Our latest Scout Notes piece looks at the final fixture of Gameweek 10.
The Monday evening match at Wembley was a curious affair, not least because of the visible after-effects of the NFL match staged there the previous day.
While not quite the snoozefest that Manchester City’s 0-0 draw with Liverpool was three weeks ago, the game won’t linger long in the memory and in truth it was a mismatched encounter between two Premier League sides playing at patently different levels: one good, the other great.
That being said, in spite of their almost total dominance, City still managed to present their hosts with a succession of excellent chances and their sixth successive Premier League clean sheet was only banked thanks to the wayward finishing of Erik Lamela.
Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane left their owners frustrated through either wasteful shooting or almost total non-involvement, but there was a deserved attacking return for perhaps the liveliest player on the pitch: the returning Raheem Sterling.
We’ve all the goals, assists, Fantasy talking points, manager quotes and fitness news from an eighth league win of the season for Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions.
Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Manchester City
- Goal: Riyad Mahrez (£8.6m)
- Assist: Raheem Sterling (£11.1m)
With so many of the players around him having an off-day, Raheem Sterling (£11.1m) delivered a fine performance on his return to the Manchester City starting XI and left Wembley with an assist for his role in Riyad Mahrez’s (£8.6m) match-winner.
Sterling gave Kieran Trippier (£6.3m) a torrid evening on the left flank and it was the Spurs right-back’s inability to deal with a long punt from Ederson (£5.7m) that ultimately led to City’s goal; Sterling collecting the loose ball, drifting past his England team-mate and cutting the ball back for Mahrez to tap in.
Sterling then set up Sergio Aguero (£11.3m) to fire into the side netting and the City winger should have had a goal himself in the second half, being teed up by David Silva (£8.5m) and having his goalbound effort blocked by Trippier.
As he has done time and time again this season, Sterling bossed the penalty box touch count and the former Liverpool midfielder has touched the ball inside the opposition area on more occasions than any FPL forward in 2018/19 – including Aguero.
Sterling seems to be Guardiola’s man for the big occasions (he has started the away games at Arsenal, Wolves, Liverpool and Spurs this season, plus all of the matches against the “big six” he wasn’t injured/suspended for in 2017/18) and the concern from a Fantasy owner’s point of view is that it is in the games against the Premier League whipping boys (Huddersfield and Burnley, for instance) where Guardiola will choose to rotate/preserve him – exactly the type of fixtures you’d want your Fantasy asset to be taking part in.
Aguero was borderline anonymous until the hour mark when he suddenly sprang into life, the sight of a fourth official with a numbers’ board possibly triggering a Pavlovian response given that his withdrawal is usually imminent at that point.
Aguero wasted a glorious opportunity provided to him by David Silva (£8.5m) minutes before he stung the hands of Hugo Lloris (£5.4m), the Argentinean forward’s race eventually run after 70 minutes when he was replaced by Kevin De Bruyne (£9.8m).
Aguero has now blanked in four of City’s five away league fixtures this season (averaging just 2.6 FPL points on the road) and the 20-point haul against Huddersfield in Gameweek 2 remains his only double-digit return of 2018/19.
The City striker at least had more of a sight of goal than Harry Kane (£12.4m) whose fiercely hit effort from distance in the first half was the England striker’s only shot in 90 minutes.
Kane touched the ball just once in the City area all night, meanwhile, and in the past three Gameweeks (Kane has blanked in each of them) 17 FPL forwards have racked up more touches in the opposition area than the World Cup Golden Boot winner.
John Stones (£5.3m) discussed how the City backline nullified Kane on Monday night, highlighting the type of high press that has seen Kane pushed into deeper and deeper positions this season:
We know Harry [Kane]’s very clinical. We had to stop him as high up the pitch as we could. He made a lot of great runs behind and it’s never easy to give a striker a yard to get a shot off. It happened in the first half with the shot over the bar.
Great strikers do that but tonight, how we defended, we kept him to minimal chances and regained the ball off him, setting the boys off on counter-attacks. That’s something we’d worked on in training and we executed it well tonight.
While the premium forwards flattered to deceive in attack, two of the more widely owned defenders in FPL this season were having a night to forget at full-back.
Trippier’s struggles we have already touched upon but Benjamin Mendy (£6.3m) was equally suspect for City, allowing plenty of space behind him for Spurs to exploit and being lucky not to make contact with Erik Lamela (£6.3m) after a petulant swing out at the Argentinean midfielder.
While Mendy and Trippier’s attacking instincts make them appealing to us Fantasy bosses, their defensive vulnerabilities can’t have gone unnoticed by their respective club managers and there are ready-made alternatives in Serge Aurier (£5.8m) and Fabian Delph (£5.3m) available to either coach should they desire it.
Mendy was the weak link in an otherwise solid back four, with Trippier and Moussa Sissoko (£4.9m) wasting excellent positions when exploiting the space in behind the City left-back and unable to pick out a Spurs shirt.
The dependable Aymeric Laporte (£5.8m) and Ederson recorded their seventh clean sheets of the season in this victory, with the Brazilian goalkeeper out quick to tackle Kane in the first half but otherwise untroubled except for a Toby Alderweireld (£5.9m) header.
Mahrez was culpable for Spurs’ only “big chance” of the match – blazed over by Lamela late on – when caught in possession but the Algerian winger was a menace in attack, crashing a shot off the upright via Lloris’s glove on 28 minutes and in confident mood as he glided around the pitch on his third straight league start.
The former Leicester City winger is owned by fewer FPL managers than six other City midfielders but is the only member of Guardiola’s squad to have featured in all of their competitive fixtures this season.
The City head coach is clearly a fan of his summer signing. Speaking at full-time, Guardiola said:
Riyad was good. He was focused and he did a great job.
He has played the last three, four, five games at a high level, scoring goals and making a lot of assists.
Against Shakhtar Donetsk, he would have scored three goals if not for the goalkeeper.
While Lucas Moura (£7.2m) – no shots, key passes or penalty box touches for the Brazilian midfielder on Monday evening – gradually fades from our thoughts as a Fantasy asset, three giants of FPL continued their rehabilitation from injury with cameo appearances at Wembley: a rusty-looking De Bruyne for City and Dele Alli (£8.9m) and Christian Eriksen (£9.2m) for Spurs.
We are likely some weeks away from considering any of them as viable premium midfield picks, but with each player now available for significantly less than their starting price, we’ll be closely monitoring their return to fitness over the next few matches.
Certainly given the superb performances of David Silva and Bernardo Silva (£7.6m) in central midfield on Monday evening, we might be waiting a little while on De Bruyne’s regular involvement in a Premier League starting XI.
Tottenham Hotspur XI (4-3-2-1): Lloris; Trippier, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Davies; Sissoko, Dier (Winks 67′), Dembele (Alli 75′); Moura (Eriksen 82′), Lamela; Kane.
Manchester City XI (4-3-3) Ederson; Walker, Stones, Laporte, Mendy; Fernandinho, Bernardo, David Silva (Kompany 88′) Sterling, Aguero (De Bruyne 71′), Mahrez.
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