FPL notes: Another clean sheet for £4.1m Fabianski as Toon tank

It was an evening of party-pooping on Tyneside as many Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers’ shiny new toys, Alexander Isak (£8.5m) and Lewis Hall (£4.4m), blanked.

If you were one of the 10% of Lukasz Fabianski (£4.1m) owners who didn’t bench the veteran Pole, however, there was some joy to be had.

Our final Gameweek 12 Scout Notes focuses on Newcastle United 0-2 West Ham United.

FEELING THE (LOSS OF) BURN?

FPL, and football in general, sometimes just leaves you scratching your head. How can you go from deservingly beating high-flying Arsenal and Nottingham Forest to slumping to a 2-0 home defeat at the hands of a struggling side whose manager may have just been a game away from the sack? Even more bafflingly, how does Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£4.4m) find his way onto the scoresheet?

If we’re looking for the rationale behind the chaos that Premier League football delivers, then the absence of Dan Burn (£4.4m) is a place to start.

The big Geordie is no Sven Botman (£4.4m). But there’s every chance he might have stopped West Ham’s two goals on Monday. Replacement Lloyd Kelly (£4.3m) lost Tomas Soucek (£4.9m) for the midfielder’s headed opener, while he backed off Wan-Bissaka for the Hammers’ second. Others were also to blame for the latter (no one tracking the full-back’s run in the first place) but Burn would have done his best John Terry and hurled a telescopic limb or two towards the ball rather than back off, hands behind back, and fail to even cover the far post.

“He was a big miss. You see the first goal and I think Dan’s presence helps us in those situations, for sure. But his leadership qualities on the pitch can’t be underestimated. He’s an organizer, he’s a really good communicator with his backline and his midfield, and certainly my initial assessment is that we missed that today.” – Eddie Howe on Dan Burn

Burn at least returns from suspension in Gameweek 13.

Hall, meanwhile, was arguably Newcastle’s best player and should continue to start. Impressing with some driving runs forward, he registered three shots and two chances created. One deflected cross-shot was inches from connecting with Isak.

ISAK’S BIG CHANCE

The above shot was Isak’s big chance at extending his scoring sequence to four consecutive games. There were six attempts from the Swede in all, while his xG of 0.71 was higher than it was in Gameweeks 10 and 11 when he found the net. An early strike was also chalked off for offside.

No reason to lose faith just yet, then.

Newcastle’s attack fell flat as a whole, however. They’ve not really got going as a collective this season:

Their xG is 18.21, it should be said – almost identical to what it was in 2022/23. That suggests it’s part execution from the players involved. Anthony Gordon (£7.2m) epitomises the sudden lack of conviction in front of goal: a huge 35th-minute chance was fired straight at Fabianski.

“I think a lot of that is potentially down to individuals’ form. Their execution, their confidence in those big moments and for me, we’ve had big moments today. We’ve had the opportunities and of course, then if you take those, more come off the back. That’s how football always works and that’s how it worked for us against Nottingham Forest in our last game. There’s nothing like goals to create confidence in the group. You only get confidence for me from hard work and training and making sure that we rehearse and refine what we’re doing. So, that’s what we have to.” – Eddie Howe on struggles in the final third

Howe said after full-time that he was hopeful that a knock and a quad injury picked up by Joe Willock (£4.8m) and Bruno Guimaraes (£6.2m) respectively weren’t serious issues.

BACK-TO-BACK CLEAN SHEETS FOR FABIANSKI

There’s plenty of talk about ‘fine margins’ in football. This was a fine margins game. Newcastle weren’t great but they weren’t terrible. West Ham weren’t sensational but they weren’t half bad.

The Hammers were most definitely better than they had been in a while, maybe all season. The win over Manchester United in Gameweek 9 wasn’t convincing, for example. This one was more like the Gameweek 2 success at Crystal Palace, the kind of ground-out win to nil that we were expecting more of from a Lopetegui-led side.

Reasons to be cheerful? Jarrod Bowen (£7.4m) was bright, grabbing an assist. Lopetegui’s insistence on pushing his full-backs high finally paid dividends, with the famously defence-first Wan-Bissaka good going forward. Carlos Soler (£5.0m) was impressive in a midfield that didn’t containt the plodding Guido Rodriguez (£4.9m) for the first time in 2024/25.

Time will tell if this win was an exception to the norm, a mere stay of execution for Lopetegui. There certainly won’t be a rush to the Fantasy shops to buy the hot new West Ham assets. Arsenal could easily put to them to the sword on Saturday. Emerge with any credit from that game, however, then maybe there’s a punt on a Bowen or a Soucek worth considering ahead of Christmas:

Bargain FPL goalkeeper Fabianski at least looks settled in this team at present. Alert to smother Gordon’s clear-cut opportunity, he also deserved credit for narrowing the target that Isak had to aim at with his own best opening. Those were the only two Opta-defined big chances of the game.

After back-to-back clean sheets, it’s his shirt to lose.