The Gameweek 6 inquest continues as we reflect on Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-2 Liverpool and Chelsea 4-2 Brighton and Hove Albion.
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PALMER RUNS RIOT
Just as they had done in Gameweek 2 at Molineux, the stars aligned for Cole Palmer (£10.6m) on Saturday.
Brighton and Hove Albion’s high defensive line was of course a factor, although they had operated in the same manner against Arsenal and Manchester United without being overrun.
Perhaps of more significance was the unexpected absences of Joel Veltman (£4.5m) and Jan Paul van Hecke (£4.5m), who missed out through illness and injury.
Brighton’s right-hand side had to be replaced, then, with the more attacking Ferdi Kadioglu (£4.5m) coming in at full-back and Adam Webster (£4.4m) filling in at centre-half. It proved to be too much disruption to the backline. Perhaps Fabian Hurzeler was naive, too, in attempting to operate in the same manner with this new-look defence.
“We had some changes today in the back four and if you want to play like this, you need a connection. We didn’t have this today.” – Fabian Hurzeler
Webster’s suicidal back pass for Chelsea’s opener set the tone. Nicolas Jackson (£7.8m) raced onto it, squaring for Palmer for his first goal. The Seagulls hadn’t heeded any warning: Palmer had hit the post and had a goal disallowed before that.
Clumsy fouls led to Palmer’s second and third, via a penalty and free-kick. The revitalised Jadon Sancho (£6.3m), who won that spot-kick and gave Kadioglu a torrid time, then slipped in his ice-cold teammate for the fourth.
Above: The many sides to Palmer’s game: a penalty, two open-play goals and a free-kick of 0.03 xG
The Blues spurned many other big chances, with Jackson the worst culprit. Palmer should even have got his fifth late on.
To just focus on Brighton’s shortcomings would be a disservice to Palmer’s artistry.
Chelsea’s Gameweek 7 opponents, Nottingham Forest, won’t make the same mistakes as Brighton. No doubt they will try to replicate what they did at Anfield. But even the deepest, Jose-est of low blocks can’t guard against the brilliance of, for instance, Palmer’s long-range free-kick.
Looking at Chelsea’s next five opponents (Forest, Liverpool, Newcastle, Man Utd, Arsenal), this is how Palmer fared last season:
Four of those six goals came against Manchester United, just as a note.
We may not see many 15+ point hauls in the next five Gameweeks, then – but you wouldn’t put it past Palmer to chip in with a goal and/or assist every week to keep things ticking along.
BRIGHTON INJURY UPDATES
Reasons for the absences of van Hecke, Veltman and Adingra. #BHAFC #CHEBHA
Van Hecke: Injured
Veltman: Sickness
Adingra: Minor (injury) issue, precautionary.— Andy Naylor (@AndyNaylorBHAFC) September 28, 2024
We didn’t get much information on the above three absentees from Hurzeler after full-time.
What he did reveal was that he knew about (we assume from the below quote) van Hecke’s issue early in the week, yet didn’t mention it in Thursday’s presser.
“One of them quite early, one of them quite late – so it was a mix.” – Fabian Hurzeler on when he knew his two defenders would miss out
Owners of Spurs’ attacking assets will hope that van Hecke isn’t fit for Gameweek 7 and that Hurzeler stubbornly sticks to his guns tactically.
“Of course, some things are non-negotiable. Some things are negotiable. I think I should discuss it before I go here out in public and tell something about our style of play, I should discuss with the players how they feel – if they feel confident or not. But again, we try to improve the players, we try to help the players, we try to talk to the players, we need to give them advice. Again, if you want to play with this high line you need a connection and this connection was missing today.
“The four goals we conceded… not one goal [was] because of the high line, it was all because of individual mistakes if if you reanalyze it. That’s a thing where we also have to see.” – Fabian Hurzeler
Things were more positive at the other end, at least, with Brighton matching their hosts for shots (15-15) despite defeat.
Chelsea, especially Robert Sanchez (£4.7m), shot themselves in the foot with Albion’s two goals. Then again, Carlos Baleba (£5.0m) deserves credit for harrying the way he did on both occasions. The manner of the goals wasn’t an accident on Brighton’s part, as pressing from the front is a big part of their game. Georginio Rutter (£5.5m), again deputising for the injured Joao Pedro (£5.5m), nodded in the opener following Baleba’s charge down.
LIVERPOOL FIND A WAY
After the impressive wins over AC Milan and Bournemouth, Liverpool’s latest victory was more about perspiration than inspiration.
An Opta xG of 2.54 (a more modest 1.73 with Statsbomb) was decent but it was chiefly made up of three shots: Mohamed Salah‘s (£12.8m) penalty, a sort-of-open-goal miss from the Egyptian and a sitter from Dominik Szoboszlai (£6.5m).
Other than that, Liverpool struggled to create much of note.
Sod’s law and FPL often go hand in hand, and so it was on Saturday night. Luis Diaz (£8.0m), the most-bought player of Gameweek 6, had his least effective game of the season. Salah and Diogo Jota (£7.5m), jettisoned by a combined 1.26 million Fantasy managers ahead of Saturday’s deadline, returned 17 points between them.
Jota’s cross was headed in by Ibrahima Konate (£5.0m) for the opener before the former Wolves man won Salah’s penalty. That’s back-to-back attacking returns for Konate, who surprisingly hadn’t scored a Premier League goal before yesterday.
“We still have to prove that when we come across Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea [and] Aston Villa [to see] if we can then still be up there with Champions League games included, as well.” – Arne Slot
Slot is savvy enough to know that Liverpool have had a favourable run of games – the real tests come after the October break:
ROBERTSON INJURY UPDATE + WHY DARWIN MISSED OUT
Jota helped himself to 90 minutes, partly due to the absence of Darwin Nunez (£7.2m). The Uruguayan was merely ill, however, so the ‘xMins’ haven’t been greatly improved.
Cody Gakpo (£7.2m) meanwhile was introduced in the 73rd minute for Diaz. The teamsheets and game-time on Wednesday will likely have a big say on which combination of Diaz, Gakpo, Darwin and Jota lines up in Gameweek 7 – just 62.5 hours separate full-time against Bologna from kick-off at Selhurst Park:
Andrew Robertson (£6.0m) was forced off late in the match at Molineux but Arne Slot wasn’t hugely concerned after full-time.
“I don’t expect this to be a big problem, although you never know, but I think he just got a knock.
“End phase of the game, maybe he was a bit tired as well because the guy who came in – Forbs, I knew him, of course, from the Dutch competition – he made it a real fight for him.
“He got a bit of a knock but I’m expecting him to be in training on Monday again, but let’s wait.” – Arne Slot on Andrew Robertson
WOLVES DO BETTER THAN EXPECTED
The run of form, injuries and pre-match illness outbreak – Craig Dawson (£4.5m) missed this one with a bug – led many of us to expect a bloodbath in the West Midlands.
It didn’t really pan out like that. Liverpool were restricted to their lowest number of shots in 2024/25. Even Salah’s missed big chance was gifted by the Wolves backline. In turn, Rayan Ait-Nouri‘s (£4.5m) goal owed to some sloppiness from the Reds.
The Chelsea game was of course a horror show but this match was more in keeping with defeats to Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Arsenal: close but no cigar.
Even Slot pointed out in his presser that Wolves had the division’s worst run of opening fixtures. Things look much, much better from Gameweek 10 onwards:
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