There were defeats for both Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday evening and contrasting fortunes for the Fantasy assets on show.
Harry Kane (£12.5m), unsurprisingly the most-bought forward of the week in Fantasy Premier League, was on target for the third match in a row to give his existing owners – and prospective ones – plenty of encouragement ahead of the visit of Cardiff City on Saturday.
Mohamed Salah (£12.9m), Sadio Mane (£9.9m) and Roberto Firmino (£9.4m) all started for Liverpool in Italy, meanwhile, but the much-owned front three were to blank for the second away fixture in a row as the Reds went down to a late Lorenzo Insigne goal.
We round up all the goals, assists, team news, manager quotes and Fantasy talking points from the two matches in north-west London and Naples, plus provide an injury update on Naby Keita (£7.3m).
Tottenham Hotspur 2-4 Barcelona
- Goals: Harry Kane (£12.5m), Erik Lamela (£6.4m)
- Assists: Erik Lamela, Son Heung-min (£8.3m)
Injury-hit Spurs produced a spirited performance at Wembley last night but were ultimately outclassed by Lionel Messi and Barcelona, who deservedly emerged from the fixture with all three points to leave Mauricio Pochettino’s side cast adrift in UEFA Champions League Group B.
Harry Kane’s expertly taken goal was heartening for the ever-growing number of Fantasy managers who are backing the England striker to put Cardiff City to the sword this weekend and an ominous sign for those who aren’t.
As he had been in the opening few weeks of the season, Kane was dropping worryingly deep at times yesterday but that appeared to have been a concerted effort to exploit the spaces left behind the high-pressing Arthur and Sergio Busquets in the Barcelona midfield.
Kane’s first goal attempt of the night was indeed a shot from distance comfortably held by Marc-Andre ter Stegen after the Spurs striker had collected the ball in a withdrawn position.
That Kane was able to find the net for the second successive match without the supply lines of injured pair Christian Eriksen (£9.2m) and Dele Alli (£9.0m) was another positive for his FPL owners, as both of these premium midfielders are set to miss the visit of Neil Warnock’s newly promoted side on Saturday.
Erik Lamela (£6.4m) produced another decent display, harrying Barcelona all evening and indeed provided the assist for Kane’s goal before adding a second himself courtesy of a deflected effort from just outside the penalty area.
The Argentinian midfielder was withdrawn on 79 minutes with what appeared to just be cramp and Spurs can ill-afford to lose another option in those supporting roles behind Kane – particularly one who has impressed in the brief instances in which he has been afforded pitch-time this season.
Son Heung-min (£8.3m) and Lucas Moura (£7.4m) were perhaps less influential in the attacking midfield three with Lamela, but played their part to varying degrees. The industrious Moura came close to grabbing an equaliser with the score at 2-3, and Son had a volley disallowed in the first half after a Kieran Trippier (£6.2m) handball. Son did, however, look jaded at times and was substituted midway through the second half. Given the dearth of attacking midfield options available, Pochettino might have to field Son again on Saturday despite his rather obvious signs of fatigue.
Harry Winks (£5.5m), meanwhile, impressed in the centre of the park and may have played himself into contention for the visit of Cardiff.
Pochettino was heartened by his team’s attacking play:
“In the second half, the team believed and we competed in a very good way. I’m so proud about that, playing against a team like this with the handicap from the beginning. The team gave everything and if Lucas scored, it’s 3-3 and maybe we are talking in a different way. The game was so open. We tried to go forward and tried to score. We were so brave. We were always in the game…in the last minute when we conceded the fourth goal the game was over, but I feel proud.”
It was a night to forget for Trippier and his fellow Spurs defenders, but mitigation has to be provided given the calibre of the opposition.
That being said, Trippier was partly culpable for Barcelona’s first goal, being caught flat-footed as Jordi Alba advanced beyond him to set up Philippe Coutinho, and was given a torrid time at right-back all evening.
Trippier’s owners may care little, of course, given that his Fantasy appeal mostly stems from his attacking threat, but Jacob Murphy (£4.8m) – who excelled in Gameweek 7 – will fancy his chances against the former Burnley full-back on Saturday (if both are selected) given the ease with which Alba dominated Trippier down the left flank.
As has come to be expected, Trippier at least got forward to support the Spurs attack and was again prominent at corner-kick situations, finding Kane and Davinson Sanchez (£5.8m) with deliveries in the second half.
That Ben Davies (£5.7m) got the nod at left-back suggests Danny Rose (£5.9m) might return to the starting XI on Saturday as Pochettino continues his full-back rotation on the left flank.
With Jan Vertonghen (£6.0m) sidelined through injury, Sanchez and Toby Alderweireld (£5.9m) were the occasionally shaky-looking pairing at centre-half. Vertonghen’s continued absence this Saturday means that the wing-back system might well be ditched (as it was last night) in favour of a 4-2-3-1, though Eric Dier (£4.8m) could potentially step into the breach if Pochettino wishes to continue with a three-man central defence in the league.
Hugo Lloris (£5.4m) didn’t aid his side on his return from injury, unwisely rushing out in the move that led to Barcelona’s opening goal and leaving his net unguarded for Philippe Coutinho to convert.
Pochettino was understandably irked by the sloppy nature of that Coutinho strike:
“If you watch football and understand it, you will know how hard is to come out of the dressing room and find yourself 1-0 down so early. It’s so difficult after this for the team to feel confident to play. It’s so tough. When you play at this level you can’t concede these type of chances. When you concede in less than two minutes, it changes completely everything. The emotion becomes tough when you are playing against Barcelona and players like Messi and Suarez.”
The Spurs boss backed his side’s defensive display, however, particularly in the opening 45 minutes.
“We didn’t concede one chance to Messi in the first half. In the second half, he had more space and that is difficult to stop. If you watch the first half again, how many chances did he have? Not one. In the second half, with a lot of space, it is unbelievable how he runs.”
Tottenham Hotspur XI (4-2-3-1):Â Lloris; Trippier, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Davies; Winks, Wanyama (Dier 57′); Moura, Lamela (Llorente 79′), Son (Sissoko 66′); Kane 7.
Napoli 1-0 Liverpool
A night of graft and chasing for Liverpool ultimately counted for little as the Reds were undone by a late, late goal from Lorenzo Insigne to condemn them to a 1-0 defeat in Naples.
Though Jurgen Klopp’s side have four days to recover from their exertions in southern Italy before the visit of Manchester City, there must be concerns about tired legs for anyone owning one or more of the Reds’ FPL assets: the likes of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Andrew Robertson (£6.3m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£5.1m) did a lot of harrying in their 90-minute showings, while Sadio Mane was substituted with just a minute of the match remaining.
A further worry for those Fantasy managers with a Liverpool asset was just how little the Reds created on Wednesday evening.
Klopp’s troops racked up 13 shots, four efforts on target and three big chances in their deserved 1-1 draw with Chelsea last weekend but they never really got going last night, with David Ospina not forced into making a single save. The Reds, indeed, could only muster four attempts on goal all evening.
Salah came closest to scoring with a shot that bent just wide of Ospina’s left-hand post, while the former Arsenal goalkeeper also had to be quick off his line to deny Mane and Salah goal-scoring opportunities.
Aside from that there was precious little to report from the Reds in attack and Klopp acknowledged that his side didn’t pose a big enough threat going forward:
“They won the game because they scored a goal, but obviously no attempt on target [for us]… I don’t remember when that happened last. I am really fine to give the credit to Napoli, but I think we had a big part in it as well. We didn’t have a lot of set-pieces, no shots on target, that’s not enough. It felt like this in the game and now we have to change it. Napoli made a really good game, we didn’t, and that’s why they deserve the three points.”
That Joe Gomez (£5.1m) and Alisson (£5.6m) were perhaps Liverpool’s stand-out players said much about the pattern of the match, with Gomez clearing off the line and Alisson making several stops as Napoli came ever-closer to that seemingly elusive winner.
Dries Mertens also struck the crossbar in the final ten minutes before Insigne broke Liverpool’s resistance in the dying stages of the tie.
Klopp was somewhat critical of his side’s defensive performance, highlighting the errors that led to Napoli’s winner:
“The start of the game was OK, it was like we wanted it, and then we had… the timing for our defensive movements were not good enough, we did not close the spaces in the right moment. We didn’t react in the right situation so they could play through our formation. Things like this happen in a game very often but not as often as it happened tonight, and that costs energy because we closed these gaps too late. To close it we had to fight really hard for it and then when you have the ball you have to play much calmer than we did. First half was kind of OK, but second half was not good enough. It’s always a bad sign if you have to say your goalkeeper was your best player, but that was obvious tonight. Then in the last minute, we made another tactical mistake and that’s the problem. We didn’t close the gap between Joe and Virg, we have to do that, and then we cannot react anymore. We didn’t concede a lot of goals in the season but that’s the second of the same kind, so I think we should sort that immediately.”
Alexander-Arnold looked particularly suspect at right-back, getting caught out of position on a number of occasions and being wasteful whenever granted possession.
Robertson was involved in Liverpool’s rare forays down the left flank, but this was an evening when the Scottish left-back had to call upon his defensive attributes rather than the attacking threat that marks him out as a stand-out premium defender in FPL.
Liverpool’s central midfielders were fairly limited and offered little support or service to Salah, Mane and Firmino in attack, though their cause was not helped by an enforced substitution to Naby Keita early in the match.
The club posted the following bulletin on Keita, who was stretchered off after 19 minutes with a back problem:
“Liverpool Football Club can confirm Naby Keita was taken to hospital in Naples on Wednesday evening during the first half of the Champions League fixture with SSC Napoli. The midfielder started the game at the Stadio San Paolo, but was substituted inside the opening 20 minutes and replaced by Jordan Henderson after alerting the team’s medical staff to back pain. Keita was transferred to a local hospital with the club doctor, where – with the midfielder’s agreement – he underwent a number of precautionary health checks to assess his condition.”
Reports in the press on Thursday morning suggest Keita has been discharged from hospital and will fly back to England with the rest of the Liverpool squad, with his possible involvement against City on Sunday still not ruled out.
Klopp acknowledged that the match against Pep Guardiola’s side comes at a difficult time:
“Yes, it is a tough game [v City]. Absolutely. And you have seen it has been absolutely intense since the last international break with the games we’ve had – twice Chelsea and stuff like that, coming to Napoli, playing PSG and now we have the game on Sunday against Man City. We cannot change that, so we have to make sure we are ready. We have three days to recover and then we will face Man City. It would have been difficult at any time in the season, it is never easy against them. Now, let’s have a look afterwards, how the players are, what happened in the game, injury-wise, little knocks and stuff like that. Then we will prepare for Sunday. Then we have our crowd in the back. You could see tonight, Napoli used the atmosphere and we couldn’t calm it down with our performance. But on Sunday that – at least – will be 100 per cent different.”
Liverpool XI (4-3-3):Â Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Milner (Fabinho 76′), Wijnaldum, Keita (Henderson 19′); Salah, Firmino, Mane (Sturridge 89)’.
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