An eminently forgettable match at the City Ground rounded off a deflating Gameweek 5 for many (but not all) Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
Nottingham Forest and Burnley played out a one-all draw, with the key FPL talking points addressed below.
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TURNER KEEPS HIS PLACE – FOR NOW
Matt Turner (£4.0m) kept his place between the posts for Nottingham Forest’s Monday night clash with Burnley, seeing off the challenge of Odysseas Vlachodimos (£4.5m) – for now, anyway.
It would have been harsh on Turner after his Gameweek 4 clean sheet at Stamford Bridge, and he did little wrong at the City Ground this time. One save from Zeki Amdouni (£5.4m) stood out, while the Burnley forward’s excellent 41st-minute strike gave the budget FPL goalkeeper little chance.
That’s twice now that a Turner clean sheet has been spoiled by a speculative effort from distance, following on from Gus Hamer‘s (£5.0m) long-range goal for Sheffield United in Gameweek 2.
In both home matches, Forest had kept their opponents down to under 0.60 expected goals (xG).
But it wasn’t a vintage performance by the hosts, either.
The path of the game was predicted by Mr Sutherns above, with Steve Cooper blooding three of his new signings and switching to a more open 4-2-3-1. A disjointed performance followed, with full debutants Ibrahim Sangare (£5.0m) and especially full-back Gonzalo Montiel (£4.5m) struggling at times.
“Change of formation, new players; there’s a lot there to make it into a difficult context to not play well. So the fact we did play some good stuff and showed some good intent is something we’ve got to build on.” – Steve Cooper
One other recent acquisition, Callum Hudson-Odoi (£4.9m), did have a dream debut, scoring a superb curling effort to restore parity.
The Forest attack has real potential, with Anthony Elanga (£5.0m), Taiwo Awoniyi (£6.6m) and Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.9m) all starting alongside Hudson-Odoi, but we may now see a reversion to the 3-4-2-1 for the majority of the next eight Gameweeks – so Elanga and Hudson-Odoi could be sharing game-time throughout that run:
It’s the mixed bag of a schedule above that acts as the biggest deterrent to Forest players in FPL, even if Awoniyi extended his blank-less run even further by teeing up Hudson-Odoi for his goal.
FOSTER TO MISS FIRST HALF OF GAMEWEEK 7
Burnley also have some iffy upcoming fixtures, although they do have a Double Gameweek 7 just around the corner.
There are parallels with where Steve Cooper was a year ago with Vincent Kompany and Burnley: a big turnover of players following promotion and uncertainty over which combination will work best.
The attack had looked decent in the last month or so, with Luca Koleosho (£5.0m), Amdouni and Lyle Foster (£5.0m) working well together, but the defence had been all at sea.
The easier-on-paper fixture and Forest’s disconnected display no doubt helped the Clarets look better defensively but the reintroduction of Charlie Taylor (£4.0m) and Josh Bronwhill (£4.8m) was key, too. This was the first time this season that the back four and two holding midfielders were all players who came up with the Clarets from the Championship, and there was more of a cohesion.
Solidity is not something that the owners of Marcus Rashford (£8.9m) and co will be hoping for when Manchester United visit Turf Moor this weekend, of course. That will be more of a test for the Burnley backline, as dire as United have been.
“We’ve played Villa, Man City and Tottenham. Even though we had moments and showed good signs we weren’t able to have a complete performance yet.
“Today, I thought it was at least even but depending on what side of the fence you sit on you’ll probably think you deserved three points.” – Vincent Kompany
Foster’s stoppage-time dismissal for violent conduct was a shame as it masked another promising display from the budget forward. As lucky as his assist was for Amdouni’s strike, he was unfortunate to see what would have been a third goal of the season chalked off for a contentious handball.
He’d no doubt be in more FPL squads as a cheap third forward were it not for the game-time of Cameron Archer (£4.5m) but the Burnley striker is now sidelined for Gameweek 6 and the first half of Double Gameweek 7, at least returning for the more favourable fixture against Luton Town.
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