Our write-ups of the Gameweek 17 action continue with the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from the remaining four of Boxing Day’s fixtures, including the matches involving Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur.
The numbers you see in this article are from our Premium Members Area, where you can access Opta player and team data for every single Premier League match.
- READ MORE: Boxing Day’s goals, assists, bonus and statistics
- READ MORE: Monday review pt 1: Wasteful Darwin, ‘outstanding’ Nketiah
- READ MORE: Tuesday review: James injury latest as Rashford hauls
MITRO’S ON FIRE… BUT “NOT FULLY FIT”
Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.9m) became the fourth player to reach double figures for Premier League goals scored in 2022/23 with a nodded effort in Fulham’s 3-0 win over nine-man Crystal Palace.
He’s also the highest points-scorer of Gameweek 17 so far, with assists for earlier strikes netted by Bobby DeCordova-Reid (£5.5m) and Tim Ream (£4.5m) resulting in a 15-point haul on Boxing Day.
It was a galling afternoon for the legions of Fantasy managers who would have had Mitrovic in their unlimited transfers team but for reportage of Marco Silva’s pre-match fitness update on the big Serb.
Silva doubled down on those comments after the win at Selhurst Park and, in fairness, Mitrovic himself said after full-time that he is not quite fully fit.
“Until the last day, we are thinking when I did my press conference – I didn’t lie – he was clearly in doubt. I had a conversation with him [on Christmas Day] before the session. We knew that he would not be in the condition to play 90 minutes in the high intensity that we like to play.
“But he’s a key player for us. Sometimes even if he’s playing 80% of his capacity, he’s a key player. Sometimes you have to take some risks, as well. Between me and he, we had a conversation and he told me, ‘I’m ready to help’, and I decide to start with him.” – Marco Silva on Aleksandar Mitrovic
“I really enjoyed it, even though I’m still having trouble with my ankle. I’m not fully fit, if I can say, but I’m getting there.” – Aleksandar Mitrovic on his own fitness problems
It’d be easy to conclude that Palace’s two dismissals – the first for Tyrick Mitchell (£4.5m) in the 34th minute, the second for James Tomkins (£3.9m) just before the hour – had a huge bearing on the result, and it’s of course a contributing factor as to why the Eagles didn’t have a single shot on target or big chance against one of the division’s worst defences.
But even Patrick Vieira agreed that the Cottagers were the superior side from the get-go, red cards or not.
“From the first minute, Fulham were the better team. There were too many aspects where we were not present. In the end, we got what we deserved. We didn’t do anything today to get something from that game.” – Patrick Vieira
Mitrovic and a blanking Andreas Pereira (£4.6m) enjoyed a stat-inflating afternoon, the former registering seven shots on goal and the latter creating six chances.
Above: FPL assets sorted by non-penalty expected goal involvement (NPxGI) in Gameweek 16 so far
Mitrovic remains first among all FPL assets for goal attempts in 2022/23, Pereira is an impressive second for chances created. With a porous Southampton up next and a ‘double’ to follow, there’s no surprise that the Serbia international is the most-bought player of the week, with more FPL managers set to swallow the risk of Mitrovic being on four yellow cards and carrying that persistent ankle niggle.
ALMIR-ON AND ON
Any notion that a six-week break would disrupt the momentum of high-flying Newcastle United and their key Fantasy assets was dispelled within six minutes of Monday’s clash at the King Power Stadium.
After Chris Wood (£5.6m) had thumped in a penalty that had been awarded after just 90 seconds, FPL’s highest-scoring midfielder, Miguel Almiron (£5.8m), continued his scarcely believable run of form with his ninth goal of the season.
Kieran Trippier (£5.9m) is doing his best to keep pace with his team-mate, contributing his fifth assist of the campaign with the whipped corner that Joelinton (£5.9m) nodded home.
Almiron and Trippier are now fourth and third for FPL points among all players this season, having hit the century-mark in Gameweek 17 – and it’s leaky Leeds United, who have the joint-shortest turnaround time of any club, up next.
It was ruthless from Newcastle (three big chances, all scored) and toothless from Leicester (just four shots in the box all game), with a second-half rally from the Foxes coming all too late. The absence of their creator-in-chief (see below) was keenly felt, while this was more like Gameweeks 1-8 Leicester than the Gameweeks 9-16 incarnation at the back.
Liverpool, who the Foxes face in Gameweek 18, will be hoping that it’s the early-season version that again turns up to Anfield on Friday.
“The one thing I have learned in the Premier League is that you need to have attitude. You need to be committed, you need to be organised, you need to play with passion, and when you have the ball, you have to have courage and that commitment to play and be aggressive.
“We had none of that today, which really surprised me. It’s just intensity, number one. We didn’t do enough to get anywhere near winning the game – to getting to our level, our tempo. We’ll get in tomorrow, talk through it, and then prepare for Friday.” – Brendan Rodgers
WILSON AND MADDISON FITNESS LATEST
There was a key absentee apiece at the King Power Stadium, with James Maddison (£8.2m) and Callum Wilson (£7.4m) missing out.
We had updates on the pair after full-time, with Wilson uninvolved because of illness and Maddison worryingly described on Boxing Day as “not near to playing” because of knee pain.
“He hasn’t trained for two days due to illness. He’s at home with his family. Fingers crossed, he’ll be better soon.
“We hope so [for Leeds]. For Callum to miss a game, it was a serious illness. He felt depleted of energy, couldn’t travel with us.” – Eddie Howe on Callum Wilson, speaking on Boxing Day
We also had an update from Brendan Rodgers on Maddison on Wednesday.
“[Maddison] won’t be available for the [Liverpool] game. He was with Mark [Waller], our doctor, getting some special advice in London today so I’ll wait to hear from them later on.
“The medical team and the Club have gone down to London to get another opinion on it and to see where he’s at.
“He hasn’t trained with the squad. He was clearly getting treatment out [in Qatar] and he and the medical team deemed him okay to train. He was available for games (for England). He’s come back here, looked to do some work, and then felt a pain in a different part of his knee.
“The medical team have assessed that. He tried to go out and do some multidirectional work and he was getting a pain from that. The medical team and the Club have gone down to London to get another opinion on it and to see where he’s at. That’s where we’re up to at this moment in time.” – Brendan Rodgers
SPURS’ DEFENSIVE STRUGGLES
Tottenham Hotspur are not only without a clean sheet since mid-October but for six Premier League matches have conceded at least two goals in a game.
Above: xGC stats for the last six matches
The above stats suggest they’ve partly been the victim of clinical finishing, as no team has a bigger difference between expected goals conceded (xGC, a pre-shot model based on the quality of chance) and xG on target conceded (a post-shot model based on the quality of execution).
But only five clubs have allowed more big chances conceded than Spurs (14) over this period, three of which arrived on Boxing Day.
“This is nine games in a row that we conceded the first goal. This is not positive because understand we have great character, understand that we have a great reaction, understand that we believe in ourselves but at the same time it’s important to be stable for a team that wants to try to stay in a good position in the table.
“To concede for many games the first goal or also two goals, we have to make good reflections and try to find the solution. For me this is the first time that happened this type of situation, to concede the first goal nine times in a row the first goal to your opponent, but at the same time it’s the first time to have this fantastic reaction of these players.” – Antonio Conte
Vitaly Janelt (£5.5m) and the still-available-for-now Ivan Toney (£7.5m) both tapped home from close range to give Brentford a 2-0 lead and the Lilywhites were comprehensively outplayed for the first 65 minutes in west London before Harry Kane (£11.6m) – who else? – popped up with a goal pretty much out of nowhere.
Kane has now only blanked in three of his 16 appearances this season and, whisper it quietly, he is now only 14 FPL points behind Erling Haaland (£12.2m), at least before the Norwegian faces Leeds United on Wednesday. Kane was a crossbar width away from narrowing that gap further against Brentford.
There’s not much to cheer elsewhere at Spurs.
Ivan Perisic (£5.5m) made a very swift return from World Cup duty at left wing-back but with two matches coming up in little more than 72 hours, plus a double-header against Arsenal and Manchester City to follow, a Spurs defender with significant rotation risk and diminished clean sheet potential doesn’t scream ‘must buy’, no matter how attacking they might be.
Son Heung-min (£11.6m) continues to turn in 6/10 performances, meanwhile, and his attacking numbers aren’t good. Only one big chance has arrived since the September international break and while the Korean has a reputation for being an xG-buster, quality of opportunity is still important: only two of his 19 goals last season came from outside the area.
Dejan Kulusevski (£8.0m), a semi-popular purchase during the World Cup break, wasn’t much more involved but it was at least from his run and deflected cross that a more advanced Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (£5.5m) curled home the leveller.
BUDGET DEFENDERS START
Hugo Bueno (£3.9m) and Nathan Patterson (£4.0m) completed the first part of their tasks as bargain-bin defenders in starting in Gameweek 17 but there wasn’t much joy beyond that.
Bueno lasted 58 minutes before being replaced by match-winner Rayan Ait-Nouri (£4.2m), while Patterson ended up on zero points thanks to a booking and the last-minute concession of a second goal.
Bueno probably ought to have had an attacking return to his name when a good chance he created for Diego Costa (£5.5m) was spurned but it was a tough afternoon for him defensively, and the early substitution – part of a triple change – won’t have soothed his owners’ nerves.
Not the best afternoon for the pair, then, but at their price there can’t be too many surprises or complaints.
It’s certainly too early to be heralding a Lopetegui-inspired revival despite the result, as there wasn’t a great deal of quality on show from the two Premier League strugglers. ‘Two bald men fighting over a comb’ probably best summed up this game, and it’d be hard to argue that Wolves were the better team (Everton were ahead 1.74 – 0.78 in xG, for instance).
On the tactics front, it was interesting to see Joao Moutinho (£4.7m) deployed as the most attacking central midfielder, with his average position even higher than that of Costa.
Above: Wolves’ players average positions in Gameweek 17
Moutinho still didn’t have a single penalty box touch but at least bagged the assist for the opener scored by Daniel Podence (£5.3m), whose man-of-the-match performance will raise faint hopes that he can have an Almiron-esque reawakening under new management.
