FPL notes – EFL Cup: De Bruyne great, Darwin wasteful, Alexander-Arnold ill

The mid-season friendlies and League Cup ties are now over; let Gameweek 17 of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) begin.

First, though, we sign off our pre-restart Scout Notes with a look at the Thursday night clash between Manchester City and Liverpool.

For the game-time played by each player, check out our mid-season minutes tracker here.

And for everything else you might need before Gameweek 17, don’t forget our complete guide to the FPL restart.

MANCHESTER CITY 3-2 LIVERPOOL

• Goals: Erling Haaland, Riyad Mahrez, Nathan Ake | Fabio Carvalho, Mohamed Salah
• Assists: Kevin De Bruyne x2, Rodri | James Milner, Darwin Nunez
• Manchester City XI: Ortega Moreno, Lewis, Akanji (Stones 61), Laporte, Ake, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Gundogan (Bernardo), Mahrez, Palmer (Grealish 73), Haaland (Foden 73)
• Liverpool XI: Kelleher, Milner (Phillips 38), Gomez, Matip, Robertson, Bajcetic (Fabinho 45), Thiago (Keita 70), Elliott (Henderson 57), Carvalho (Oxlade-Chamberlain 45), Salah, Nunez

Just as they did in the Community Shield ahead of Gameweek 1, the perennial title rivals from the north-west served up an appetite-whetting thriller days before the Premier League restart.

This time it was City who came out on top, twice surrendering leads before winning by the odd goal in five to progress to the EFL quarter-finals.

All four premium-ish picks from across the two teams started this match, and all four delivered attacking returns.

Erling Haaland (£12.2m) and Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) both found the back of the net but much of the post-game talk centred around the contributions of Kevin De Bruyne (£12.6m) and Darwin Nunez (£9.0m), for contrasting reasons.

De Bruyne was superb, creating City’s first and third goals and supplying five chances in all. Ilkay Gundogan (£7.3m) and Nathan Ake (£5.0m) both spurned gilt-edged opportunities created by the Belgian before Ake converted the second brilliant cross provided to him at the Etihad.

Pre-season/mid-season form isn’t the be-all and end-all but Guardiola loves his players to have “rhythm”, and De Bruyne has plenty of that going into Gameweek 17 after excelling against Girona at the weekend and now Liverpool in the cup. Perhaps that ignominious exit for his national team in Qatar has put the required fire in his belly.

“Today was outstanding. Kevin has been eight years here. He just needs sometimes to find the right fire inside of himself, you know, to be a little bit, I would say, I don’t know, grumpy or upset to play his best.

“He had to put the energy inside of him. When this happens, what a player. The runs, the fight, assists, score goals. He is a model player.

“I know it’s not easy to find every three days this consistency but in the important games, like today was, it has something inside say: ‘I’m going to do it, I’m going to be contact, I’m going to fight.’ When this happens, it’s Mr Kevin De Bruyne.

“What can I say? Eight years, has done everything for this club. He is an absolute legend. He will be remembered forever as one of the greatest, greatest, greatest players of all time for this club.” – Pep Guardiola

At the other end, Darwin was also delivering eye-catching numbers. Four chances came the Uruguayan’s way, most of them excellent ones, but all were spurned, three of them shanked wide from the right-hand side of the box.

Darwin has some of the best underlying stats in FPL this season but he’s no ruthless finisher, a shot-to-goal conversion rate of 12.8% in the Premier League not far off a third of what Haaland has posted (34.6%).

The Uruguay international at least assisted Salah’s strike, and his game-time prospects look increasingly positive in Gameweek 17 and beyond.

Already without Luis Diaz (£7.8m) and Diogo Jota (£8.8m), who look set to be out until February at the earliest, the Reds lost Roberto Firmino (£8.1m) to injury ahead of this match.

“We play mainly with the players who could do all the sessions now and had a break – apart from Bobby, who unfortunately got injured two days ago in training. 

“Not a big one but big enough for this period. That’s why Darwin is now starting. He could’ve started anyway but Darwin is starting now.” – Jurgen Klopp on Roberto Firmino

Klopp sent out his troops in a 4-3-3 for this contest, with goalscorers Salah and Fabio Carvalho (£5.4m) flanking central striker Darwin before Carvalho was hooked at half-time for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (£4.9m).

Darwin was definitely more in the thick of things than Salah, whose only attempt of the match was his 48th-minute equaliser.

Liverpool’s backline continued to look rickety in patches, with Joe Gomez (£4.5m) in particular struggling. He was playing because Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.4m) and Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) weren’t; the former was ill, the latter just back from international duty.

The Reds also lost makeshift right-back James Milner (£4.4m) to injury, with Gomez moving into that position and looking slightly better from that point.

“Millie felt something in the hamstring. We still hope it is not an injury, but we will see. He felt something, but after 30 years in the business he said, ‘I don’t think it’s a lot’ so we will see.

“We thought Trent was available but then he got ill, so that is what we have to wait for.

“Virgil trained today [and] yesterday completely normal and should be ready for Monday, but we have to see who gets the virus until then.” – Jurgen Klopp

City have their own defensive issue if journalist Jack Gaughan is to be believed, with Ruben Dias (£5.9m) out for a month – although if there’s one position the reigning league champions have plenty of cover for, it’s centre-half.

Guardiola said ahead of this fixture that the players who weren’t involved at the World Cup were in worse shape than their colleagues who went away to the Middle East, and much-needed game-time was consequently given to Haaland, Riyad Mahrez (£7.5m) – who curled in a superb second – and Cole Palmer (£4.3m) in the front three.

World Cup quarter-finalists Phil Foden (£8.3m), Bernardo Silva (£6.9m), Jack Grealish (£7.3m) and John Stones (£5.4m) all had to make do with substitute appearances, while Joao Cancelo (£7.4m) and Kyle Walker (£4.8m) remained unused on the bench.

The injury crisis may force Klopp’s hand regarding Gameweek 17-19 selection, with many of his players having to start all three matches.

But Guardiola has myriad options to pick from over the coming week, which could come in handy given that just 65 hours separate their Gameweek 17 and 18 fixtures.