We begin our Gameweek 31 Scout Notes with the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Nottingham Forest v Fulham and Bournemouth v Crystal Palace.
GIBBS-WHITE IMPRESSES
Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.7m) was the star of the show as Nottingham Forest took all three points against Fulham on Tuesday.
The playmaker set up Forest’s opener for Callum Hudson-Odoi (£4.7m), before scoring himself to put his team 3-0 up at half-time, in a quality all-round display that saw him rack up three shots and four key passes.
Gibbs-White has had a few ups and downs this season, but he’s hitting form at just the right time, with one goal, three assists and 27 points in his last three matches.
“He’s very talented, no doubt about that. He’s reaching the levels of a football player that is almost complete. He reads the game well, he has talent, he can score. The biggest challenge is to keep Morgan at that level and sustain this level of all the players. Many players did well behind him to allow him to attack.” – Nuno Espirito Santo on Morgan Gibbs-White
Elsewhere, Chris Wood (£4.8m) continued his impressive goalscoring form with a superb strike from range, his eighth in nine appearances.
Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest’s recent upturn in displays has seen them concede just five goals in their last five games.
Their underlying defensive numbers under Nuno Espirito Santo are very good, too, which is worth bearing in mind if you are considering captaining Son Heung-min (£10.1m) in Gameweek 32.
Above: Teams sorted by minutes per expected goal conceded (xGC) from Gameweek 18 onwards, Nuno Espirito Santo’s first match in charge
As for Fulham, inconsistent results have summed up their season, and they do seem to struggle to win matches they are expected to dominate.
At the City Ground, they weren’t in it at all in the first half, forcing Marco Silva into a triple-change just past the 30-minute mark. They did, however, find the net after the break, when Tosin Adarabioyo (£4.3m) headed home from an Andreas Pereira (£5.3m) corner, his ninth assist of the season so far.
Rodrigo Muniz (£4.7m) found it tough but did attempt five shots in the box, taking his tally to 35 in his past seven outings.
WHY SEMENYO WAS BENCHED
Bournemouth took victory in a relatively tight match against Crystal Palace on Tuesday, thanks to Justin Kluivert’s (£4.6m) goal.
The Dutchman’s winner followed an excellent assist by Antoine Semenyo (£4.5m), who started on the substitutes bench as he was not feeling 100%.
He was, however, excellent after coming on at half-time and almost made it 2-0, when he latched onto a Milos Kerkez (£4.4m) through ball, forcing a save from Palace ‘keeper Dean Henderson (£4.4m).
“He was not feeling 100 per cent. He had kind of a cold, not something big, but he was not feeling perfectly. We decided to put him on the bench. That was the situation, nothing else. We were discussing, because in the last two days with Meps [Mepham], Enes [Unal] and Antoine, they had not been feeling well and we have been dealing with this kind of situation, but it was clear that was always part of the squad.” – Andoni Iraola on Antoine Semenyo
With Chris Mepham (£4.3m) also dropping out due to illness, Lewis Cook (£5.0m) slotted into the back four, partnering ever-present Illia Zabarnyi (£4.5m) in the heart of defence.
That coincided with Bournemouth keeping their second clean sheet in five matches.
Meanwhile, it was a quiet night for Dominic Solanke (£7.2m), who attempted just one shot which flew into the side netting.
Solanke’s tally was, however, just two fewer than the entire Crystal Palace team managed all night, with their paltry three goal attempts carrying a combined expected goals (xG) value of just 0.13.
Eberechi Eze (£6.0m) had a goal ruled out for offside, which of course won’t be picked up in the stats, but Palace have scored just 15 away goals in the top-flight this season, with only Sheffield United faring worse, a real concern for Oliver Glasner.
“If you don’t score a goal you can’t win. We had many good situations. You need to shoot. Maybe we have to improve, be more decisive in offensive positions.” – Oliver Glasner
It doesn’t get any easier, either, with two very tough fixtures coming up (MCI, liv), which precedes Double Gameweek 34.
In better news, Glasner told reporters Michael Olise (£5.6m) should be fit enough to play a part in Gameweek 32. The Austrian said it’ll only be 20 minutes and they need to be careful, but the player is “desperate to get back”.
Finally, Chris Richards (£3.9m) missed out through injury and could be out for 2-3 weeks.
