A brace from the seemingly unstoppable Mohamed Salah is then marred by an injury setback, while Chelsea’s two big guns conspire to miss out on the Blues’ predictable five-goal rout of Stoke.
Salah ensured that most Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers’ Gameweek 21 started strongly as he fired home his 16th and 17th goals of a prodigious season for Liverpool.
But the 59.7%-owned Egyptian then created an early headache for their Gameweek 22 plans by limping off after 82 minutes of his side’s 2-1 win over Leicester City.
Coach Jurgen Klopp’s post-match assessment of the situation was, by its very nature, an early one, but any potential problem will not be helped by the two-day turnaround between fixtures.
“I don’t know in this moment exactly [what it is], but he was limping. That’s never a good sign, to be honest. We have to see what his problem was.”
Salah was the most popular captain of the Gameweek, with 1,137000+ (20.3%) handing him the armband (including 37 of the top 100 managers), and they were rewarded with 14 points from his goals and two bonus.
Any hopes of a maximum award in the Bonus Points System (BPS) were thwarted by the midfielder missing three big chances.
Instead, the other player to find the net on the day, Leicester’s Jamie Vardy, picked up the three points after opening the scoring from a Riyad Mahrez assist.
Salah has now produced returns in 12 of the last 13 Gameweeks and his 14 points today took him to 8.0 points per match – no player with more than one start can better that.
Both Klopp and nearly 60% of FPL managers will hope that he receives a positive assessment ahead of Gameweek 22’s trip to Burnley on New Year’s Day.
Rare blanks in attack and defence
A whopping 402,392 managers made Roberto Firmino the most purchased player of the Gameweek, with team-mate Philippe Coutinho also in the top six for transfers-in with 158,000+ new managers of his own.
The pair responded with less than timely blanks – their first since Gameweek 17 – and the fact that Firmino played the full match and Coutinho 88 minutes suggests both might be in line for a rest at Turf Moor.
That scenario might be compromised by Salah’s knock, however.
Local media have also previously reported that Salah and Sadio Mane, who provided an assist against Leicester, are to be allowed to attend the African Player of the Year awards in Ghana on Thursday.
This would more than likely rule them out of starting Friday’s FA Cup third round tie against Everton. As a result, the pair would probably have played at least some part in Monday’s match at Burnley.
Should Salah be sidelined, at least one of Firmino and Coutinho could now be in action against the Clarets.
Elsewhere for Liverpool, the defence conceded just a fourth goal in 11 matches at Anfield.
Rotation in Klopp’s backline was still in evidence, with Dejan Lovren and Joe Gomez recalled for Ragnar Klavan and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
New signing Virgil Van Dijk will not be available at Burnley, so his expected partnership at centre-back with Joel Matip remains on ice for now.
Instead, Klavan, who had started the previous five matches, could be in line for recall at the expense of Lovren.
Stars don’t shine for Chelsea
More than 178,000 managers reacted to Tottenham’s blank Gameweek 21 by replacing Harry Kane with Chelsea striker Alvaro Morata – the most popular swap going into the weekend.
The Spaniard was also the third most bought player overall, with 303,000+ hoping the forward would make hay against a Stoke City side severely weakened by injuries and rotation.
But Morata fluffed his lines, missing two one-on-ones and bringing in just two points for the 403,000+ (7.2%) who captained him.
To add insult to injury, he was subbed off on 70 minutes, only for Chelsea to win a penalty three minutes later – a spot-kick Morata would most likely have taken.
Willian earned the penalty and converted it. He also provided two assists and gained maximum bonus in a stellar 17-point display.
But the 6.9%-owned Brazilian remains differential material only, albeit one who has started four of the last five matches, unless coach Antonio Conte sticks with the 3-4-3 formation used today instead of his preferred 3-4-1-1 system in which Morata is supported by Eden Hazard.
The Belgian midfielder spent the Stoke match on the bench to cap an underwhelming six-Gameweek stretch from which he’s produced just a single assist.
That drop-off in form has persuaded 200,000+ managers to sell him on over the last three Gameweeks, with 87,000 acting ahead of this morning’s deadline.
But both Hazard and Morata will be expected to start at Arsenal on Wednesday. The former has struggled as a false nine in the absence of the Spaniard, ensuring that Morata remains Chelsea’s primary forward option with Michy Batshuayi clearly not trusted by Conte.
All of that is unlikely to stall sales in both players, however, with Hazard top and Morata third for Gameweek 22 transfers-out.
Predictably, many are swapping the forward back out for Kane.
Happier times at the back
Owning Chelsea defenders proved to be a rather more profitable exercise – with one notable exception.
The 5.2% of managers with Andreas Christensen in their squads would have been delighted to hear their man had recovered from the illness that kept him out of the 2-0 win over Brighton, but less happy when the young Dane was named only on the bench today.
FPL stalwarts Marcos Alonso, who was signed by 178,000 this week, and Cesar Azpilicueta played and recorded their tenth clean sheets of the season, while Antonio Rudiger added a goal and two bonus for a bumper 14-point haul.
Not that it was all wine and roses as the unfortunate 1.3% who own Victor Moses saw the wing-back subbed four minutes before he would have earned clean sheet points, with the fact that his replacement, Davide Zappacosta, then scored Chelsea’s fifth goal putting the tin lid on their luckless day.
