Our review of the weekend’s matches continues with a look back at the Sunday lunchtime kick-off at Molineux, where Wolves defeated Burnley 1-0.
Raul Jimenez (£5.5m) scored the hosts’ winner on the hour, slotting a Matt Doherty (£4.4m) cut-back past the otherwise impressive Joe Hart (£4.5m).
Doherty and fellow Wolves wing-back Jonny (£4.4m) stood out from a Fantasy perspective, with their performances suggesting they will rack up both clean sheets and attacking returns throughout the season.
Wolves 1-0 Burnley
- Goal: Raul Jimenez (£5.5m)
- Assist: Matt Doherty (£4.4m)
If there were any lingering doubts that Wolves could hold their own against the Premier League elite – if Burnley can be described as such – then the dominant display that last season’s Championship winners delivered in their victory over the Clarets on Sunday would have dispelled them.
The narrow scoreline failed to reflect the West Midlands club’s almost total dominance: no club have had more attempts on goal (30) or shots in the box (20) in Gameweek 5 so far, while only Manchester City registered more big chances and penalty box touches than Wolves across the weekend’s matches.
Speaking after the match, head coach Nuno Espirito Santo said:
Creating chances is difficult, but we produced a lot. We always have to improve. We’re going to work together to find the final touch. Talent exists; organisation we work on.
We scored one and that’s the most important. After we scored there was more space. The hard part of the game is to produce, to stay organised. And it’s two times we’ve kept a clean sheet.
The most important part is the way we played, how we controlled the game. It was a good game, no doubt about it.
After promising but understandably flawed displays in their first two matches of this season, Wolves had impressed in Gameweeks 3 and 4 with a draw against City and a last-gasp victory over West Ham United. Their performance against Sean Dyche’s troops was their best yet, however, with Wolves’ relentless pressing and direct attacking play unsettling Burnley throughout and reducing the visitors to a handful of limp attempts on goal.
Ruben Neves (£5.2m) is the only Wolves player who is owned by more than 10% of managers in Fantasy Premier League but based on what we saw at Molineux, Santo’s side are seriously under-represented in the Fantasy world.
Neves and Joao Moutinho (£5.4m) were a joy to behold in midfield. From a Fantasy perspective, their goal threat is somewhat limited: neither player had a single penalty box touch or shot from inside the Burnley area (as deep-lying “registas”, of course, this is not a failing on their part). Neves, as we have come to expect, was instead his usual trigger-happy self from distance.
Creatively though, the pair excelled. No player took more corner-kicks in Gameweek 5 than Moutinho, who appears to have the monopoly at indirect set-piece situations.
There wasn’t a single player in FPL who created more chances than Neves this weekend, meanwhile.
The Portuguese midfield pairing made more passes than any other player on show at Molineux and it was the two Wolves wing-backs who benefitted most from Neves and Moutinho’s raking diagonal balls out to the flank.
Jonny and Matt Doherty (£4.4m) were owned by no more 1% of FPL managers before kick-off, with the budget-freeing Ryan Bennett (£4.1m) the most popular route into this Wolves defence.
Doherty and Jonny though would appear to be the two names to monitor for those who like their defenders to come with an added goal threat.
No FPL defender registered more penalty box touches than Doherty (five) this weekend, with Jonny just one behind.
Both players had three attempts on goal (all of Jonny’s coming from inside the opposition area), with each registering one big chance apiece: Doherty being denied by Hart from close range and Jonny having his shot cleared from almost on the goal-line by James Tarkowski (£5.0m).
The pair also made three key passes each, with one of Doherty’s resulting in Jimenez’s match-winning strike.
The solidity of Bennett, Willy Boly (£4.5m), Conor Coady (£4.5m) and Rui Patricio (£4.5m) behind them suggests clean sheets will be a semi-regular occurrence too, with Burnley not allowed a single big chance during the match: only Liverpool have conceded fewer-clear cut opportunities than Wolves this season.
Boly’s recoveries, CBIs (Clearances, Blocks and Interceptions) and pass completion statistics earned him a bonus point, with the French centre-back also going close with a volley in the first half.
Wolves were profligate in front of goal, with Jimenez and especially his replacement Leo Bonatini (£4.9m) guilty of several glaring misses.
Jimenez at least keeps getting into himself into goalscoring positions (only two strikers have had more efforts on goal than the Mexican this season) and is the only genuine rival to Danny Ings (£5.7m) for those considering a budget second or third forward: Jimenez is the highest-scoring player in his position in the sub-£6.0m price bracket.
That Santo has named the same starting XI for five successive matches adds to Jimenez and his team-mates’ appeal as FPL assets.
Helder Costa (£4.9m) and Diogo Jota (£6.2m) had plenty of sights of goal, but neither player really convinces as a viable FPL midfield option at the moment despite their relative security in Santo’s line-up and their undoubted contributions to the Wolves effort on the whole.
From a Burnley point of view, there was little to cheer.
Johann Berg Gudmundsson (£5.9m) returned from injury to take his place on the left wing and was the Clarets’ main goal threat, registering more shots (none of which caused Patricio any bother) than any of his team-mates.
Matej Vydra (£5.9m) was a bright spark upon his introduction and the collective failings of Chris Wood (£6.4m), Sam Vokes (£5.4m) and Ashley Barnes (£5.7m) this season would perhaps suggest that the former Derby County striker isn’t too far away from a start in attack.
Vydra’s volleyed effort, which came within a whisker of being turned in by Jack Cork (£4.9m) at the far post, was the closest the visitors came to scoring on Sunday.
Dyche had rolled out a 4-4-2 for the first time in the league this season in a bid to pose more of an attacking threat, but the Burnley boss bemoaned his side’s lack of creativity in his post-match interview:
The better side won, first and foremost. But from our point of view the intention to play hard was there, and it was a poor goal.
We knew it would be a tough game against a team with a real connection and we did well in terms of our defensive play in terms of getting the blocks and clearances in, but we didn’t have enough on the offensive side of the game today.
That’s as a collective. There were too many misplaced passes and we gave the ball away cheaply far too many times and it’s like a fog has dropped onto the group.
Dyche was right to highlight the defensive contributions of his side, with Ben Mee (£5.0m) and especially Tarkowski throwing their bodies in the way as Wolves mounted attack after attack, but full-backs Phil Bardsley and Charlie Taylor (both £4.4m) had a torrid afternoon against Jonny, Doherty, Jota and Costa. Stephen Ward and Matthew Lowton (both £4.9m) may fancy their chances of a recall soon.
In the end, the Burnley backline was indebted to the efforts of Hart between the sticks, with the former Manchester City goalkeeper making several stops – the best of which was from Jimenez – to keep the scoreline respectable.
Hart has now made more saves than any other goalkeeper in FPL this season, simultaneously highlighting his own good form while drawing attention to the porous defence in front of him.
Burnley sit second in our Season Ticker for the next three matches, but with Dyche talking of a “fog” descending on the group, there seems little incentive in drafting in the Clarets’ FPL assets into our squads at this present time.
Wolves XI (3-4-3):Â Patricio; Bennett, Coady, Boly; Doherty, Neves, Moutinho, Jonny; Costa (Traore 66′), Jimenez (Bonatini 76′), Jota (Gibbs-White 88′)
Burnley XI (4-4-2): Hart; Bardsley, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor; Lennon, Hendrick (Westwood 79′), Cork, Gudmundsson; Barnes (Vydra 56′), Vokes (Wood 70′)
READ MORE GAMEWEEK 5 SCOUT NOTES
- Spurs 1-2 Liverpool
- Bournemouth 4-2 Leicester
- Chelsea 4-1 Cardiff
- Huddersfield 0-1 Crystal Palace
- Man City 3-0 Fulham
- Newcastle 1-2 Arsenal (coming soon)
- Watford 1-2 Man United (coming soon)
- Wolves 1-0 Burnley
- Everton 1-3 West Ham
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