Two more Gameweek 29 matches to dissect now: Bournemouth 1-2 Brentford and Everton 1-1 West Ham United.
- READ MORE: FPL notes: Ederson + Bernardo injury updates, Marmoush stars
- READ MORE: FPL Gameweek 29 round-up: Saturday’s goals, assists, bonus points + stats
SEMENYO ON THE VERGE OF A BAN
After being booked for the fourth time in five Gameweeks, Antoine Semenyo (£5.7m) is on the verge of a ban.
The winger is now on nine yellow cards for the season. A tenth before the Cherries have contested their 32nd league fixture of 2024/25 and he’ll pick up a two-match suspension.
Above: Semenyo has to get through these matches without picking up another booking
Andoni Iraola will be particularly keen for Semenyo not to pick up a ban as he appears to have lost another winger. Luis Sinisterra (£4.8m) lasted just 18 minutes of his substitute appearance on Saturday, with Iraola saying the Colombian had suffered yet another hamstring injury. The last one kept him out for the best part of four months.
As for another wide-man (turned striker), Dango Ouattara (£5.1m) was reduced to a five-minute cameo. Even Sinisterra and David Brooks (£4.9m) were brought on before him.
FINE MARGINS
Bournemouth are now on their longest winless league run this season: four matches.
Before anyone gets too panicky, the margins have been tight in those games. Going down to 10 men against Wolves didn’t help, while the subsequent three fixtures could easily have gone the Cherries’ way.
On Saturday, Iraola’s troops had not far off twice the xG as their opponents. Semenyo – rattling the woodwork – and Brooks somehow failed to score from around six yards out after teasing crosses from Justin Kluivert (£6.2m) and Sinisterra. Evanilson (£5.7m) didn’t get good contact on another superb delivery from Dean Huijsen (£4.5m) when similarly well placed.
Brentford, by contrast, won with two set-piece goals from Yoane Wissa (£6.5m) and Christian Norgaard (£4.8m).
Iraola was frustrated by the failures in each box.
“At the end, I think it’s another of these games where we are not efficient.
“When it happens, not only today, because if it’s only today, you say bad luck. We had the crossbar chance, the keeper saves it over the line, a small offside, not a penalty, small margins.
“But when it’s happening, especially in the last games, I would say almost every game we need to improve in the boxes, it is what it is.” – Andoni Iraola
The Cherries are still a very decent team (third for xG this season) and with some good fixtures to come in the next few weeks. Kluivert was brilliant on the ball for the first hour on Saturday.
What they aren’t blessed with are natural finishers, with three of yesterday’s front four underperforming on the xG front this season:
There’ll be more goals and assists to come from the Cherries’ budget gems – but probably just as much frustration over missed chances too.
VAN DEN BERG RETURNS
In a Blank Gameweek in which every point matters, bench fodder favourite Sepp van den Berg (£4.1m) made a welcome return. He emerged as a second-half substitute after a month out.
Competition is about to get fierce at right-back with Kristoffer Ajer (£4.4m) the incumbent, van den Berg replacing him on Saturday, Michael Kayode (£4.5m) set to return in Gameweek 30 and even Aaron Hickey (£4.3m) nearing a comeback. Van den Berg will also have designs on a centre-back spot.
Wissa bagged his 13th league goal of the season from just 25 starts, while Bryan Mbeumo (£8.1m) made it 21 attacking returns for 2024/25 with the assist for Wissa’s header.
The fixtures are a bit iffy in the run-in for the Bees but with other teams managing minutes in between cup games at home and abroad, you at least know these two are going to keep on starting.
TWO FIT-AGAIN RIVALS FOR BETO
While Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.4m) continues to languish on the sidelines, Everton now have two more strikers to call on.
Youssef Chermiti (£4.9m) and Armando Broja (£5.3m) both made their first appearances in months on Saturday. The pair emerged as 79th-minute substitutes.
After several weeks of being the only Everton striker in town, Beto (£5.1m) now has a bit of competition. At the very least, he may no longer be a 90-minute man – it was he who was replaced by Broja against West Ham.
David Moyes hailed the impact of his substitutes, with Everton grabbing a late equaliser through Jake O’Brien (£4.5m).
“I thought the subs did change the game for us a little bit there. Tim [Iroegbunam] and the two forwards gave us something else, another impetus maybe just at the end to get something.
“We weren’t sure how long we would play Youssef or Broja, but I knew it couldn’t be too long just with their levels. But I thought it was needed at the end.
“[Chermiti] been injured for just about the whole season, same with Broja. So we’re all just really getting to see them for the first time.” – David Moyes
O’Brien’s goal was his second in three Gameweeks; he came to Everton with a bit of a reputation for scoring goals from defence. Failing to get a look-in under Sean Dyche, he’s now started nine consecutive league games under Moyes.
Whether it’s Beto, O’Brien or anyone else, however, Everton players won’t be top of many FPL shopping lists. They face all of the top five next:
On a nine-match unbeaten run, they can at least make life difficult for the teams they’re facing.
BOWEN BRIGHT BUT DEFENCE-FIRST AGAIN FOR WEST HAM
Since Graham Potter’s arrival at West Ham, it’s clear what his approach has been: get the defence sorted first then build from there.
The Hammers were mighty close to a third clean sheet in four matches here, limiting Everton to just 0.60 xG before O’Brien’s stoppage-time leveller and Carlos Alcaraz‘s (£4.9m) even later chance.
“The start point, I think, for us was to be a bit more defensively solid because we were conceding too many goals over a period of time. And I think when you’re in that situation, it’s hard to talk about attacking football and anything else you want to speak about. So, I think we’ve made steps towards improving that, some big steps. The last four matches have picked up seven points, so again, that’s quite good, but there’s always room to improve, always room to improve.” – Graham Potter
This approach has come at the expense of attacking swagger, of course.
The Hammers are 17th for xG since Potter’s arrival, with only the desperate bottom-three clubs posting worse numbers.
Potter showed a bit more ambition on Saturday, swapping out Edson Alvarez (£5.0m) for Lucas Paqueta (£5.9m).
It was still effectively a one-man show with Jarrod Bowen (£7.6m) in attack, however. He forced Jordan Pickford (£5.1m) into a couple of smart stops, also producing a jinking run and assist for Tomas Soucek‘s (£4.9m) opener.
