There’s more post-match Gameweek 33 analysis in this our latest Scout Notes article, which focuses on West Ham United v Liverpool and Chelsea v Brentford.
Any numbers you see in this article are taken from our Premium Members Area, where you can access Opta player and team data from every single Premier League fixture.
- READ MORE: Tuesday’s round-up: Goal + clean sheet for Mings, blank for Watkins
- READ MORE: Wednesday’s round-up, part 1: De Bruyne injury update, Steele starts, Mac Allister deep
KLOPP HAILS DEFENCE
Liverpool made it three wins out of three with a solid display in east London, seeing off a West Ham side who had themselves been in good nick heading into Wednesday’s clash.
Despite scoring 11 goals from Gameweeks 31-33 and not keeping one clean sheet, Jurgen Klopp hailed his defence after the match.
“Our defending, definitely. We defend completely different. In general, it’s the defending. In general, the readiness to defend. So the biggest chance of the first half West Ham had, when Virg sorts it on the far post, it looked like a goal and we don’t win the ball in a three-v-one situation at the sideline – I loved the situation anyway, I love it. Yes, we have to win the ball there but I loved that we were there and we tried. It was a genius moment or unlucky for us, they get through. But I loved the situation anyway and there we were lucky – maybe the only real time in the game or Virg did just particularly well. Apart from that, it’s the defending.” – Jurgen Klopp on the key to Liverpool’s three-match winning run
It has been slightly better at the back in the last three weeks, with the consolation against Leeds coming from an individual Ibrahima Konate (£4.8m) error and the three goals conceded to Forest and West Ham arriving from low-percentage efforts with a combined xG of 0.16.
Konate, incidentally, was absent last night but Klopp effectively passed him fit for Gameweek 34.
“Ibou could have played. He’s not injured but, in the last two or three weeks, he always had to rest like two days, one day, then half a session, stuff like this. I thought now we have to make sure that he can recover properly, that he doesn’t get injured, so that’s why we left him completely at home. That’s it pretty much.” – Jurgen Klopp
Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m) was once more ‘inverting’ from full-back and while his assist for Cody Gakpo (£7.7m) was fortuitous in that Dutchman still had it all to do from 30 yards, it was another impressive display from the England international in the middle of the park. A slightly-more-tamed Andrew Robertson (£6.8m) again had to rely on his set-piece threat, meanwhile, with all three of the chances he created and his assist for Joel Matip’s (£5.9m) header coming from corners.
JOTA’S TURN FOR THE HOOK
Gakpo joined the 59th-minute club in Gameweek 32 but it was Diogo Jota‘s (£8.8m) turn to suffer a pre-hour substitution at the London Stadium, with Luis Diaz (£7.8m), and not Darwin Nunez (£8.8m), interestingly sent on to replace him.
On another day, Jota could have made it three double-digit hauls in a row: one clear opening was fired over from 15 yards before he failed to make sufficient contact with a header from point-blank range shortly before the interval. He continues to look more of a natural goal threat than Firmino-reboot Gakpo but the concern heading into Gameweek 34 will be security of starts, given that he’s the only Liverpool attacker to start all six league matches since the March international break.
“Perhaps a game too many after playing so often after a long injury” was how This Is Anfield saw it, while Jota took a fair old whack in the back from Vladimir Coufal (£4.0m) early in the first half.
Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) delivered one of his occasional quiet displays but they have been more commonplace on the road this season as Liverpool toil on their travels, so with three successive games on Merseyside to come (where the Egyptian hasn’t blanked in five games), there’ll be minimal concern.
BOWEN BRIGHT
Lucas Paqueta (£5.9m) made it three goals in a row in all competitions with the speculative opener against the Reds, the Brazilian finally starting to look the like multi-million-pound capture that West Ham bought last summer.
“We are beginning to see all-round better performances from him and popping up with the goals helps as well and he is beginning to look like he is settling in much better.” – David Moyes on Lucas Paqueta
Jarrod Bowen (£8.0m) continues to look like the most threatening West Ham attacker ahead of their Double Gameweek 34, however, despite his positive play on Wednesday resulting in only one legitimate shot on goal. Not included in Opta’s stats was Bowen’s disallowed 55th-minute effort, the winger converting expertly but seeing what would have been a fifth successive attacking return chalked off for a marginal offside.
Moyes kept things settled once again by naming an unchanged team that included budget FPL defender Vladimir Coufal (£4.0m), the sort of rotation-phobic stability we love from our Premier League managers heading into a Double Gameweek.
FRANK BEATS A FRANK FRANK
Big-game specialists Brentford claimed yet another big-six scalp with a 2-0 win over Chelsea, taking them to 15 points in nine fixtures against these historically high-finishing sides.
Not that the Blues belong in that bracket right now.
This was Chelsea’s fifth defeat in a row under Frank Lampard, with the Blues failing to score in six of their last seven matches.
The fact that 33-year-old cast-off Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£8.4m), on as a half-time substitute for a rusty-looking runaround, was their most potent attacking threat in this game pretty much sums up their current malaise.
“We have to keep working and fighting to try and create opportunities to score goals. I think it’s two things. Maybe there aren’t goals so much in the team and when you are low on confidence, that last bit, that last chance. Auba comes on and has a couple of moments. Auba hasn’t played so many minutes, maybe a fresh Auba comes on and scores those goals.
“There are different parts to that. It’s a clear issue with the squad hence why we haven’t scored enough goals for a team like Chelsea.” – Frank Lampard
One possible bit of good news for straw-clutching Ben Chilwell (£5.8m) owners is that Marc Cucurella (£4.9m) is set to miss a “few weeks” with a quad injury, eliminating whatever little threat the Spaniard may have posed to his place.
As for the Bees, we run the risk of ignoring their players amid the Double Gameweek hysteria: Thomas Frank’s troops have one of the more appealing fixtures of the weekend, entertaining a Nottingham Forest side with the worst away record in the division.
David Raya (£4.9m) is back on top of the goalkeeper points table with his latest haul: he may only be sixth for clean sheets but he’s mopped up more save points and bonus points than any other custodian this season.
