FPL Daily: More Covid cases, James in midfield, Ronaldo rested, Toney out

We round up the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points of the day in FPL Daily, a series that will serve non-Premier League matchdays and days when we don’t bring you a team news/press conference round-up.

JAMES OOP, ALONSO BENCHED

Reece James (£6.2m) was fielded in the centre of midfield by Thomas Tuchel on Wednesday evening, with more natural options in the engine room unavailable or, in Saul Niguez‘s (£5.0m) case, deployed at left wing-back.

“I expect normally N’Golo (Kante), Mateo (Kovacic), Jorgi and Ruben (Loftus-Cheek) to start in midfield and they are all out today so we need to be a bit creative and put Reecey in there.

“We knew about the quality in central midfield and wanted to have some physicality. That’s why he helped us there today but the target is to put him back on the wing. For this, we need players back who can play in central midfield.” – Thomas Tuchel

While James played the full 90 minutes, Marcos Alonso (£5.7m) and Kai Havertz (£7.8m) were only thrown on for the final quarter of an hour and Antonio Rudiger (£6.1m) was rested altogether.

Chelsea conceded three goals for the second time in five days in a six-goal thriller in Russia.

RONALDO RESTED, WAN-BISSAKA INJURED

Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.4m) was absent from the Manchester United squad that faced Young Boys on Wednesday evening – but before any panic sets in, so were all of the other 10 players who started for the Red Devils in Gameweek 15.

Diogo Dalot (£4.4m) is attracting a fair bit of attention in the FPL world as a cheap route into a United defence that has fixtures on their side over the coming months and his prospects of keeping his place at right-back in Gameweek 16 were given a double-boost when firstly he was rested and then his positional rival, Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£5.1m), was stretchered off on the stroke of full-time.

Despite the serious-looking nature of the injury, however, Wan-Bissaka appears to have come through his last-gasp collision with the hoardings with just “knocks” to show for it.

“He received two knocks, one on the wrist and one on his knee. He’s being treated now in the locker room… but I’m positive that he can, the day after tomorrow, train again and hopefully be part of the team against Norwich.” – Ralf Rangnick on Aaron Wan-Bissaka

Mason Greenwood (£7.2m) impressed up front and scored but his manager said more work was needed on his physicality before he became a “regular”:

“It’s about continuity, he has to develop physically but technically, for his age, he is a great player. My job is to develop him, to make an athlete out of him, and if he manages to do that can be a regular player for this club.” – Ralf Rangnick on Mason Greenwood

TONEY CONFIRMED OUT OF GAMEWEEK 16

There was one official pre-Gameweek 16 press conference held on Wednesday and it involved one of the managers whose team is in action on Friday night.

Anyone with a grasp of Key Stage 1 mathematics would have deduced that Ivan Toney‘s (£6.7m) positive Covid-19 test, which was taken last Friday, would also rule him out of Gameweek 16.

Thomas Frank confirmed that news on Wednesday but refused to rule the striker in or out of Tuesday’s Gameweek 17 clash with Manchester United, which falls outside of the 10-day isolation period – but only just.

COVID HITS SPURS AND LEICESTER

On the subject of Covid, we reported earlier on Wednesday that Brighton v Spurs looks in some danger of being postponed – a scenario that looks increasingly likely now that the Lilywhites’ Europa League match against Rennes is off and that the first-team area of their training ground is out of bounds.

Son Heung-min (£10.4m) was among those not spotted in training.

Leicester v Spurs next Thursday must also be in some doubt, and the Foxes themselves have issues ahead of Thursday’s Europa League clash with Napoli and a Gameweek 16 encounter with Newcastle.

“We’ve had a number of people, staff and players, who haven’t travelled. We’ve had some positive [COVID-19] cases, some are generally not well, so we haven’t taken the risk.

“Certainly, Youri [Tielemans] has travelled. He’s trained very well and he will be available. Ryan Bertrand, who’s been out for a week or so, has travelled as well. They’re both available for the game.

“We will have seven unavailable. [Who they are is] something you’ll see in time. You’ll see in the training tonight the ones who haven’t travelled. It’s been [over the] last few days really. In general, you’re starting to see a few more cases and, for us, it’s always about the health of our players.” – Brendan Rodgers