FPL notes: City wide open, Maddison great, Gvardiol threat

Even taking into account Manchester City’s recent slump, Saturday’s scoreline at the Etihad was scarcely believable.

City suffered their biggest-ever home defeat under Pep Guardiola, extending their losing sequence to five games.

Tottenham Hotspur continue to be Spursy, meanwhile, with thumping wins over Aston Villa and City sandwiching a home defeat to Ipswich Town.

Trying to make sense of it all, here are our next Gameweek 12 Scout Notes.

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RINSE AND REPEAT FOR CITY

It’s getting to a point where we can almost copy and paste the City Scout Notes from the previous Gameweek.

This was another Saturday in which Erling Haaland (£15.2m) topped the shot count. There were seven in total, all of them from well inside the Spurs area. Yet once again, there was no reward.

He’s now had 36 efforts, including 11 ‘big chances’, over the last seven Gameweeks. Just two have been converted.

At the other end, it was another game in which huge chasms opened up for the opposition. Without Rodri (£6.3m) and now Mateo Kovacic (£5.6m), Guardiola tried to stem the flow by playing Rico Lewis (£4.8m) in midfield with Ilkay Gundogan (£6.5m) and Bernardo Silva (£6.4m). It didn’t work. Gundogan’s return to the Etihad is looking like a misstep, even for free. Lewis meanwhile looks like a man without a position.

With the passing sloppy, the tackling flimsy, most of the defence – Kyle Walker (£5.2m), Manuel Akanji (£5.4m), John Stones (£5.3m) and substitute Nathan Ake (£5.3m) – looking half-fit and the midfield incapable of coping with quick transitions, it’s all a bit of a recipe for disaster at present.

Above: Man City have conceded more big chances than any other team since Rodri got injured

And yet, even despite all of the undeniable failings, it’s also true that City have been quite unlucky of late. They bossed the first halves against Brighton and Sporting, their opponents barely getting a kick.

Here, they even posted an identical xG (StatsBomb) to Spurs:

Haaland was twice thwarted by an impressive Guglielmo Vicario (£5.0m). The Norwegian also clipped the woodwork. Josko Gvardiol (£6.3m), Phil Foden (£9.2m) and Gundogan all probably should have scored.

While there’ll be the potential for shambolic defending on an ongoing basis, you’d still expect the goals to be arriving with more regularity at the other end. It’s sod’s law for Pep that, at a time when his rearguard is failing, so too is Haaland and the attack. He would probably settle for Kevin Keegan’s mid-90s Newcastle right now.

The ruthlessness in front of goal will surely return soon, even if the clean sheets may continue to be in short supply.

“The chances are there, so the same, like for example, in Brighton but it is what it is. Of course we want a lot of players to score but it’s happened now. So I think we had the chances and clear, clear ones.

“We are not solid enough, that is the truth. So, in both sides. Normally we are solid but we concede the goals. No, in both sides we are not good enough.” – Pep Guardiola

GVARDIOL CONTINUES TO POSE A THREAT

The frailties are a bit of a deterrent to owning City defenders in FPL – not that many teams are racking up the clean sheets this season.

Certainly, if we’re giving more priority to attacking potential, few defenders are as dangerous as Gvardiol.

Having scored three goals in Gameweeks 6-10, he was very close to adding another at Brighton at fortnight ago.

Here, against Spurs, his assist potential stood out. Gvardiol created a whopping eight chances at the Etihad on Saturday, four of them for Haaland. That’s more than anyone else, even among midfielders and forwards, in Gameweek 12.

Positioned very high on the left, he also had another two very decent chances of his own. Yes, he was partly culpable for a couple of Spurs’ goals – but his attacking threat is pretty unparalleled among FPL defenders right now.

WHICH SPURS WILL TURN UP NEXT WEEK?

You would not be surprised at all if Fulham beat Spurs next weekend. We have been here before with the Lilywhites, very recently in fact. Comprehensive, three- or four-goal wins over Manchester United, West Ham United and Aston Villa were all followed by dismal defeats. They’re a team that is hard to trust.

On their day, they’re brilliant. This was one of those days.

While makeshift centre-half pairing Radu Dragusin (£4.3m) and Ben Davies (£4.3m) deserve the plaudits for this most unexpected of clean sheets, the attack is the most thrilling part of Ange Postecoglou’s side.

They’re the Premier League’s leading scorers now, with 27. They’re also first for open-play xG (19.75).

Totally unfazed by whoever they’re facing (for better or worse), they’d have probably played the same even if City weren’t in their current funk.

The tricky thing with picking a Spurs attacker in FPL is that you’re never quite sure where the points, sometimes even the minutes, are going to come from.

From a four-goal win at the Etihad, Dominic Solanke (£7.6m), Dejan Kulusevski (£6.3m) and Son Heung-min (£9.9m) emerged with just an assist to their names. James Maddison (£7.5m), benched in his last two Gameweeks and in poor form, suddenly hits a fantastic brace and a 16-point haul. Unfathomably, he’s now the fifth-highest-scoring midfielder in FPL this season. Brennan Johnson (£6.7m), who has delivered some eye-catching underlying data in 2024/25, suddenly got benched – yet still finished with a goal to his name.

Pedro Porro (£5.5m) meanwhile chose a week in which he a) had a 10% chance of a clean sheet, b) was sold by 275,000 of his owners and c) was benched by 650,000 of his remaining owners to deliver his first double-digit haul of 2024/25.

Perhaps you simply pick a Spurs lane and stay in it, knowing that a haul may come at some point, or avoid them altogether.

CAN JOHNSON RECLAIM HIS PLACE?

Speaking of Johnson, does more bench duty now await? Saturday’s selection may have been horses-for-courses from Postecoglou, with the more defensively sound Kulusevski stationed on the right wing to help aid the fight against Gvardiol and Savinho (£6.5m).

But now Postecoglou has a dilemma on his hands. The Spurs boss surely doesn’t drop Maddison off the back of Gameweek 12. Kulusevski has been outstanding all season, albeit more from a deeper role. Starting both in central midfield, however, means losing some of the physicality that Pape Matar Sarr (£4.8m) offers. It may be that, in order to accommodate Maddison, Kulusevski has to feature on the right wing for the time being – at least in some games.

In more winnable tests, like Southampton (a) and Wolves (h), Postecoglou could opt to field all three.

Whatever the thinking, Johnson’s xMins most definitely took a hit after Maddison’s dazzling display in the north-west. A week is a long time in Spurs world, however…

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