Monday night didn’t quite provide a Christmas cracker, as Harry Wilson (£5.8m) blanked, was booked and came off with an injury during Fulham’s 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest.
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Still, a few interesting Fantasy Premier League (FPL) events took place, as Raul Jimenez (£6.3m) scored from the spot in first-half stoppage time.
WILSON INJURY UPDATE
Following three goals, four assists and 42 points in his previous four matches, 1.6 million FPL managers bought Wilson before Gameweek 17’s deadline.
However, he’s been overachieving in terms of expected goals (xG), and his season’s only big chance came in mid-September.
Sure enough, after being unable to reach Kevin‘s (£5.8m) drilled cross after 10 seconds, Wilson was restricted to one long-range shot and a mere 0.03 expected goal involvement (xGI).
Above: Harry Wilson’s touch heatmap v Nottingham Forest
A clean sheet point was undone by being booked for challenging Neco Williams (£4.7m). And, making things worse, being injured in that incident led to his 84th-minute withdrawal.
Marco Silva is currently optimistic about Wilson making Gameweek 18’s trip to West Ham United, though.
“Looks he’s going to be okay. I think it was a big knock there, was not something that he twisted but now it’s of course painful. But let’s see, tomorrow we have a session, we are going to assess the players from tonight & see how he’s going to recover.” – Marco Silva on Harry Wilson
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SPOT-ON JIMENEZ
Meanwhile, one week after disappointing some Free Hit users in an anonymous display at Burnley, Jimenez accumulated five shots here. This included a penalty and one other big chance.
The spot kick was heavily stuttered – a bit cheeky – coming as a result of Douglas Luiz (£4.9m) bringing down Kevin.
By converting, Jimenez now joins Manchester City legend Yaya Toure in having a 100% success rate from 11 penalties. Nobody else has such a percentage from so many kicks.
THE ANDERSEN/ANDERSON ‘DEFCON’ BONANZA
Near-namesakes Joachim Andersen (£4.6m) and Elliot Anderson (£5.4m) faced off in a defensive contribution (DefCon) derby.
After Gameweek 16, Fulham’s centre-back was the joint-second best defender for securing DefCon points (20). Additionally, the latter was the leading midfielder (18), and ahead of all others for completed actions (207).
So were Andersen or Anderson successful tonight?
Both of them! Combined with a clean sheet, this gave Andersen seven points – heroic, considering he dislocated a finger and kept playing. But a late yellow card slightly dampened the celebrations of FPL owners. Until that moment, the Dane could have secured bonuses and a double-digit haul.
Above: The most DefCon actions, after Gameweek 17’s completion
As for Anderson – keep up – he’s reached the threshold in 10 of his last 14 appearances. Those needing a downgrade to buy someone like Hugo Ekitike (£8.8m) could do a lot worse than purchasing such consistency.
A NEW £4.0m GOALKEEPER?
Finally, a small note is that Forest’s usual first-choice stopper, Matz Sels (£4.7m), recovered from the injury that kept him out of Gameweek 16.
Yet he only made the bench, as John Victor (£4.0m) kept his place.
It’s not a given yet that Victor keeps his place, with Sels’ lack of training part of the explanation:
“John has done really well in the two games, to be fair. Matz has only had four days of training. He had a bad finger he was playing through and a groin (problem), so we have had to be careful with that. But John has earned the right for this one, that’s for sure, with two very strong performances.” – Sean Dyche, speaking ahead of kick-off
