system and to put James in the midfield and we controlled the midfield a bit better.”

Koeman’s praise of McCarthy was, in essence, a hymn to his squad’s depth because he also had kind words for debutant Morgan Schneiderlin.

“Morgan was good. I know him and that’s the performance that he can give the team, really strong and comfortable on the ball. He can even play in a different position than he did today, more offensively, but we know we have big competition in midfield and the best will start for each game and it could be different for this Saturday.”

Great. Just when you thought you could rely on Everton to provide steady starters in an in-form side – a side, no less that is one of just six currently with a guaranteed Gameweek 28 fixture – Ronald has to ruin it for us by changing formations and players.

Just because he can.

And because it works.

All that competition in midfield could be particularly hurtful for the 2.8% on bargain bucket boy Tom Davies (4.4), who’s delivered a goal and two assists from four straight starts but who could now be sacrificed for a more advanced Schneiderlin, with Idrissa Gueye resuming his holding duties now he’s back from the Africa Cup of Nations.

Football managers, eh? Why can’t they see the bigger picture? Our bigger picture.

No Crouch End In Sight?

Pictures have to be big to fit Peter Crouch in them, and plenty were taken when he hit his 100th Premier League goal this week and promptly dragged out his robot celebration from the dated dance cupboard.

Mark Hughes, presumably employing a healthy dose of sarcasm, described the sight as ‘incredibly poignant’ before getting all deadly serious about the big man’s value to his side.

“If you give Crouchy good service in the box then you know he is going to score goals, because he has done that tonight and he has done it throughout his career.”

That vote of confidence will be music to the ears of the 21,000+ managers who’ve made Lanky Pete a top ten transfer-in this week.

But there is a fly in the Crouch ointment (if that doesn’t sound like a piles remedy), and he’s called Saido Berahino.

Hughes has been talking his new striker up too.

“We have been really encouraged by what we have seen in training – his movement for one is absolutely tremendous. We haven’t had anybody at the club who is capable of making runs in behind like he can for a very long time now, so we are going to have to work on that to really get the best out of him.”

Stoke’s next four opponents are West Brom (a), Palace (h), Spurs (a) and Middlesbrough (h). Of those, it’s conceivable that only Spurs will be advanced enough to allow the likes of Berahino any space to make those runs behind.

So Crouch, who has four goals and two assists from his last five starts, looks fairly safe.

For now.

Gylfi The Super Swan

One player who is, injuries aside, 100% safe to start is Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson.

The Iceland midfielder has two goals and an assist from his last two matches – as you’d expect from a man who has had a hand in 55 Premier League goals (32 goals and 23 assists) since signing for the club, which is a mere 24 more than his nearest rival, Wilfried Bony.

His ownership figures this season have, at times, been as low as the prices at the supermarket that shares his country’s name, mainly because Swansea have been about as tasty as much of that self-same supermarket’s product lines.

But under Paul Clement, things are starting to stir, including Gylfi’s fan club – he’s the third most popular pick of the week so far.

And the new boss is definitely a member.

“Gylfi produced a wonderful finish after good work from Luciano Narsingh, who made an instant impact. But I would like to comment on Gylfi’s work ethic. People have asked me if he is all right playing on the left, but I haven’t had a conversation with him about that. He has done everything that has been asked of him.”

The Swans have Man City and Chelsea away over the next three matches, but will definitely play Gameweek 28 and have a generally good run up to April.

And in Clement, they have a cosmopolitan coach (PSG, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich) who isn’t still hitched to Stone Age ideas such as lumping it into the box from a set-play. In fact he’s so advanced, I’m willing to bet he doesn’t even use the word ‘box’.

“We are strong at set-plays with the delivery (of Sigurdsson) and some powerful players in the box.”

Yes, well, I mean they can be effective – particularly when you’ve got Alfie Mawson on the end of them. In the…the box.

The 0.1%-owned defender has two goals in four matches and yet he’s owned by just over 2,500, which coincidentally, is the average amount of calories per serving in a certain supermarket’s pudding range.

Even Sigurdsson is only owned by 6.2%, making the pair of them differential material in a team on a mini-roll, although not like one from a certain sup…ahem…let’s just say that for quality at low prices, you could do worse than go to Swansea.