FPL notes: Villa extend Premier League unbeaten run

We assess the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Aston Villa v Bournemouth in the next Scout Notes article from Blank Gameweek 28.

The numbers you see in this piece are taken from our Premium Members Area, where you can access Opta player and team data from every single Premier League fixture.

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VILLA UNBEATEN IN FOUR

Aston Villa extended their unbeaten run to four matches with a 3-0 win over Bournemouth. Douglas Luiz (£4.8m) opened the scoring, before Jacob Ramsey (£5.2m) and Emiliano Buendia (£5.7m) made sure of the points in the latter stages.

Unai Emery’s side controlled the game throughout, racking up 20 shots and 3.66 expected goals (xG), with the result barely in doubt after Douglas Luiz’s seventh-minute opener. The Brazilian was excellent in the engine room alongside John McGinn (£5.1m), allowing attacking players like Ramsey to flourish.

“He is young; he is here and involved at Aston Villa. He has the potential to learn some things and understand tactically what we want. Today he played the best match since I’m here.” – Unai Emery on Jacob Ramsey

In-form Ollie Watkins (£7.5m) twice went close and had the best of the opportunities, but had to settle for an assist, his eighth attacking return in as many matches. Villa probably should have been awarded a penalty, too, when a shot from Ramsey seemed to be blocked by a hand.

For Emiliano Martinez (£4.9m), it was his eighth clean sheet of the campaign and the second in a row at Villa Park.

“First is to get the clean sheet and second is to win through the clean sheet, both are very important. Before the match against Crystal Palace, we conceded eight goals in two matches here, which was completely upsetting for us. We reacted very well. The last two matches, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, we achieved clean sheets and won. We played two very good matches and did it in a fantastic way.” – Unai Emery

PROGRESS UNDER EMERY

Unai Emery is just four months into his job at Villa Park but his side are progressing nicely, having taken 26 points from 14 games. That means only Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United have collected more since the Spaniard’s first game in November.

They have also scored in all of their Premier League fixtures, netting 24 goals.

With the teams between sixth and 11th separated by just four points, Villa go into their last 11 games of the season with a chance to push for an unlikely European place.

“After the matches we lost to Arsenal and Leicester, the reaction has been fantastic. Today is maybe the best 90 minutes we played here since I arrived. We controlled the game with the ball. We conceded some chances to them, but I think it is normal because they are in a good moment. I’m happy today and I want to share it with the players and supporters.

We have to rest a little bit but now we have a big challenge because we are slowly going up. We are looking up. It’s important to have big ambitions and face big challenges. We have Chelsea in two weeks and we have to try and be consistent. Next step is top 10, but if we are ambitious you want to get to something more and look at the teams in the European positions. Of course it is not in our hands to take a European place, but we have to try. We have to take this new challenge.” – Unai Emery

“The teams above us have an advantage. We have to fight because we are starting behind them. But we play Chelsea, Fulham, Brentford and Brighton and now we are trying to add a new target.” – Unai Emery

BLUNT BOURNEMOUTH

Bournemouth head into the international break in the relegation zone after losing at Villa Park, with Dominic Solanke (£5.5m) missing the best of their chances. The 25-year-old has now gone 10 league appearances in a row without scoring, tempering interest despite an appealing couple of home fixtures in Double Gameweek 29.

After toppling Liverpool a week ago, it was back to reality for the Cherries, who have lost nine of their last 10 away games in all competitions. They have also kept just one clean sheet in their last 24 Premier League matches on the road, a run that spans two seasons and three different managers, which could be good news for James Maddison (£8.2m) and Harry Kane (£11.8m) in Gameweeks 30 and 31 respectively.

There was one moment to cheer, however, as David Brooks (£5.3m) came off the bench during the second half for his first appearance in 536 days, having not played competitively since recovering from Hodgkin Lymphoma.

“I thought it was in the balance for a long time. We didn’t start well enough, we were too slow out of the blocks and we didn’t look like ourselves for the first 10 minutes and Villa punished us for that. From 1-0, we wrestled our way back into it, created some good chances, had some situations where we could have done better. Near the end, we open it up a little bit with more attacking players on the pitch. It goes against us and the scoreline makes it looks worse than it was.

There was an opportunity today at 1-0 to get ourselves back in it, but we weren’t clinical enough. If we take one and do what we should have done and been clinical, then the game could have looked very different. They’re a very good side. It’s not an easy place to come, it’s a tough game at Aston Villa. One-nil and fighting to come back into it, we were fine at that point. If we could have shown a little bit of quality in the final third, it could have been very different. We’re disappointed today. We can be better than that.” – Gary O’Neil