Jose Mourinho’s enjoying things while they last, Pep Guardiola wants his changes embraced and Spurs are talking themselves up – this week’s Say What? has the big names on top form.
It’s also got a tetchy Newcastle keeper, an Italian manager completely betraying his roots and a Brazilian communicating in ways both mysterious and familiar.
So let’s get straight to it.
No time like the present for Mourinho
You can pack a lot into just 20 minutes.
It represents a 33% increase in average levels of fame, for instance, and is 19 minutes and five seconds more than I needed to realise that Mrs Brown’s Boys is…not to my taste.
And if you’re Manchester United, 20 minutes is proving plenty long enough to put away teams – if it’s the last 20 minutes, that is.
Jose Mourinho certainly thinks so, throwing doors and horses at his side’s ability to be both late and great.
“It happened to me so much with my teams – you’re winning 1-0 and you can concede. There was no need to close the door. Just let the horses run freely. We knew in the last 20 minutes the clean sheet would give us three points. We thought let’s go for more and try to explore the fragile moment of the opponent and I think this is confidence.”
A trio of his mounts have flourished as a result, with Paul Pogba (two goals and an assist), Anthony Martial (another two goals and an assist) and Henrikh Mkhitaryan (three assists) scoring the vast majority of their Fantasy Premier League points when Mourinho teams of old would have been scurrying to the corner flag, feigning injury or refusing to give the ball back at throw-ins.
So is this is a new golden age for Mourinho’s United during which they will attack from first whistle to last?
Well, if 270 minutes can be deemed an age, then yes.
“We have to improve. We have to use these weeks – and we have one more – when we have one match per week. When you have one per week your team has to be much better than when you have two or three and you have no time to train properly.”
So enjoy the late-ripening fruits of United’s labour when Leicester City arrive at Old Trafford on Saturday, because the Champions League group stage might just suck all the life out of Mourinho’s men once the international break is done.
That, of course, doesn’t take into account two key facts – United have arguably the best squad in the Premier League and their domestic schedule remains very tidy until a Gameweek 8 trip to Anfield.
So it might well be rotation, not fatigue, that halts our early-season late shows from United assets.
Time will tell.
Guardiola’s choice cuts
Across the city, Pep Guardiola is kind of saying the same thing.
“When the game is in the last 15 or 20 minutes, the opponent is tired and we’ve moved them during the game, we can put into the game dynamic players like Bernardo Silva, Raz (Sterling) or Sane. In another game maybe it’s Sergio (Aguero) or Gabriel (Jesus). So it’s a point where we can win games in the last minutes.”
The only major difference is that City have only won one of their two matches in the last minutes – against a punch-drunk Brighton who just couldn’t take any more of the industrial barrel of whup-ass that Guardiola’s boys had been administering.
And the key point that leaps out of Pep’s quote is the line involving his two strikers.
Thus far, they’ve played together and neither has impressed. Aguero at least has scored a goal to appease his 12.5% ownership, but it is Jesus (9.1%) who has actually looked the more dangerous of the two.
The Brazilian currently out-strips the Argentinian for attempts (six to four), shots on target (two to one) and minutes per chance (20.5 to 43.3). Curiously, it’s the reverse when it comes to creativity, with Aguero providing six chances and two big chances, while Jesus has managed none of either.
At the start of the season we were asked to choose between the two strikers, with Guardiola very kindly playing them both to spare us the ultimate pain of paying either 10.5 or 11.5 for a horribly expensive bench ornament.
His latest comments suggest that the money we’ve not particularly well spent so far – they’ve managed 13 points between them – is going to be completely wasted on one (or both) of them very soon.
“Hopefully they will understand that at the big clubs you cannot have 11 players, so they have to compete with each other.
Guardiola is actually talking about his entire squad there – which leaves the 24.6% of us who own Kevin De Bruyne edging ever closer to the ‘submit transfer’ button – but his words look particularly applicable to his misfiring front two.
‘Guardiola rotates squad’ is a headline right up there with ‘Bear defecates in wooded environment’ for obviousness.
It is the nature and severity of that rotation which will need to be monitored now that the Champions League is waddling cash-heavily into view.
Yes, it’s early days, but based on the underwhelming starts by Jesus, De Bruyne and Aguero, we might just end up rotating them ourselves – right out of our squads.
This one’s a (sort of) keeper
At least we can rely on Newcastle keeper Rob Elliot (4.0) to be the polar opposite of City’s trio because he’s dirt cheap and nailed-on to start.
Okay, so those starts have so far produced just four points, but it is his security of tenure at a bargain bucket price that has prompted 18.6% of us to invest in such a low-rent market.
Unfortunately, Rafa Benitez seems poised to “upgrade”.
“I was explaining to our three keepers the situations. Rob knows he must compete to be number one. Darlow: he knew we were open for offers and at the moment, he knows he must stay and fight to do his best to compete.”
Elliot’s response to the idea of competition – and particularly the threat of it coming from a new man at the club – has been to use the word ‘positive’ in an entirely negative way.
“I think (it will be a positive when the window shuts). With the stories flying around saying we haven’t got enough, well we have got enough, I don’t think it’s very fair on the squad.”
Toys seem to be flying out of Elliot’s pram even more frequently than the ball has been flying into his net.
Does he know something we don’t? Is he about to go from nailed-on to hauled off?
We’ll find out over the next seven days.
Defence is the new attack
The world must be going to hell in a handcart when an Italian manager wants his defenders to play as strikers, but that’s exactly what Antonio Conte seems to be after.
“(Marcos) Alonso missed a lot of other chances (last season). For me, the wing-backs are the real wingers. Sometimes they must become strikers.”
If you’re one of the 16.2% who’ve paid the 7.0 premium for Alonso, you have every right to be wearing a big fat smug grin at Conte’s un-Italian words.
But the statistics seem to bear him out.
As well as his two-goal, 16-point haul against Spurs last week – only two strikers have managed more points thus far, and at greater cost, obviously – the Spaniard is racking up some impressive attacking numbers.
His seven attempts, four of which have been on target, would put him fourth in the strikers’ table, while his 11 penalty area touches is up there with the likes of Jesus and Marcus Rashford – and one better than his team-mate Alvaro Morata.
He’s also created three chances and had three attempts from set-pieces.
This guy gets to take home clean sheet points as well, remember, although Chelsea have at least had the good grace to come nowhere close to keeping one of those yet.
The champions’ schedule remains a tricky one, with a feisty Everton, a dangerous-again Leicester City and Man City and Arsenal all to come over the next five Gameweeks.
But perhaps the most striking thing about Marcos Alonso is that he is only the fifth most popular defender in FPL at the moment.
His price – and that schedule – have a lot to do with that.
But those figures…
Spurs in a good place
One striker who might want to ask Alonso for a bit of advice on the quiet is Harry Kane.
The Englishman’s Augusts are the stuff of, well, an August in England – damp, dreary and full of other people scoring like they’re still in Magaluf while he’s stuck in Skeg Vegas on a drizzly Sunday night.
Not that it’s getting to him.
“It is something that is spoken about a lot but I am not too bothered by it. I try to play well for the team and play well every game. Sometimes the ball does not go in as it did today off the post and the few chances I had. It is part of the game, I just need to keep working hard, keep my head down and I am sure the goals will come.”
Of course they will come. It’s Harry Kane, after all – a man with more goals than a deranged life coach.
But when will they come, and how many of us will be around to enjoy them is what we need to know.
More than 106,000 have had enough this week, ditching him and banking the 12.5 he costs, despite the fact that he’s had almost twice as many attempts as any other striker and his 12.9 minutes per chance average is equally peerless among forwards with 180 minutes under their belts.
At least his boss, Mauricio Pochettino, is not blaming the ‘Wembley effect’ for his striker’s woes – or anything else either. In fact, he’s loving his new gaff.
“It doesn’t affect me. But I understand that we need to talk, everyone needs to talk. It’s not fair to blame Wembley. For me, Wembley is one of the best places in the world, one of the best places to play football.”
Christian Eriksen is rather more Nordic about the place, but equally happy.
“Football-wise, there is no real difference. In fact, it only really helps us with possession when we have the ball on a bigger pitch. As players, we don’t read anything into it and I don’t think anyone should on the outside either. We will get it turned around.”
While Dele Alli has no time for Wembley because he’s too busy talking up the Dane.
“He’s an unbelievable player with fantastic technique, he’s a bit of a magician. You just know that as soon as he puts his head down to deliver the ball he’s going to put it where he wants it to go. He’s got a lot more to his game as well, he’s got a great strike on him, keeps the ball moving all the time and is a fantastic player.”
All seems hunky dory in the Spurs camp then. And when you look at their next six fixtures, you can see why.
A Gameweek 4 trip to Everton is about as taxing as it should get, which makes you wonder why both Kane and Alli find themselves in the top 12 for transfers-out this week.
Alli, in particular, is not exactly struggling for form and a goal and eight points from Gameweek 1 seems more than enough to justify the 9.5 he costs.
Kane, as we know, is costing a lot more for considerably less at the moment.
But a run involving Burnley, Swansea City and Bournemouth at home and trips to West Ham and Huddersfield look tailor-made for the pair of them to reward the loyalty of the many over the impatience of a surprisingly large minority.
And in Eriksen, they have a man primed to provide the ammunition – he has three assists to his name already this season.
Everyone, from the manager down, is talking the talk at Spurs.
It might be wise for us to listen.
Richarlison gold to Silva
Paul Merson might never have heard of him, what with him not being James Ward-Prowse, but Watford boss Marco Silva is not surprised that his new midfielder Richarlison has been right on the money since his arrival at Vicarage Road.
“I’m happy and it’s no surprise to see what he did today. He’s a boy I know well and analysed how he played over the past month and a half before we signed him. He’s a talent and it’s easy to see.”
His points are even easier to behold – 15 of them from a match and a half in which he’s scored, assisted and bagged one maximum bonus award – and all for just 6.0.
As a result, more than 104,000 managers have brought him in this week.
But Silva is urging caution.
“He’s not only a talent, he’s a player who comes and works hard every day. I am happy, but we need to be calm with him. He’s 20-years-old, and it’s his first moment in Europe.”
Watford’s schedule is another reason for us not to get too excited just yet – Brighton at home this weekend looks enticing, Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea before the end of Gameweek 9 rather less so.
But what does the man himself say?
“He doesn’t speak a word of English yet, so it’s the moment to be calm and give him time.”
Ah.
So how does he communicate? Random shouting? Sign language? Expensive Translatobot 2000, including the revolutionary new Sportz Bantz plug-in – turning emotionally-repressed dressing rooms into Bante’s Inferno from Bantwerp to Bantarctica?
Well, according to new team-mate Nathaniel Chalobah, Richarlison has no need for mere words.
“The language barrier is difficult, but he speaks fluent football and everyone in the team can understand him in that regard.”
Speaking ‘fluent football’ used to mean mangling the English language with such gems as ‘he’s went in and literally left him for dead there’, and the immortal ‘how did you get my number? I know people…I could have you shot,’ as proclaimed by…well, I can’t afford the legal bills for that one.
But if he continues his stellar start to life in England, his growing FPL fan base (2.5% and rising fast) will be happy, in the time-honoured tradition, to let him do all his talking on the pitch.
