With the next Fantasy Premier League (FPL) deadline closing in like Stan Collymore, we rattle through some brief Scout Notes from the remaining three Gameweek 26 fixtures.
They are Southampton 0-4 Brighton and Hove Albion, Ipswich Town 1-4 Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham 0-2 Crystal Palace.
WELBECK INJURY HANDS PEDRO CHANCE
A timely injury for Danny Welbeck (£5.5m) handed Joao Pedro (£5.4m) the chance to return to the Brighton starting XI – just in time for a clash with a lousy Southampton side.
Pedro duly delivered, scoring a goal and assisting another en route to his first double-digit haul since Gameweek 12.
What chance of Pedro keeping his place for Tuesday and Welbeck staying out, then?
Fabian Hurzeler said in his pre-match presser for Gameweek 27 that Welbeck remains “doubtful”, so there’s a very decent prospect of Pedro starting against a Zabarnyi-less Bournemouth backline.
There’s nothing like a meeting with a wretched Saints to boost the confidence and the attacking stats column. It’s become the Premier League equivalent of arranging a friendly with Civil Service Strollers on Championship Manager to get a few pre-season goals under the belt.
Brighton had a preposterous 10 ‘big chances’ on Saturday, which accounted for over half their shots. It’s not often that the xG matches the scoreline but 0.20-3.88 almost did here.
Yankuba Minteh (£5.0m) dallied for too long with the goal at his mercy, Kaoru Mitoma (£6.4m) blazed wide from inside the six-yard box, and Carlos Baleba (£5.0m) missed two second-half sitters. The damage could have been much, much worse.
Mitoma and Pedro did produce cute dinked finishes, while Georginio Rutter (£5.1m) tapped in from a Minteh pass. Jack Hinshelwood (£4.9m) round off the scoring with a set-piece goal. The Saints have conceded a dozen of those in 2024/25 already.
Not much to take from this utter mismatch, then, with Albion set for much more of a test against the Cherries.
ANGE EXPLAINS WHY PORRO + MADDISON WERE BENCHED
A similar scoreline at Portman Road might have made it seem like there was another one-sided affair in Suffolk.
That was very much not the case, however, as the below xG chart betrays. Brennan Johnson‘s (£6.2m) opener accounted for over half of Spurs’ total:
Ipswich came racing out of the gates. Liam Delap (£5.6m) had two early presentable openings and hit the bar with a header, while Jaden Philogene‘s (£5.3m) effort was somehow kept out after some comical six-yard-box pinball.
Really, this was just one team taking their chances and the other not.
Against the run of play, it was 2-0 after 26 minutes. Two Son Heung-min (£9.7m) cut-backs, two Johnson goals. So high has been Son’s bar over the years that we think he’s had a poor season (this most definitely has been the case on the eye), yet only three midfielders have more attacking returns (16).
While Omari Hutchinson (£5.2m) later halved the deficit, a deflected Djed Spence (£4.4m) shot and an excellent breakaway Dejan Kulusevski (£6.3m) effort put some gloss on the scoreline. Spurs’ last three goals had a combined xG of 0.20 – less than one of Delap’s early chances.
Spence’s excellent recent form continued. His resurgence, plus the return to fitness of Destiny Udogie (£4.8m), means there’s once again more uncertainty at full-back. Pedro Porro (£5.4m) was benched here, along with Gameweek 25 match-winner James Maddison (£7.4m).
“We’ve got to try to navigate these next 10 days to two weeks until the international break to make sure we’ve got as many players available as possible squad-wise for what’s ahead. That’s why I left Pedro and Madders out today. I was able to give them a bit of a rest. We didn’t want Brennan and Destiny to play more than 60 minutes. All of these kind of decisions at the moment are about trying to get us into a position where we have as many players healthy as possible.” – Ange Postecoglou
A shortening injury list, three successive league wins and a seemingly excellent buy in Kevin Danso (£4.5m) in January. Are Spurs back?
A word of warning: the UEFA Europa League resumes on either side of Gameweek 28. It’s not just the injuries and rotation that two games a week may bring but also the possibility that Ange Postecoglou may have his mind on something other than Premier League football in the run-in.
“Look, we’ve certainly benefited from having a couple of midweeks off for sure. That’s coincided with getting a few players back. You saw today we were able to rest a couple of players in Pedro and Madders. I can make substitutions and the players coming on can make a difference.
“We’re certainly in a good space of using these two weeks as well as we could to re-energise the team and I think it is. We’ve still got some significant players out. We’ve got Solanke, Richarlison, Romero, Van de Ven, Ben Davies, he’s out [having his minutes managed] today. They’re all still to come back. I just feel like we’ve got a really good opportunity in these next 10 days to be well-equipped for what’s ahead. What’s ahead is obviously Europe but also an opportunity to address our league position which is obviously not good enough.” – Ange Postecoglou
PALACE’S AWAY-DAY JOY CONTINUES
We’ve done the Oliver Glasner coverage to death over the weekend, so no more mentions of his 20-point haul. Apart from that one.
There wasn’t a huge amount of action in this game but it was a deserved win for Palace. Once again, Fulham save their worst for meetings with sides below them in the table.
Daniel Munoz (£4.9m) brought his century of FPL points up with an emphatic strike. Just two defenders can beat his total of 102 points, while Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.4m) is the only one with more returns than the Colombian (15 goals, assists + clean sheets).
Nowhere near as heralded is Maxence Lacroix‘s (£4.5m) set-piece threat. He saw a point-blank header saved and was inches from converting the corner that Joachim Andersen (£4.2m) put into his own goal. A total of 20 set-play attempts in 2024/25 is a tally that no other Fantasy defender can better.
‘Mr Second Half of the Season’, Jean-Philippe Mateta (£7.4m), claimed an eighth attacking return in seven matches by teeing up Munoz. Only a marginal offside call denied him another goal.
As for the Cottagers, a very disappointing afternoon after the recent slayings of Newcastle and Nottingham Forest. There were just four shots in the box all afternoon from the hosts.
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