Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) and Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) scored a combined 37 points on Saturday as the two 50%+ owned Fantasy Premier League (FPL) midfielders started the 2021/22 campaign with a bang.
Our usual Scout Notes will follow for all of today’s games but in the meantime, our long-dormant Scoreboard series – a ‘Match of the Day’-style, condensed recap of the day’s action – rounds up the key goings-on.
Many of the graphics below are taken from LiveFPL, Ragabolly’s excellent and ever-expanding website that has spawned many imitators – not least FPL themselves, who have begun updating ranks after the completion of games.
GOALS, ASSISTS AND PROJECTED BONUS
INJURY WATCH
Ollie Watkins (£7.5m) missed out on Aston Villa’s defeat at Watford with the bruised knee he picked up in the Villans’ final pre-season match.
Emmanuel Dennis (£5.0m), who bagged a double-digit haul against Dean Smith’s troops, seemed to limp off midway through the second half at Vicarage Road.
Graham Potter said that Joel Veltman (£4.5m) was absent today because he had come into close contact with a person who had tested positive for Covid-19. Percy Tau and Aaron Connolly (£5.5m) were out for “personal reasons”.
Coronavirus was also the cause of Ryan Bertrand‘s (£5.0m) absence from Leicester City’s win over Wolverhampton Wanderers, while James Maddison (£7.0m) will be assessed for a knock picked up in that game.
“Ryan [Bertrand], it was unfortunate – he had a lateral flow test which showed up positive. I just need to get more information from the guys tomorrow.” – Brendan Rodgers
The previously yellow flagged N’Golo Kante (£5.0m) and budget defender Andrew Omobamidele (£4.0m) failed to recover from injury and illness respectively for Saturday’s games, meanwhile.
FPL OWNERSHIP AND CAPTAINCY
Among the most-owned FPL assets, Fernandes and Salah were by some distance the biggest winners from Saturday’s games.
They were the only players with an effective ownership of greater than 10% who banked double-digit hauls.
It wasn’t a day for differential captains: the two aforementioned premium midfielders scored as many points combined than the rest of the above players managed in total.
STAT WATCH
Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£8.0m) marked his return from injury with a goal in Everton’s win over Southampton and tops the expected goal involvement (xGI) table in Gameweek 1 so far, with his tally of five shots in the box not trumped by any other player, either.
Paul Pogba (£7.5m) bagged four assists from five chances created in Manchester United’s 5-1 win over Leeds United.
Budget forward Dennis’s shot count of five was bolstered by three chances created in an impressive showing at Vicarage Road.
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