Having already dissected three of Saturday’s Gameweek 16 matches, we now turn our attention to the games at Old Trafford, Villa Park and the Amex Stadium.
BRUNO BAN
Five Premier League players were handed their fifth bookings of the season on Saturday, so they will all now miss out in Gameweek 17.
Four of them have significant Fantasy ownerships, too.
Bruno Fernandes (£8.3m), budget defender Charlie Taylor (£4.0m) and Aston Villa pair Douglas Luiz (£5.6m) and Lucas Digne (£4.7m), all of whom sit in more than 5% of FPL squads, are the players slapped with one-match bans thanks to yellow card accumulation.
Jack Robinson (£4.4m), who was part of a Sheffield United defence that kept their first clean sheet of 2023/24, also reached the unwanted five-caution milestone.
TIME TO BUY A VILLA DEFENDER?
It’s now back-to-back clean sheets for Aston Villa, who had previously disappointed when it came to defensive returns.
And the next four matches should offer further shut-out opportunities.
There are home fixtures against lowly Sheffield United and Burnley, while Gameweek 17 opponents Brentford looked limp at Bramall Lane yesterday without Bryan Mbeumo (£7.0m).
And would you be surprised if Villa turned up to Old Trafford on Boxing Day and emerged with the spoils? Not in the slightest.
We say ‘should’ as Villa may play with a bit more abandon in the Gameweek 17-20 fixtures. As was the case against Luton Town, Fulham and Brighton, they also have the habit of taking their eyes off the ball and conceding when coasting to victory.
Still, there is no sub-£5.0m defender with more FPL points than Pau Torres (£4.6m) this season.
Villa were running on fumes in the second half of their victory over Arsenal, with Unai Emery naming the same XI but sagely throwing on all five substitutes as energy levels waned.
Emery now has the chance to rest a few bodies against Zrinjski on Thursday, with UEFA Europa Conference League qualification – if not top spot in the group – already assured.
The Villa boss said the in-form Leon Bailey (£5.5m), who teed up John McGinn (£5.5m) for the only goal, was “completely tired” when being withdrawn at half-time – although also added that he didn’t know if there was an injury there, too.
ARSENAL THREATEN
Arsenal followed Manchester City in succumbing to a 1-0 defeat at Villa Park but unlike the reigning champions on Wednesday, the Gunners had their chances.
“We had so many big opportunities, some of them we didn’t even finish when they were completely open. We had to pick the right player to shoot and when we did it two or three times it was an open goal almost and we didn’t manage to score, but there’s not much more that we can demand from the team to play every three days.” – Mikel Arteta
Bukayo Saka (£9.0m) skewed wide a decent early opportunity from a Gabriel Martinelli (£7.8m) cross, while Martin Odegaard (£8.3m) spurned two good chances from 12 yards and Kai Havertz (£7.1m) saw a late leveller ruled out for the slightest of flicks off his hand. Ollie Watkins (£8.4m) was also inches from inadvertently scoring an own-goal.
Saka and Martinelli had plenty of joy and space down the flanks, with the Brazilian in particular guilty of not picking out the right final pass. Mikel Arteta later provided a bit of mitigation by saying it “was a bit windy”…
Some encouragement ahead of next weekend, then, when the Gunners meet a Brighton and Hove Albion side much less adept than Villa at playing the offside trap. The Seagulls are one of two clubs still without a clean sheet.
32 AND COUNTING, MITOMA BENCHED
You wouldn’t count on an Arsenal shut-out in Gameweek 17, mind, especially with Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.2m) and not the injured Takehiro Tomisayu (£4.5m) in defence.
Upcoming opponents Brighton have now scored in each of their last 32 league fixtures, with five goals put past the Gunners in their 2022/23 meetings.
Here Albion racked up 2.78 expected goals (xG) and 29 shots against Burnley, the highest tallies of Gameweek 16 so far.
The Seagulls continued their goalscoring run thanks to Simon Adingra‘s (£5.0m) equaliser.
Adingra has now started the last nine Premier League matches in a row, and all five competitive games in the fortnight since the international break, continually confounding expectations that he will get a rest.
It’s an all-the-more impressive run of starts considering that Roberto De Zerbi is taking fatigue and accumulated minutes into consideration elsewhere, explaining that a number of his squad – including the benched Kaoru Mitoma (£6.5m) – weren’t able to last the full game.
“Mitoma was not available to play 90 minutes. I think not about changing but to not take risks. Mitoma was a risk, Billy Gilmour was a risk, Igor was a risk. Facundo Buonanotte couldn’t play 90 minutes.” – Roberto De Zerbi
Burnley continued their recent upturn in performances but were heavily indebted to James Trafford (£4.5m), who hit double figures for saves. To give an idea of the hosts’ domination, Mitoma racked up five shots and 16 penalty box touches despite only coming on at half-time.
“We are a very good team but we are not a top team yet. A top team won today, won with Sheffield, won with Fulham. Winning the three games we would be third place in the table.
“Then the question is why didn’t we win these three games. Maybe because we are not a top team yet. Maybe the coach of Brighton is not a top coach yet.
“Today we shoot 29 times on goal. Against Fulham we suffered six, seven, eight minutes, not more, and we concede a goal from Palhinha from 23, 25 metres. Today we concede a goal from 20 metres.” – Roberto De Zerbi
DOM-INATION
It’s five wins in seven games for Bournemouth, who have now defeated the Uniteds of Newcastle and Manchester – and they almost claimed Villa’s scalp last weekend, too.
Only three teams have scored more goals than the Cherries (16) during this seven-match run, while three clean sheets have been added in the process.
Impressively, Andoni Iraola’s side are fourth for expected goals conceded (xGC) from Gameweek 9 onwards.
Neto (£4.5m) is now joint-third among goalkeepers for FPL points – and he’s even missed two matches this season.
“We were lacking a little bit of this toughness at the back [earlier in the season]. And you know this with the second ball, the rebounds inside our box, the blocks, even to stop the crosses, make them shoot a little bit further.
“This is more things that individual details defensively that are giving us now, the other day (against Palace), (against Manchester United) a clean sheet.
“The clean sheet at the end is points that we are winning, that probably at the beginning of the season we weren’t” – Andoni Iraola
It’s not a bad time to hop on Dominic Solanke (£6.6m) and co, either, with six of the next eight fixtures eminently winnable.
Solanke now has eight goals for the campaign, a tally that only Erling Haaland (£14.0m) can better among forwards.
The latest came at Old Trafford, where he could have boosted that total further – he had another four efforts besides his goal, including one that came back off the post.
The corner-taking Marcus Tavernier (£5.4m) claimed a brace of assists but budget forward Antoine Semenyo (£4.6m) was again hooked around the hour mark for the fourth straight game.
SCOTT’S SHOTS
We won’t spend too much time criticising Manchester United’s latest display, as we’d just be repeating what we’ve been saying in myriad other Scout Notes from this season.
This latest non-performance came off the back of a good showing against Chelsea, much to Fernandes’ frustration.
“It’s been consistently like this when we win a game, [in] the next one we don’t perform. We don’t perform the same way we did before.
“I don’t know if it’s a lack of concentration or focus or something else, but it is something we have to be aware of after winning a game.” – Bruno Fernandes
United did have twice as many shots as Bournemouth but none were ‘big chances’, only three ended up on target and 12 of the 20 efforts were blocked.
Budget midfield pair Scott McTominay (£4.9m) and Alejandro Garnacho (£4.8m) continued their trigger-happy approaches, racking up 11 shots between them. McTominay has remarkably now had 14 efforts in the last two Gameweeks alone.
With Liverpool up next in Gameweek 17, and no points gained against anyone higher than 10th this season, it could get a lot worse for Erik ten Hag before it gets better.
