Brendan Rodgers is hopeful of having James Maddison (£7.1m) available for the trip to Anfield next Saturday after the Leicester City midfielder missed out on his side’s 5-0 win over Newcastle United on Sunday.
Maddison picked up an ankle knock in the victory over Tottenham Hotspur in Gameweek 6 and failed to recover for the Foxes’ latest fixture.
Speaking ahead of yesterday’s match, Rodgers said:
We wanted to give him every chance but it was always going to be unlikely that he could [play]. But he’s back working now and hopefully next week he’ll be fine.
We round up the other talking points from the penultimate match of Gameweek 7 in our Scout Notes article below.
Leicester City 5-0 Newcastle United
- Goals: Ricardo Pereira (£6.0m), Jamie Vardy (£8.9m) x2, Paul Dummett (£4.3m) own-goal, Wilfred Ndidi (£5.0m)
- Assists: Ayoze Perez (£6.0m), Harvey Barnes (£5.9m), Dennis Praet (£5.3m), Marc Albrighton (£5.3m), Jonny Evans (£5.0m)
- Bonus: Vardy x3, Evans x2, Pereira x1
Maddison certainly wasn’t missed as the Magpies offered up feeble resistance and capitulated in the second half following the dismissal of Isaac Hayden (£4.5m) for a full-blooded tackle on Dennis Praet (£5.3m).
Leicester
As a result, it is difficult to gauge much of worth from this five-goal demolition of Steve Bruce’s sorry side, although full credit needs to go to the ruthless Foxes for capitalising on their opponents’ shortcomings to climb to third in the Premier League table.
Jamie Vardy (£8.9m) repeated his usual trick of exploding into life after a period of dormancy, first beating a suspect-looking Martin Dubravka (£5.0m) at his near post before nodding in a teasing Marc Albrighton (£5.3m) cross to double his tally.
For a striker who has a great record for scoring against the ‘big six’, Vardy has become something of a flat-track bully this season – a quality that Fantasy managers may find attractive given the Foxes’ upcoming fixture run.
The premium forward has blanked in four meetings with sides that finished in the top half in 2018/19 but racked up 36 FPL points in three fixtures against the ‘also-rans’.
Some pundits may have thought that Rodgers’ possession-based football might not be to Vardy’s liking, given his track record for prospering in counter-attacking sides, but the Leicester boss highlighted the fact the two approaches needn’t be mutually exclusive in his post-match interview.
Rodgers said:
If you look at the top two teams in this country, they’re brilliant with the ball. They can have long periods of possession, 60-70 per cent, but when they have to counter-attack, they counter-attack. We saw that today from us.
In relation to our process of getting better, you have to be able to play and have balance in the game, whatever is required.
In the second half, we had to keep the ball and move it to create opportunities and we did that. At times on the counter-attack, we did that as well.
The players deserve a huge amount of credit because they showed both aspects of the game today.
Vardy combined nicely with Harvey Barnes (£5.9m) at times, while Albrighton’s direct wing play caught the eye upon his introduction, too.
Competition and rotation in the wide areas
Ayoze Perez (£6.0m) has been given more chances than most out wide, starting five of Leicester’s seven league games on the right flank, but it’s fair to say that the Foxes are excelling in spite of their summer signing rather than because of him.
The former Newcastle man at least got off the mark with an assist for Ricardo Pereira‘s (£6.0m) superb early goal but, other than an excellent first-minute chance when the visitors stopped while anticipating an offside flag, the Spaniard offered little of note from a Fantasy perspective before being hooked in the game’s dying stages.
Dennis Praet (£5.3m) impressed on only his second start of the season and indeed claimed the assist for the Paul Dummett (£4.5m) own-goal that put Leicester 3-0 up but the Belgian will surely be the fall guy when Maddison returns from injury and his stint in the starting XI may well be short-lived.
Youri Tielemans (£6.4m) is someone who is more assured of a start in Rodgers’ current set-up but, while he was classy against the Magpies, his Fantasy returns at the back-end of 2018/19 are starting to be put into context now.
Tielemans banked three goals and five assists in the final 13 Gameweeks of last season but only one other FPL midfielder had a higher expected goal involvement (
That seems to be panning out this season, with the Belgium international not involved in any of Leicester’s five goals and blanking for the sixth time in seven Gameweeks.
Save for a wayward Hayden shot that Yoshinori Muto (£5.3m) should have turned in, Leicester had precious little to deal with, although the impressive Caglar Soyuncu (£4.6m) mopped up what came his way with ease.
While Soyuncu is the budget-friendly route into what is one of the best defences of 2019/20 (based not just on goals conceded but a host of underlying stats), an extra million or so gets you more than
Ricardo scored for the second week in a row and is now the leading points-scorer among FPL defenders, with his mazy runs forward catching the eye again.
It should be said, though, that Ben Chilwell (£5.4m) looked just as dangerous on the opposite flank without any reward.
Dubravka had to be out
As for Newcastle, there was little positive to note – other than encouragement for owners of Manchester United and Chelsea assets in the coming weeks.
The Magpies may have been ‘spoilers’ under Rafael Benitez but they were a well-drilled unit in that era and the switch to a 4-4-2 here, even if enforced through injury and with a view to delivering more attacking football, always looked like a misstep considering the opposition.
Bruce said of the move away from a wing-back system before kick-off:
Jetro [Willems] picked up an injury in the week with his knee and with Matt Ritchie being out too, we haven’t got anybody natural in that left wing-back position.
With the influential Hayden suspended for three matches now, too, there is a significant hole left in the midfield anchor role for Gameweeks 8-10, which would seemingly further diminish their clean sheet prospects.
Bruce’s post-match words hardly gave the impression of a happy camp:
We simply didn’t do enough. We didn’t show enough resilience or fighting spirit to put up some sort of reaction. The way we went about it was simply nowhere near what’s required.
It’s not enough to feel sorry for yourself; they have to find a bit more and do a bit more than today. We can’t hide behind that, and they can’t keep hiding behind myself. We’re in it together.
At ten men and three-nil down, you have to show a bit more. We were just so passive; we just accepted everything.
It (effort) is a big, big part of the game and we have not done enough. The nitty-gritty is that we have not laid a glove on Leicester in the second half and the white flag came out too early.
It was not anywhere near good enough. We have made it difficultall afternoon and at ten men you have to get 20, 30 minutes but we gave an awful goal away for the second and a deflection for the third. We have to show more than what we did and roll our sleeves up more in difficult circumstances.
Members Analysis
Leicester City XI (4-1-4-1): Schmeichel; Ricardo, Soyuncu, Evans, Chilwell; Ndidi; Perez (Gray 83′), Praet (Choudhury 78′), Tielemans, Barnes (Albrighton 57′); Vardy.
Newcastle United XI (4-4-1-1): Dubravka; Krafth, Lascelles, Schar, Dummett; Almiron (Yedlin 73′), Hayden, Longstaff, Atsu; Muto (Sung-Yeung 43′); Joelinton (Carroll 62′).
