A minor injury scare for Anthony Gordon (£5.9m) is among the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Saturday’s late match between Newcastle United and Manchester United.
GORDON INJURY UPDATE
The appearance of a yellow flag next to Gordon’s name in the early hours of Sunday morning would have been a surprise to many.
Gordon tapped in Kieran Trippier‘s (£7.0m) 55th-minute cross for the winning strike against Man Utd, a goal that led to his fourth double-digit haul of the campaign.
He’s now top of FPL’s ‘value’ (aka points per million) metric in 2023/24.
The young winger was substituted in the dying seconds of Saturday’s victory, with Eddie Howe later explaining it was an enforced/precautionary change.
“I don’t know at this moment in time, I hope [he is OK]. He just said he was feeling a tightness in his hip, fingers crossed it’s nothing serious.” – Eddie Howe on Anthony Gordon
There’s every chance the flag will remain on Gordon past the Gameweek 15 deadline. With Newcastle not in action again until later in the week, Howe may very well be hosting his pre-match press conference on Wednesday – so too late for any of us to act on fresh information.
LOCAL HEROES
Their bench may consist of a cobweb-covered Matt Ritchie (£4.4m), two goalkeepers, acne-ridden academy products, Jimmy Nail and Sting but Newcastle United march on regardless, particularly at home.
The Magpies have won seven of their eight league matches on Tyneside, recording five clean sheets along the way.
They were utterly dominant against Man Utd and fully deserving of their win: expected goals (xG) often don’t tell the full story of a match but 2.65-0.36 was a pretty accurate reflection of the late-evening game at St James’ Park.
Leading the charge has been Gordon, who now hasn’t blanked in eight appearances on home soil.
Trippier had earlier hit the woodwork with a free-kick for the second week running, going on to create a Gameweek-high six chances and claim maximum bonus points yet again.
Above: The top five FPL assets for points in home matches in 2023/24
The one bit of concern is that only two of Newcastle’s next six league matches are at Fortress St James’:
Their only success on the road was at a dire Sheffield United side. Take that result out of the equation and they are winless and without a clean sheet in five away league matches, averaging just one goal per game.
“Home support is so important. Here, it’s unique. It galvanises us, it gives us extra energy. The crowd really helped us today.
“We have to find a way to win away, and our away form needs to improve, but let’s just celebrate our home form.” – Eddie Howe
POPE INJURY HANDS £3.9M DUBRAVKA A CHANCE
Newcastle’s injury crisis means that budget-friendly options Tino Livramento (£4.3m) and Jamaal Lascelles (£4.1m) are currently offering a cut-price route into their impressive backline.
Trippier and Gordon took the plaudits and the attacking returns but Livramento was excellent at both ends of the pitch from left-back.
No one on show had more penalty-box touches than the former Southampton full-back (six).
And now, there may well be an even cheaper path into the Magpies’ defence.
Nick Pope (£5.5m) appeared to dislocate his shoulder late in the match against Man Utd, so Martin Dubravka (£3.9m) could be set for a lengthy run in the side.
As mentioned earlier, we probably won’t hear Howe’s pre-Gameweek 15 presser before Tuesday’s deadline but the early noises aren’t positive on Pope:
“It looks bad, it looks like a dislocation of his shoulder, which he has done before. He had it operated on and came back successfully.
“I don’t know what the future holds for Nick, whether he’ll need an operation or not, but we’ll get it checked out and fingers crossed he’s back soon.” – Eddie Howe on Nick Pope
BOY UTD
“We have this issue and we have to overcome this issue. It’s the truth.” – Erik ten Hag, when asked about Manchester United’s inability to win at a top-eight club for two years
They may have been top of the form table heading into Saturday’s game but Manchester United weren’t fooling anyone.
All eight of their wins this season have come against sides sitting 10th or below, while they’ve lost all five of their fixtures against anyone higher. They failed to reach even 1.0 xG in four of those five matches.
They’re flat-track bullies: just about good enough to eke out narrow victories over Fulham and Luton Town but outclassed when up against the big boys.
Marcus Rashford (£8.6m) was shockingly bad again, Bruno Fernandes (£8.3m) anonymous. The defence, marshaled by the resurgent Harry Maguire (£4.3m) and featuring Luke Shaw (£5.2m) at centre-half, emerged with a bit of credit after holding firm for large periods, but a home victory was 100% merited.
“We wanted to create full-backs with a lot of overlaps, underlaps in attacking. It didn’t go up but that was the idea, to have fresh full-backs. Aaron [Wan-Bissaka] played one game, not the whole game, Diogo [Dalot] played at Everton and came on in Istanbul. Luke Shaw is returning from an injury and we didn’t want him to play as a full-back but this was the idea, as a centre-half.” – Erik ten Hag
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