Bournemouth were the latest team to completely dismantle Fulham and their awful defence in Gameweek 10 of Fantasy Premier League.
Callum Wilson and Ryan Fraser were at the heart of the action as their owners consider whether to hold onto them as the Cherries’ schedule starts to stiffen up.
In this latest Scout Notes article we go over their most recent exploits…
Fulham 0-3 Bournemouth
Goals: Callum Wilson x2 (£6.6m), David Brooks (£5.1m)
Assists: Ryan Fraser x2 (£6.1m)
Callum Wilson (£6.6m) was back in the goals on Saturday as he took his goal tally for the season to five. It was another away match in which the Bournemouth forward proved deadly on the counter-attack. In fact, Wilson is starting to look like a player more suited to crashing other people’s party than starting one on his own patch. He now has four goals on his travels this season, compared to just one at the Vitality Stadium. Interestingly, all but two of his seven assists have come in front of the Bournemouth faithful.
“His mentality is one that he’s not a quitter, he’s a fighter, he’s a good professional and he worked really hard to get into this position. He’s a player that has had chances, he’s been a real threat, he’s functioned well for the team and I’m pleased he got his two goals.” – Eddie Howe
Fantasy managers are currently mulling over whether or not it’s worth keeping Wilson for a run of matches which sees Bournemouth face Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City between now and Gameweek 14. Noticing that Wilson’s goals seem to depend on playing away from home, only one of those three tougher fixtures is on the road and that’s the trip to Manchester City.
Wilson benefitted from the absence of Josh King (£6.4m) on Saturday as he was able to claim responsibility for the penalty he earned in the 14th minute. How long King will be out for remains to be seen as it was confirmed by Eddie Howe before the trip to Fulham that it was an aggravation of the ankle injury he sustained on international duty and played through against Southampton. The Bournemouth manager has since revealed that King will miss the League Cup clash with Norwich City on Tuesday night.
“Josh will definitely be out. He is the one player in the squad who will miss the game. Everyone else at this moment in time is okay.” – Eddie Howe
King’s absence gave Howe the opportunity to make some tactical tweaks for Bournemouth. The Cherries’ boss switched the 4-4-2 he has used this season into a 3-4-3. Nathan Aké (£5.0m), Steve Cook (£4.6m) and Simon Francis (£4.4m) were named in the back-three with a now lowly-priced Charlie Daniels (£4.2m) earning a recall in left-midfield. Adam Smith played on the right, with Lewis Cook (£4.8m) and Jefferson Lerma (£4.5m) earning his seventh successive start.
“(Lerma) did very well for us, he added that physicality for us and I thought the two CMs did well today – so far so good for Jefferson.” – Eddie Howe
Ryan Fraser (£6.1m) registered two assists in the match. Lined up on the left of the front three with Wilson and David Brooks (£5.1m), he was able to exploit Fulham’s weakness down their right flank. The Scottish midfielder was another Bournemouth midfielder edging closer to the exit door in plenty of Fantasy teams and it will be interesting to see if his 11-point haul will change any decisions. After all, the majority of his owners were expected to hold onto him for at least a favourable fixture against Fulham’s hapless defence. He may come up against more resistance when facing Manchester United next week.
Furthermore, the Cherries’ defence is likely to face stiffer challenges in the weeks to come too with those aforementioned tricky fixtures. That may dampen interest in their FPL defenders in spite of recording three consecutive clean sheets.
By contrast, Fulham remain the only Premier League side in 2018/19 yet to record a shut-out. The three goals they conceded on Saturday take their total shipped for the season to 28 in ten matches. While manager Slavisa Jokanovic insists he has been working hard to improve the Cottagers’ back-line it was more of the same on Saturday.
“We tried the way to be more solid and more organised to not concede so many goals. I cannot complain about how my players tried to follow the plan, we were working all this week to try to stop conceding easy goals. We tried to find a better distance between lines and players, try working altogether. To be honest, once more the opponent team scored easy goals against us, we made one mistake at the beginning of the game without needing to do something like this after 10 minutes where we are fresh enough to be focused and concentrated to not make these mistakes.” – Slavisa Jokanovic
As can be expected by this point, there were further changes to the back-four. Calum Chambers (£4.3m), who played at right-back against Cardiff, dropped out for Timothy Fosu-Mensah (£4.5m). It was the latter who gave away the first-half penalty for a foul on Wilson.
“I don’t change so much when we compare to the last game. I didn’t use Timothy against Cardiff, I make the decision not to use Cyrus because he played for the national team, I played with Chambers at RB. I can make one time more some kind of change, we need to be calm and accept our mistakes and try to find the solution. We try to be more organised today, but the mistake killed us. This level is really hard and tough, not just for Fulham but for a few teams in the PL.” – Slavisa Jokanovic
Jokanovic even went as far as to change his goalkeeper. Sergio Rico (£4.4m) became the third shot-stopper to start for the Cottagers in ten Premier League matches and had a far from perfect afternoon himself.
“There were some mistakes in front of (Rico), we will make him unsatisfied with his debut. From my position, he was quiet and made one good save in two different situations where they conceded, he can do something more but I cannot complain about him and I have good keepers and right now we are not supporting them enough.” – Slavisa Jokanovic
It was a tough afternoon for attacking options Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.9m) and Andre Schürrle (£6.0m) who had two shots each and combined for just one on target.
Fulham XI (4-2-3-1): Rico; Le Marchand (Cairney 60′), Ream, Odoi, Fosu-Mensah; Seri (Zambo Anguissa 80′), McDonald; R Sessegnon, Schürrle, Kamara; Mitrovic.
Bournemouth XI (3-4-3): Begović; Aké, S Cook, Francis; Daniels, Lerma, L Cook (Gosling 80′), A Smith; Fraser (Defoe 89′), Wilson, Brooks (Stanislas 86′).
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