We round up the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Wednesday’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
There were no fresh injury concerns immediately evident from Wednesday’s brace of Premier League games, with the only headline of note being Mohamed Salah‘s (£13.3m) recovery from a foot injury sustained last weekend.
The Egyptian was restricted to a 35-minute run-out off the bench at the Emirates and could only add a ‘one-pointer’ onto his tally from the win over Brighton, however.
Salah being Salah, he still had more shots than any other player in north London despite the limited game-time.
“Yesterday we had only this one session to train and for Mo, it was a session to test if everything is fine – it was fine. So, no, he doesn’t start but we have him in the back hand and he can come on, really good.” – Jurgen Klopp ahead of kick-off on Wednesday
FPL TALKING POINTS
TITLE RACE ON – GOOD NEWS FOR DOUBLE GAMEWEEKS?
Liverpool’s win over Arsenal took them to within a point of leaders Manchester City, with nine matches to play for both sides – one of which is a meeting between the two clubs in Gameweek 32.
A neck-and-neck title race could be welcome news for Fantasy managers in the run-in, particularly when Liverpool and City get their last Double Gameweeks of the campaign. These are currently scheduled for Gameweek 33 but would be moved to Gameweek 36/37 if progress is made in the FA Cup this weekend.
While the majority of teams in the division are competing for something in the league at this point of the season, be it survival, the title or a European place, that almost certainly won’t be the case by the time we get to the final few Gameweeks.
It’s not the difficult-to-quantify ‘on the beach’ mentality that we’re worried about here so much as rotation because of focus switching towards cups at home and abroad by springtime.
For example, Manchester City effectively – if not mathematically – had the league title in the bag by April last season and their attention was very much centred on their Champions League tilt after that. Ruben Dias (£6.2m), an immovable presence at the heart of the City defence up until that point, started just four of City’s final seven league matches. Ilkay Gundogan (£7.1m), borderline ‘essential’ during the winter months, made the starting XI in just three of his side’s last nine Premier League games.
A Premier League title race going down to the wire ought to ease concerns over such widespread rotation this time around.
KULU SHAKING UP THE MIDFIELD TEMPLATE
Above: FPL midfielders sorted by points from Gameweek 26 onwards
Dejan Kulusevski‘s (£6.2m) assist in Tottenham Hotspur’s 2-0 win over Brighton and Hove Albion, belatedly awarded by FPL Towers after a technical glitch, took his total to 42 points since his first Premier League start in Gameweek 26. The Swede has played two or three games more than some of the players in the above table but why let that get in the way of a good narrative: the Spurs loanee is top among Fantasy midfielders for points in that time.
It has to be said that no player has overachieved more than Kulusevski over the last four Gameweeks in terms of ‘expected goal involvement (xGI)’, so his rate of returns will very likely slow over a more sustained period. Luck is certainly falling his way at present, too, with a Cristian Romero (£4.8m) deflection helping the Swede’s shot past a stranded Robert Sanchez (£4.6m) on Wednesday.
Still, with a tired-looking Son Heung-min (£10.9m) struggling to make much of an impact in the last two matches (not just in FPL terms but in ‘real-life’ performances), there’s no surprise to see the Sweden international besting his more expensive teammate for transfers in ahead of Gameweek 30.
Antonio Conte hailed the controlled nature of Spurs’ win over Brighton, and at the centre of it all was again Harry Kane (£12.4m). This is the best he has looked all season and he recovered from an early horror miss against Albion to score his seventh goal in six league matches and create two excellent but spurned chances for Sergio Reguilon (£5.2m). His total of six shots was also one more than the rest of Spurs’ midfielders and forwards attempted combined.
TIRED BODIES FOR GAMEWEEK 30?
Arsenal produced a creditable performance in defeat to Liverpool, arguably having the best of the game until a rare old Aaron Ramsdale (£5.1m) error handed the initiative to the Reds early in the second half.
The Gunners and Spurs were the only two teams with two fixtures in Gameweek 29 who also play in Gameweek 30, and neither north London side has made a starting XI change this week.
Arsenal, in fact, have less than 63 hours between full-time against Liverpool and kick-off at Villa Park on Saturday lunchtime. A rested Aston Villa might have a bit of advantage this weekend, then, although Mikel Arteta at least appeared to have switched his focus towards energy preservation in the closing stages against Jurgen Klopp’s side, withdrawing Martin Odegaard (£5.5m), Bukayo Saka (£6.6m) and Alexandre Lacazette (£8.4m).
Gabriel Martinelli (£5.3m) was the only frontline starter to complete 90 minutes but he turned in an excellent display and looks to be back at the levels we saw in December.
“Yes, 100 per cent [we will be ready on Saturday], don’t worry the players will be there on Saturday with the energy. They will sleep, eat well, but thank you so much to the Premier League for putting the fixtures like this, it’s very, very helpful.
“Because it’s not fair what they’ve done. It’s always Sky or BT, this or that, but the only one that is affected is Arsenal and the only thing that I care about and what we care about, is Arsenal and for Arsenal, it’s not fair.” – Mikel Arteta
Spurs at least have an extra day, taking their recovery period up past the 90-hour mark. They’ll also be facing a side with even less of a turnaround time, as West Ham United are in Europa League action on Thursday night. Son and Matt Doherty (£4.8m) were hooked 10 minutes before full-time at the Amex, perhaps with one eye on Gameweek 30, and Conte had earlier seemed to suggest that Son was undroppable at present.
RED-HOT ROBERTSON
Above: FPL players sorted by returns (goals + assists + [for defenders] clean sheets) from Gameweek 13 onwards
Music’s loss is FPL’s gain at present as Andrew Robertson’s (£7.2m) superlative run of form continued at the Emirates.
He has at least five more Fantasy returns than any other player over his last 14 starts, with 116 points coming his way in the meantime (that’s an average of 8.3 per match).
His pass for Roberto Firmino‘s (£8.7m) goal in north London took him to 11 assists for the season, level with Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.5m).
“That’s a clear agreement of us, a clear agreement. We had to readjust it, to be honest, in early January. We have to agree on defence first because otherwise you are like any team, you win or you lose, you win or you lose. Today we win 2-0 but we had games we won 1-0 and we wouldn’t have won these games if we are not defensively spot on.” – Jurgen Klopp on the importance of clean sheets
