Arsenal and Chelsea recorded their second successive UEFA Europa League victories last night with wins over Qarabag and Vidi respectively.
While there was much rotation from Unai Emery and Maurizio Sarri, there were cameo appearances for the likes of Eden Hazard (£11.2m), Alexandre Lacazette (£9.5m) and Mesut Ozil (£8.3m) and impressive performances from one or two squad players that may impact on their managers’ team selections in Gameweek 8.
We round up the goals, assists, Fantasy talking points and manager quotes from the two fixtures involving the London clubs yesterday evening, as well as bringing you the latest injury and availability updates.
FK Qarabag 0-3 Arsenal
- Goals: Sokratis Papastathopoulos (£5.2m), Emile Smith-Rowe, Matteo Guendouzi (£4.5m)
- Assists: Nacho Monreal (£5.5m), Alex Iwobi (£5.5m), Alexandre Lacazette (£9.5m)
Unai Emery will check on the availability of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£10.8m) and Aaron Ramsey (£7.4m) ahead of the trip to Fulham on Sunday after the pair missed the win over Azerbaijani side FK Qarabag on Thursday night.
Ramsey stayed behind in London to be with his pregnant wife, while Aubameyang missed out through illness.
Speaking of the pair, Emery said:
Aubameyang and Aaron are in London and we will look tomorrow and Saturday to see how they are for Sunday to see if they can play.
Should either of those two players miss out, then Alex Iwobi (£5.5m) is pushing hard for a recall in their stead. The Nigerian international delivered an assist and a man-of-the-match performance on the left wing on Thursday evening, and Emery was asked if Iwobi would start against the Cottagers this weekend – though gave his usual non-committal answer:
Each match is one exam for them. I am very happy with how they are responding on the pitch. Alex Iwobi is another player who is the same. When we arrive on the match at Sunday against Fulham, it’s also very important that we decide the best first eleven and the players on the bench for continuing together in this way, away at a very good and difficult team like Fulham.
Iwobi collected the assist for Emile Smith-Rowe‘s second-half goal, which was the youngster’s first competitive strike in an Arsenal shirt.
Smith-Rowe (not listed in FPL) also impressed playing on the other side of Danny Welbeck (£6.5m), going close to scoring in the first half before he opened his account after the interval.
Emery paid tribute to the youngster after the match:
Emile Smith Rowe worked very well with us. He knows how we want to play and he is very humble to continue improving and progressing with us and in every training and match, like today. I said to him, after he left the match, that before he had one action and with ambition, he can go inside the box and score more.
A little bit of all the qualities he has: physical, mentality and quality with his right foot. Working in combinations with other players. If I can say one condition, for me, it’s his mentality. He is humble and he is humble to listen every day in training, in the video analysis and also before the match to continue improving and to keep taking one step more, like today.
The last matches he played, for example against Brentford, he had three actions in the opposition boxes and didn’t score. But today, he had two and one was a goal. I think this is one step more for him. I prefer to not speak a lot about him, because I think it’s best for him to continue to be humble and continue working in every match to keep his feet on the ground.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan (£6.9m), another Arsenal midfielder who stands to benefit in the possible absence of Aubameyang and Ramsey, missed out yesterday evening due to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.
Emery made nine changes to his side for this Europa League match, with only Nacho Monreal (£5.5m) and Rob Holding (£4.4m) keeping their places from the team that started the victory over Watford.
Emery also changed his system, deploying an unconvincing 3-4-3 in the first half before switching to a back four at the break. The Arsenal boss revealed that formation switch, rather than an injury problem, was the reason for Monreal’s substitution at the interval:
I changed Monreal because we wanted to play with a back four in the second half. Also, we needed to put one midfielder more on the pitch.
The wing-back system doesn’t appear to be a tactic Emery will use again in a hurry based on last night’s evidence, with Bernd Leno (£4.8m) excelling in the first half especially to keep the Gunners in front.
Despite registering a third successive clean sheet, the Arsenal defence looked creaky throughout and Fantasy owners of Aleksandar Mitrovic (£7.0m) will have been encouraged to see just how often the Gunners’ defence was breached by their Azerbaijani opponents – home striker Mahir Madatov going close on several occasions and having an effort ruled out for offside.
Sokratis (£5.2m) returned from a dead leg to deflect Monreal’s header past Qarabag goalkeeper Vagner in the fourth minute, while Sead Kolasinac (£4.9m) continued his comeback from injury by playing 90 minutes at left-back/wing-back.
Alexandre Lacazette (£9.5m) and Mesut Ozil (£8.3m) were sent on as second-half substitutes and the French striker delivered yet another attacking return, teeing up Matteo Guendouzi (£4.5m) for Arsenal’s third to put the gloss on a somewhat mixed display from the Gunners.
Arsenal XI (3-4-3): Leno; Holding, Sokratis, Monreal (Torreira 46′); Lichtsteiner, Elneny, Guendouzi, Kolasinac; Iwobi (Lacazette 71′), Smith Rowe (Ozil 65′), Welbeck.
Chelsea 1-0 MOL Vidi
- Goal: Alvaro Morata (£8.8m)
- Assist: Willian (£7.4m)
Eden Hazard (£11.2m) was given a 40-minute run-out as Chelsea made hard work of their victory over Hungarian side MOL Vidi at Stamford Bridge.
Hazard was thrown on by Maurizio Sarri on 54 minutes with the game still goalless and looked sharp, his introduction seemingly galvanising his team-mates and underscoring just how important he is to the Blues even in fixtures of this magnitude.
The Belgian came through his cameo appearance seemingly unscathed, to the relief of the 43.2% of FPL managers who own him, though that Hazard’s services were required at all was a reflection of how limited Chelsea’s second-string were in attack.
Pedro (£6.5m) had an unremarkable return from injury playing in a front three with Willian (£7.4m) and Alvaro Morata (£8.8m), the latter two of whom combined for the much-maligned striker’s winning goal on 70 minutes.
Morata had earlier missed two presentable chances from just outside the six-yard-box (the first being a gilt-edged opportunity with the goalkeeper committed on the floor) and it had looked like being another frustrating evening for the Spanish forward before his well-taken winner.
Speaking of Morata, Sarri said:
I’m really very happy for him. It’s very important for him to score, but I think it’s very important for him to play a good match. It’s very important for him to play for the team like he did this evening.
Alvaro can restart from this performance. He played very well, better than the last period. He has to take confidence from his performance. Sometimes you can score, sometimes not, but the performance is important.
He’s a very important player for us. At the moment we have Alvaro and Giroud. We have to play every three days for a long time I think, I hope, so they are both very important for our season.
While Morata’s goal drought may have come to an end, Olivier Giroud (£7.8m) will surely return to the starting XI for the trip to Southampton on Sunday.
Sarri made eight changes for the visit of Vidi, with Willian, Mateo Kovacic (£5.9m) and Kepa Arrizabalaga (£5.5m) the only players to retain their starts from the side that drew with Liverpool. Kovacic and Willian were indeed withdrawn in the second half with one eye perhaps on that encounter with Mark Hughes’ side.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek (£5.2m) put in a promising display in the centre of midfield on his return from injury, being denied a clear penalty after one jinking run into the Vidi box.
Another player returning from the treatment table had a less-than-stellar evening. Andreas Christensen (£5.1m) put in a shaky performance at centre-half but wasn’t alone in looking uncertain in the much-changed home defence, with Vidi forcing Kepa into a couple of decent stops and having a headed effort cleared from within the six-yard-box by Emerson Palmieri (£5.2m).
Sarri said his side “must do better” from a defensive perspective after the match:
It was very hard. In the first half we had opportunities for scoring. We didn’t do it, and so the second half was very hard.
We created a lot of goalscoring opportunities, but we conceded two or three opportunities to the opponents, and we have to do better in the defensive phase, in the positions under the line of the ball to avoid counter-attacks.
For those FPL managers considering playing Danny Ings (£5.7m) this weekend, Chelsea’s back four will, of course, be completely changed for that meeting at St. Mary’s on Sunday.
Chelsea XI (4-3-3): Arrizabalaga; Zappacosta, Cahill, Christensen, Emerson; Kovacic, Fabregas, Loftus-Cheek (Barkley 66′); Willian (Moses 74′), Morata, Pedro (Hazard 54′).
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5 years, 6 months agoLukaku cappers unite 🙂