The numbers are adding up for Arsenal, there’s a happy bunny at Southampton and one Chelsea star is all for a spot of me-time.
Say What? returns with all the talk both large and small, including a king in a decidedly childish mood and a man on borrowed flexi-time.
Read on, if you’d be so kind.
Three And Easy For Arsenal
Three: De La Soul’s magic number; the universally recognised total for accurate Bronte sister measurement; the ideal some for most of the men reading this piece.
And now it’s the go-to amount of centre-halves that Premier League managers feel they need to shoehorn into their sides.
Even that dyed-in-the-wool, Plan B-dodging purists’ purist Arsene Wenger is at it.
And it seems to be working.
‘Played three, won three’ has been a rarity for Arsenal recently, which was not what we wanted to see when the Gunners have fixtures queueing up like HMRC officers outside the London Stadium.
Wenger’s boys have a tricky Gameweek 36 – Man United at home, Southampton away – and a rather more promising Gameweek 37 involving a trip to Stoke City and a visit from Sunderland.
Even so, that would normally have been enough for us to load up on Arsenal players until a horrible eight-match run involving just two wins and some wretched defeats had us backing up and averting our eyes.
Alexis Sanchez suffered more than most during that run, but those three at the back have helped revive both the team and even him – he broke a three-match drought with a goal at Middlesbrough and followed that up with the FA Cup semi-final winner over Man City.
And Wenger is convinced that nothing – not formation changes, ongoing contract talks, or even the side’s notoriously fragile confidence levels – ever phases the midfielder.
“I think one of his strengths is he is not affected by the past. He is always in what’s next, next job. That is rare in our job. It is a quality. The past has no importance for him, he’s always on what’s next. He always finds a way to continue to fight and to be decisive. Decisiveness is something that is in his mind.”
That’s great news for the 24.7% of managers still investing a mighty 11.5 in the history-scorning dynamo.
And just as well when his performance against Leicester City last night yielded a measly two shots on goal from distance – despite the Chilean being employed up front again.
Sanchez remains, therefore, an expensive enigma as we plot our Double Gameweek and Wildcard strategies.
But Arsenal’s return to form is incredibly welcome given their outstanding number of fixtures.
And the noises from the rest of the club regarding the new formation are overwhelmingly positive.
Laurent Koscielny has said this:
“There was a tactical turnaround, but we’ve been working on it for 15 days. In that system, there are players who are good. It’s good for the collective. I think we also found confidence in this system with three defenders. We are more solid behind.”
Wenger added this:
“We are in a formation that is really adaptable because Gabriel can play right-back. Overall I think we play a system that is not a strict three at the back because when we have the ball, (Oxlade) Chamberlain plays midfielder basically. What (the change in formation) did was it got the players to focus on something that is concrete, to forget anxiety and a little bit of uncertainty.”
Uncertainty is Kryptonite to us Fantasy Supermen/Women, so this is all great news with those six fixtures to come.
What we have to decide now is who among the Gunners squad are best placed to take advantage.
Sanchez is always difficult to ignore, although Mesut Ozil is considerably cheaper at 9.4 and a differential candidate with just 6.1% ownership – he’s also found a bit of recent form, with two goals and as many assists in five.
At the back, Gabriel (4.8) is good value and looking like a sure starter while Wenger assesses Koscielny’s knee problem and Shkodran Mustafi continues to clutter up the treatment table. Meanwhile, Nacho Monreal (5.8) is costly but has been used as both a centre-half and a wing-back in the new Arsenal three.
That adaptability brought him an assist and 12 points against Leicester and a goal at Wembley against Man City.
Three has been kind to Arsenal, then. They now have six more matches to return the favour to us.
Maya The Player For Double Bubble?
Another Double Gameweek outfit demanding our attention are Southampton.
The Saints’ schedule is equally tough, involving Liverpool away and Arsenal at home in Gameweek 36 before a journey to Middlesbrough and Man United at St Mary’s the week after.
But – aside from Nathan Redmond’s surprise drop to the bench against Chelsea – at least Claude Puel’s men mainly offer a measure of stability. The squad isn’t big enough for Pep Guardiola-sized fits of rotation, injuries have further diluted the Frenchman’s options and he’s not one to switch to a defensive three just because everyone else is doing it.
The likes of Dusan Tadic (1.9%), Manolo Gabbiadini (3.6%) and even James Ward-Prowse (1.4%), as a budget midfield enabler, are likely to enjoy ownership boosts in the near future, but there’s another asset well worth considering.
Since Virgil van Dijk’s ligaments went south, Maya Yoshida has been a defensive rock. He’s been an ever-present since Gameweek 19 and went on a three-match purple patch not so long ago that netted his 3.3% ownership 27 points from a goal and two clean sheets.
That form has tailed off recently, with just one point from his last two, but he looks nailed-on for the Saints’ six-match run-in.
“I have been waiting for this chance for a long time. Now I have to show everyone who I am. I’m 28 now and I believe I will improve more and more, especially at centre-back because I’m getting more experienced, calm and I’m physically very good now.”
Puel clearly agrees – he handed Yoshida the armband for the 1-0 win at West Brom
“Not every player can become captain for their own country and also a Premier League club, so I really appreciate everyone who has accepted me.”
He’s also done a bit of acceptance of his own, forming a solid partnership with Jack Stephens since Gameweek 23.
“Every game he improves. After each game we discuss with each other what was good and what wasn’t good. We try to raise each other up and I can learn many things from him and he can learn from me. We are building a very good relationship, I believe.”
The duo are cheap (4.4 and 4.1 respectively) and differential material – Stephens, at 2.4% is in even fewer squads than Yoshida.
So one or other of them should be expecting a decent surge in ownership for those Double Gameweeks.
But there is one potential fly in their harmonious ointment, and he’s called Martin Caceres.
The former Barca and Juve centre-half joined Southampton as a free agent in February. Since then, he’s played zero minutes, much to the distress of his 316 Fantasy Premier League owners.
So, Claude, could Caceres experience severe bench-rash by season’s end?
“Yes.”
No chance he’ll play then?
“We will see because we’ve got to play the two games that have been postponed and that will mean playing every three days until the end of the season. It’s competition also, Caceres is a good player with a good training session and I think he’s going to have opportunities until the end of the season. But it’s all about competition and I’m happy with the work of Jack and Maya.”
Okay, so we’ve got bigger Double Gameweek fish to fry than a trio of Southampton defenders, but doubt is the biggest enemy when planning for such great opportunities to climb the rankings and win our mini-leagues.
Based on all of the above, there doesn’t look like much doubt that Yoshida is Southampton’s defensive mainstay at the moment.
Stephens is cheaper, if you’re really strapped for cash. And as for Caceres…well, maybe 316 people are on to something.
A hiding to nothing, probably.
Time To Get Selfish, Eden
Media training has reduced most footballers to platitude-guffing dronebots.
In America, you just have to thank the Lord for blessing you with the ability to smash right through those in front of you. In England, it’s all about doing it for the team.
But should Fantasy Football ever exert the influence it has over there over here, players will have to start thinking about what they say to keep us, their long-suffering managers, sweet.
Eden Hazard’s recent form has certainly been doing that – four goals in his last four starts, six and two assists from ten – but his talk could do with improvement.
“I don’t care about the number of goals I get. Statistics aren’t important for me.”
That, like the news that Steps are back on tour, is music to no-one’s ears.
“If my goals help my team win games, that’s important. I just want to take the trophy at the end of the season. if I can score a few more goals this season that would be good.”
That’s more like it.
He’s now hit 15 goals this season – his best ever Premier League return – and has five chances, including a juicy Double Gameweek 37 against West Brom (a) and Watford at home, to add to that tally.
A chunky 31.2% of us – a figure surely likely to keep on rising – would have nodded our heads eagerly when Cesc Fabregas pitched in with his view that Hazard needs to ‘be selfish’ in front of goal.
Antonio Conte disagreed, saying that sort of thing was ‘not my idea of football’.
Well it’s definitely our – and by that I mean 1,384,360 FPL managers – idea of football. Fortunately, we don’t seem to be alone.
“Fabregas is not the only one to say that to me. A lot of people say to me you need to be more selfish, but when I am on the pitch sometimes I prefer to pass the ball. I try game after game to be more selfish. I know it’s good for me to score more goals if I want to reach the level of Messi and Ronaldo. I am working on it.”
Messi? An unproven midget compared to the FPL colossus that was Ronaldo.
But if Hazard can scale the latter’s Fantasy heights, then even Conte will have to agree that being selfish is a great idea after all.
Beware The Setting Son
From Swiss Army knives to comely yoga instructors, flexibility has always been a valued asset.
But there are limits, as we’re beginning to realise when it comes to Son Heung-min.
The South Korean has worked his way into 12.1% of FPL squads on the back of five goals and an assist over the last five Gameweeks.
In that time, he’s played in midfield and as a striker, producing healthy points returns whatever the role.
Unfortunately, his flexibility has now been extended further – all the way to a left wing-back role in an FA Cup semi-final during which he conceded an early penalty.
Having a midfielder used in a more defensive role is stretching things to the limit for Son’s owners.
Not that Mauricio Pochettino cares.
“Of course (I could use Son again), because I think he was good. He was unlucky because I think it wasn’t a penalty and maybe the feeling is bad but I am so happy with him and if Tottenham play well, it’s because of Sonny too.”
Okay, so a Son as a wing-back is better than one sitting on the bench, which is precisely what he did for the first 45 minutes against Crystal Palace last night. Pochettino stuck with three at the back, but replaced the South Korean with Ben Davies – a 3.3%-owned defender who’s now kept three consecutive clean sheets.
Son did at least appear for the second half as the team reverted to four at the back, but 45 minutes and one point doesn’t cut it at the best of times, and most definitely not when we’ve only got five matches with which to garner as many points as possible from Spurs assets.
If we are to adhere to the consensus that we need three Tottenham players in our teams for the run-in, Son suddenly looks like an unwanted passenger, with Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen in the driving seat for our attentions.
We’ll know more when the teams are announced for Sunday’s North London derby, but if Wenger continues with three at the back, Pochettino is highly likely to match that formation.
Should that be the case, Son’s best hope for a start is on wing-back duty, meaning his fabled flexibility should stiffen our resolve – to sell and move on.
King For A Day, Or Four More
Moving on from Bournemouth’s Josh King is currently far from our thoughts.
In fact, he’s a good call as a Son replacement, even though the Cherries have only four fixtures to come.
It’s a matter of never mind the brevity, feel the quality for Bournemouth – they’ll entertain Stoke City and Burnley and travel to Sunderland and Leicester City.
And King has so much form to go with those fixtures.
Eleven goals and an assist since Gameweek 22, six in his last seven, strikes against Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United…he gives huge bang for his 6.1 buck.
The man himself cites old times for today’s good times.
“I think I have got that childhood confidence back. My mum texted me on Saturday and said ‘when I am watching you playing now it is like watching you on the playground, when you were young with no fear’. I am playing with no fear and just enjoying it.”
One thing’s for sure, he clearly didn’t grow up in the seventies, when playground activities were awash with fear – dead legs and Chinese burns, concrete landing areas beneath the monkey bars and kiss chase sessions with the girl who brought a thriving colony of nits and the enduring smell of fish paste to the party.
King warms to the childhood theme when discussing his current success.
“I was a little kid when I moved over, a little skinny boy. I have grown a lot since and that was part of the reason for my injuries. This season is the first time my body has felt 100 per cent right. I have been at loads of clubs and not stayed fit but this year I have missed one game. When you play every game the fitness and the confidence follow.”
And then there’s the positional reason:
“I have played in numerous positions but I am closer to goal now, so when I get the chances I am more ruthless than I have been previously. We have got four games left and, hopefully, I can get four more goals.”
So far, so logical. Until Eddie Howe pops up with a rather more left field explanation for all this scoring – Bournemouth have changed the colour of their goal nets.
“The credit goes to Jason (Tindall, assistant manager) who felt the other nets were not inspiring the strikers to score. Bizarrely, it has worked so credit to Jason for that observation. It just goes to show how small things can sometimes make a difference. From a striker’s perspective, when you get your head down or have a quick look at the goal before you shoot, it is much more striking to see a white net as opposed to the almost see-through nets we had previously. I know it is the same for both teams but it seems to be working for us at the moment.”
King’s run is certainly working for us, too. He’s failed to find the net only three times since Gameweek 22 and still managed eight points in one of those matches courtesy of an assist, a clean sheet and two bonus points.
Yes, Bournemouth only have four fixtures to fulfil, but they’re home and hosed in terms of Premier League survival, thus freeing them up to continue performing with the child-like freedom that’s served King so well in recent times.
Ignoring him for the run-in could be riskier than that old school playground.
