We round up the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Saturday’s Gameweek 29 fixtures in our Scout Notes summary.
The graphics below are taken from LiveFPL, Ragabolly’s excellent and ever-expanding website, and our own Premium Members Area.
GOALS, ASSISTS AND BONUS
INJURIES AND BANS
Mohamed Salah‘s (£13.3m) run-out against Brighton was cut short by injury after 64 minutes but it might not be the end of his Double Gameweek 29.
Jurgen Klopp downplayed the severity of the issue after full-time, although that positive prognosis was based on the player’s own kneejerk assessment rather than that of the Liverpool medical team.
“We will see. He thinks it’s not serious but you can see when Mo is sitting down, something is not 100% right. I think it was the situation before when he hit the ball & got blocked, I think the foot got slightly overstretched.” – Jurgen Klopp on Mohamed Salah, in a post-match interview
“He got blocked before the penalty already. Overstretched his foot slightly. He then felt it a little bit higher on the knee. He is not concerned but not sure what it means exactly. Mo is not often injured, I hope it stays like this. He thinks it will be fine but he felt something and you could see he couldn’t walk properly. So we need further assessment for sure.” – Jurgen Klopp on Mohamed Salah, in his post-match press conference
There was some big team news from Old Trafford, too, as Bruno Fernandes (£11.6m) missed the Tottenham Hotspur game after picking up an illness.
David de Gea (£5.2m) was also set to sit out the evening kick-off after returning a positive Covid test but that was subsequently revealed to be of the ‘false’ nature.
“Bruno is ill, unfortunately. He couldn’t train yesterday and is therefore not available for the game. Hopefully, he will be back for Tuesday but, today, he is out.
“David had, to start with, a positive Covid test but, in the end, it turned out to be a false test. We did another test after that and it was negative so that is why he can play.” – Ralf Rangnick
FPL TALKING POINTS
TONEY AND ERIKSEN’S GAMEWEEK 30 AUDITION
Pop quiz: who is joint-second with Harry Kane (£12.4m) among FPL forwards for goals scored this season? Jamie Vardy (£10.3m), perhaps? Michail Antonio (£7.5m)? Maybe Emmanuel Dennis (£6.1m)? You’re all wrong: it’s Ivan Toney (£6.5m), who scored his 10th and 11th top-flight goals of the season in Brentford’s 2-0 win over Burnley.
Seven of those strikes have come in his last four starts, with a 44-point blitz in those games helping him to reach his ‘century’ in FPL.
Yes, three of his seven recent goals have come from the penalty spot. But as we reported last week, Toney has started to look a bit more of a threat elsewhere too: his total of five shots from inside the six-yard box from Gameweeks 22-29 can’t be bettered by any other Premier League player:
Above: Players sorted by shots in the six-yard box from Gameweek 22 onwards
Above: Ivan Toney’s xG shotmaps from Gameweeks 1-21 (left) and Gameweeks 22-29 (right). There is a noticeably higher concentration of close-range shots in the latter.
Thomas Frank’s recent switch to a more attacking 4-3-3 looks to be benefitting Toney, with the striker now looking less isolated up top – the caveat being that he hadn’t had a single shot before his 84th-minute opener on Saturday.
The creativity of Christian Eriksen (£5.5m) from midfield can surely only benefit the forward, too, and it was the Dane who assisted Toney’s first goal with a sublime cross and provided the pass that led to the forward being fouled for his injury-time spot-kick.
“I feel like with a player like Christian Eriksen you have to stay focused at all times. I don’t think I had a shot before I scored today. I can’t thank him enough for being in the squad and helping us.
“I set a target. I’m not there yet but hopefully I can hit it before the end of the season.” – Ivan Toney
Eriksen has created a modest three chances in his 218 minutes of pitch-time at Brentford but with his set-piece expertise and Leicester’s proclivity to concede from free-kicks and corners, he’s an intriguing Gameweek 30 differential.
Toney, incidentally, is now top for transfers in ahead of Friday’s next FPL deadline.
DIAZ’S MAN-OF-THE-MATCH DISPLAY
Catching the eye yet again on Saturday was Luis Diaz (£8.0m), who was voted man of the match by the BT Sport team after his goalscoring display at the Amex.
The young winger has now started five of Liverpool’s last six league matches and has two goals in that time, a decent enough start to his FPL career.
Above: Liverpool’s front three sorted by shots in the box since Luiz Diaz’s debut
Matching Mane for goal attempts in a similar amount of game-time, he nevertheless trails his two fellow Liverpool attackers for big chances, shots in the box and expected goal involvement (xGI) since making his debut.
Most of the plaudits have concentrated on his running power and off-the-ball graft so far and he’s yet to produce the Diogo Jota-esque (£8.3m) underlying numbers that jump off the page.
Still, there were some promising signs of his points potential on Saturday, with two big chances falling his way (one converted, one spurned) and another gilt-edged opportunity carved out by Diaz that Salah wasted.
Klopp indeed said after full-time that there’s more to come from the Colombian wide-man on the goals front.
“It’s not so easy to bring in a player in the winter without any kind of pre-season but with Luis, it was so interesting because the way he played at Porto is exactly the way we wanted him to play here, so he didn’t have to change really. Still has to adapt in moments, especially defensively, but he has speed and he can carry the ball pretty quick and his dribbling is not bad. I don’t think we saw already his full range of shooting skills. I saw when we scouted him a couple of really nice ones, so there is a lot of space for improvement. But, yes, he is a good player.” – Jurgen Klopp
BURNLEY/BRIGHTON: ATTACKS TO TARGET FOR CLEAN SHEETS
Burnley and Brighton both succumbed to defeats to nil on Saturday despite having periods of attacking pressure in their respective games.
It’s merely a continuation of a season-long profligate trend for both clubs, who languish in the bottom three for goals scored:
Burnley’s 3-0 win at the Amex last month hoodwinked many of us into a Wout Weghorst (£6.5m) captaincy in Double Gameweek 27 but that result was a real anomaly: discounting that victory on the south coast, Sean Dyche’s side have scored just five goals in their last 14 league matches.
The Clarets have another three as-yet-unannounced Double Gameweeks to come, so that’s a stat worth bearing in mind when DGW-itis infects us again after the March international break.
WLWLWLWLLWLWLWL
Not a Welsh hamlet but rather Tottenham Hotspur’s form in all competitions in 2022. They’ve yet to string together back-to-back victories this calendar year; electric one week and disappointing the next, they’re a bit of a nightmare to predict from an FPL perspective.
Kane and Dejan Kulusevski (£6.2m) at least salvaged returns from Saturday’s defeat to Manchester United – slightly fortuitous ones, perhaps, as the Swede’s hopeful cross was needlessly handled by Alex Telles (£5.0m) to present Kane with the spot-kick opportunity he superbly converted.
Kane and Son Heung-min (£10.9m) produced unremarkable performances at Old Trafford, similar to the ones at Burnley and Middlesbrough, but as their goal and assist tallies under Antonio Conte will attest (12 apiece in 17 and 15 appearances respectively), we know that a haul probably isn’t too far away in the coming games.
Kulusevski, meanwhile, was arguably the pick of the Lilywhites’ front three and bagged his sixth attacking return in five starts; further fuel to some FPL managers’ argument that he might be able to ‘cover’ Son well enough, with a saving of £4.7m to spend elsewhere.
Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.3m) soared to the top of the FPL forwards’ points table with a hat-trick against the north Londoners: five of his 15 attacking returns this season have come against Spurs. The fact that he’s at the summit of the strikers’ list for both goals scored and points, after all the disappointment he has given his owners, is the biggest indictment yet of 2021/22’s forward pool.
