FPL notes: Why Porro was benched, in-form Chelsea, Martin sacked

Rounding off Sunday’s Scout Notes, we assess Chelsea 2-1 Brentford and Southampton 0-5 Tottenham Hotspur.

• READ MORE: FPL Gameweek 16 round-up: Sunday’s goals, assists, bonus points + stats
• READ MORE: FPL notes: Welbeck + Mazraoui injury latest, Munoz ban + £5.2m Amad

ARE CHELSEA TITLE CHALLENGERS?

It wasn’t entirely straightforward, especially after Bryan Mbeumo’s (£7.6m) late strike, but it’s now five league wins in a row for Chelsea.

Goals from Marc Cucurella (£5.2m) and Nicolas Jackson (8.2m) helped overcome Brentford, who switched to a 3-5-2 formation in west London.

Cucurella, who drifted towards the left half-space when the Blues were in possession, guided his header into the net from an excellent Noni Madueke (£6.3m) cross. His needless altercation with Kevin Schade (£5.1m) after the final whistle earned him a second yellow card, however, which means he’ll miss Sunday’s trip to Everton.

As for Jackson, he twice went close early on before a miss-of-the-season contender (see below), but finally got his reward late on, smashing the ball past Mark Flekken (£4.5m) from yet another Enzo Fernandez (£5.1m) assist.

Enzo has now returned in six straight matches to total 44 points, just one behind Cole Palmer (£11.1m) in that same timeframe, who struggled to find his rhythm on a quiet night.

Enzo Maresca may not think Chelsea are title contenders, but their form suggests otherwise: win at Everton in Gameweek 17 and they will be top of the table, at least for a couple of hours.

MARESCA ON CHELSEA’S DEFENCE + SANCHEZ

Maresca must plan for Gameweek 17 without Cucurella and potentially Benoit Badiashile (£4.3m), who suffered an injury in training.

Tosin Adarabioyo (£4.2m) subsequently started in his place on Sunday but Chelsea once again waved goodbye to a clean sheet late on. They’ve now kept just one in their last 11 league games.

“Just two teams have conceded less than us. Defensively we’re not doing bad. We’d like to end with a clean sheet but there’s another team trying to score.” – Enzo Maresca

In fact, the Blues probably wouldn’t have left Stamford Bridge with all three points had it not been for a couple of exceptional saves from Robert Sanchez (£4.8m).

“If you remember Bournemouth away with the penalty; Aston Villa at home when one-v-one with Ollie Watkins; Nottingham Forest at the end of the game with the save; and then tonight, he has made the save.

“We are happy with Robert and sometimes when we say things, you struggle to believe [us]. But Robert is doing fantastic and then Filip [Jorgensen] is doing the same thing in the Conference League, and this is exactly what we want. Two keepers who can compete and they can help us win games.” – Enzo Maresca on Robert Sanchez

As for Brentford, Mbeumo got his goal late on, sliding his shot underneath the ‘keeper and into the back of the net.

The Bees’ away form continues to be a problem, however. They’ve taken just one point from a possible 24 on the road this season, compared to 22 points from an available 24 at home.

MADDISON + SON HAUL

Tottenham plundered five first-half goals to see off Southampton in style, with James Maddison (£7.6m) and Son Heung-min (£9.8m) in fine form.

Maddison scored twice and was superb throughout, with everything going through him at St Mary’s.

The player himself even thought he should have been awarded an assist.

However, FPL decided the cross from Maddison was aimed towards the centre of the box, with only Jan Bednarek’s (£4.0m) touch taking the ball to Son at the far post.

Son himself was equally influential on the south coast, with two goals, one assist and 14 points. He was later withdrawn at half-time, perhaps with one eye on Thursday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final against Manchester United.

“They were brilliant. I think they sensed they needed to tonight. We are just spread so thin that we’re asking young players and players who haven’t played a lot and others who have been playing all the time to go out there and still try to play to our identity, play the football we want to. I thought they both were the catalyst for that tonight, with both the football but also their mindset just going out there. We had to start strong today, we knew we would probably run out of gas at the end of the game considering the line-up we had out there, coming off Europe on Thursday night. I think the players sensed that and credit to them that they started the game in that way.” – Ange Postecoglou on James Maddison and Son Heung-min

As for Dominic Solanke (£7.5m), he was awarded a Fantasy assist when his shot was blocked by Bednarek and rebounded to Dejan Kulusevski (£6.3m), who then scored.

But it was Solanke’s only attempt in Gameweek 16, with openings on goal extremely hard to come by for the 27-year-old, who regularly dropped deep to hold the ball up and bring others into play.

UDOGIE INJURY LATEST + WHY PORRO WAS BENCHED

Elsewhere, Djed Spence (£4.4m) started in place of Pedro Porro (£5.6m) at right-back, but the Spaniard was still able to secure clean sheet points after Destiny Udogie (£4.9m) hurt himself on 27 minutes.

That was Porro’s second benching in three Gameweeks.

Ange Postecoglou explained his right-back decision before kick-off – and gave the latest on Udogie after full-time.

“Yeah, resting, rotation – call it what you like. We’ve got another big week coming up. We don’t have a lot of bodies at the moment, I think we’ve got 10 first-team players unavailable today. Djed gets an opportunity, he has been really patient and I’m sure he’ll do well.” – Ange Postecoglou on his decision to bench Pedro Porro

“We’ll see how he is. He felt a bit tight in his quad. To be fair, he wanted to continue but we can’t take any risks at the moment. So we took him off with Sonny. I don’t think it’s anything significant at this stage and more precautionary.” – Ange Postecoglou on Destiny Udogie

“He has had to bide his time. To be fair to him whenever he has played he has done well. We haven’t been able to give him too much game time because full-back is one of the positions we have a bit of cover but we needed him to come in and play at a good level and he did. It’s a credit to him.” – Ange Postecoglou on Djed Spence

SAINTS SACK MARTIN

Southampton unsurprisingly sacked manager Russell Martin following Sunday’s thrashing, having picked up just one win and five points from 16 Premier League games this term.

Former Saints assistant Danny Rohl is the current bookies’ favourite to become the new boss, with West Bromwich Albion’s Carlos Corberan and Graham Potter also in the mix.

Here’s how the odds are currently looking for the next permanent Southampton manager.

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