Two moments of quality emerged from Monday night’s Gameweek 8 climax. Unfortunately, neither were from significant Fantasy assets, and both wiped out the clean sheets on offer.
Here’s the notes on Monday night’s encounter at the King Power Stadium.
Mahrez steals Vardy’s thunder
It was left to Riyad Mahrez (8.4) to rescue a point for Leicester City, atoning for a dreadful miss earlier in the match, as the Algerian snaffled up Islam Slimani’s knock-down to drill the Foxes equaliser.
Owned by just 3.6% of Fantasy Premier League managers, Mahrez is unlikely to convince as a potential asset in the current landscape, with midfielders from Man City in particular currently dominating his price bracket.
Monday’s goal was his first of the season which has arrived from 18 shots so far, with just four hitting the target.
But Mahrez tops the Leicester ranks for attempts overall, with Jamie Vardy (8.6) back on 15 having mustered just a single effort on Monday night.
Vardy was partnered with Kelechi Iheanacho (6.7) who surprisingly replaced Shinji Okazaki (5.6) in the starting XI. The Japanese international stayed at home over the break, so Craig Shakespeare’s decision was unexpected. Over 51,000 managers had signed Okazaki prior to Gameweek 8.
That was dwarfed by the 294,000 who moved for Vardy. They will have been disappointed by Monday night’s showing but will remain confident of returns from forthcoming fixtures with Swansea (a), Everton (h) and Stoke City (a).
Foster misses out as Baggies are breached
Ben Foster’s injury was the big pre-match news, confirming reports on Saturday that he had sustained a problem in training.
A knee complaint, the full prognosis is not yet known, but Foster remains a doubt for the visit to Southampton in Gameweek 9.
It seems the injury was sustained while Foster played with his son on the garden. A freakish setback which Tony Pulis described as “an enormous worry”.
“At the moment we don’t know exactly what it is. He was playing with his son in the back garden and he’s just tweaked his knee and we’re a little bit concerned because he’s had the cruciate. There was no way in a million years we were going to take the risk with him.”
Boaz Myhill stepped in but was unable to prevent Mahrez’ second-half leveller. Indeed, the stand-in keeper suffered his own injury – confirmed by the player himself as a dead leg. He will need to be assessed ahead of the St Mary’s trip with the 21,993 managers who have Myhill in reserve for Foster now facing the unlikely prospect of having no active goalkeeper.
West Brom’s defence have now kept just a single clean sheet in their last six Gameweeks ahead of a gruelling run of fixtures. Man City (h), Chelsea (h) and Spurs (a) all loom in the next five Gameweeks.
That run is also unlikely to promote any interest in Nacer Chadli (5.7) despite his superb dead-ball strike for the Baggies goal.
The Belgian was making his first start of the season, having been out of favour to this point, while also struggling with a recurring hamstring injury.
