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

RAPHINHA: CRAMP OR KNOCK?

The latest round of World Cup qualifiers in South America came to a conclusion in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with not far off two-dozen Premier League players in action for their respective countries.

We’ll have a proper round-up of the international action on Friday but the main takeaway from CONMEBOL qualifying from an FPL perspective was the enforced substitution of Raphinha (£6.6m) in Brazil’s 4-0 win over Paraguay.

It’s been variously reported as cramp and a knock of the ankle and a flag has appeared on him in FPL but, either way, the issue doesn’t seem too serious.

With Leeds out of the FA Cup, we won’t get an update from Marcelo Bielsa until Monday or Tuesday when he faces the media ahead of Gameweek 24.

SON AND LIVRAMENTO BACK IN TRAINING

We’ll get some early Gameweek 24 team news for a dozen clubs on Thursday and Friday (Chelsea and Brighton blank in the upcoming Gameweek, of course) in the form of pre-FA Cup press conferences.

Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton are among the 14 Premier League teams who are still involved in England’s premier cup competition and there was good news emerging from both camps on Wednesday, with both Son Heung-min (£10.6m) and Tino Livramento (£4.3m) pictured back in training.

Messrs Conte and Hasenhuttl should hopefully provide us with more information on the pair when facing the media in the coming 48 hours.

WATFORD GAMEWEEK 23 TEAM NEWS

There’s nothing we can do with the information now but Watford released their early team news ahead of their second Double Gameweek 23 fixture against Burnley on Saturday.

Emmanuel Dennis (£6.2m) is, of course, suspended after his red card against Norwich City, while Ismaila Sarr (£5.7m) is still at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) after Senegal progressed to the tournament final on Wednesday evening by beating Burkina Faso.

William Troost-Ekong (£4.3m), Adam Masina (£4.3m) and Imran Louza (£5.2m) have all re-joined the squad after representing their countries in Cameroon, however.

Peter Etebo (£4.3m) is now doing some “monitored work” in training and will be further assessed over the coming days but Kwadwo Baah (£4.3m) and Nicolas Nkoulou (£4.4m) have not rejoined their teammates despite working on their recoveries outside.

There was a conspicuous lack of a mention of Ben Foster (£4.1m), suggesting there are no lingering after-effects of his recent Covid-19 diagnosis. The veteran goalkeeper, indeed, had been sighted in training a week ago after missing the loss to the Canaries.

AFCON DATE CHANGE

Sadio Mane (£11.7m) and Senegal are already in Sunday’s AFCON final, with their opponents to be decided by the result of Thursday’s second semi-final between Egypt and Cameroon.

Should Mohamed Salah (£12.7m) and his nation be defeated in the last four, their third/fourth-place play-off will now be contested on Saturday – a day before it was originally scheduled to be played.

That would give FPL’s leading points-scorer an extra day of recuperation ahead of Gameweek 24, with Liverpool not in action until Thursday when they face Leicester City.

LIVERPOOL DOUBLE GAMEWEEK 26 RUMOURS

Early ‘leaks’ of Double Gameweek news have had mixed results of late, with Ralf Rangnick’s Double Gameweek 25 giveaway bang on the money but Ralph Hasenhuttl’s own suggestion of “five matches in two weeks” for Southampton after the international break proving to be wide of the mark.

And so there has to be a pinch of salt taken with any announcement that doesn’t come directly from the Premier League but Spion Kop have been spot on with early Liverpool news in the recent past, and they suggested on Wednesday that the Reds will have a Double Gameweek 26 involving two very appealing home matches against Norwich City and Leeds United.

We’ll surely not have to wait too long for an official confirmation or a rebuttal of that suggestion, with only three weeks to go until the proposed new date.