Our latest set of Scout Notes from Gameweek 9 focuses on the only Premier League fixture to have been contested on Sunday.
Everton’s match against Crystal Palace appeared to have been heading for a goalless draw before late strikes from substitutes Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Cenk Tosun, leaving those with the most-owned outfielders on show at Goodison Park with little to take away from the encounter.
Fantasy managers who were hoping for a sizeable haul from the likes of Richarlison, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Theo Walcott, Wilfried Zaha and Aaron Wan-Bissaka to salvage a fairly underwhelming Gameweek were left disappointed as Jordan Pickford emerged from the Toffees’ 2-0 win with the joint-highest score of this weekend thanks to his penalty save from Luka Milivojevic.
Not one of the four players involved in Everton’s four goals were owned by more than 2.3% of Fantasy managers, meanwhile.
We round up the goals, assists, Fantasy talking points and manager quotes from the penultimate match of Gameweek 9.
Everton 2-0 Crystal Palace
- Goals: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.3m), Cenk Tosun (£6.7m)
- Assists: Ademola Lookman (£5.1m), Michael Keane (£4.9m)
When Richarlison (£6.9m) scored after seven minutes of his first run-out as an Everton striker in the Toffees’ 2-1 win over Leicester City in Gameweek 8, there was much hope for the 25.7% of us who own the Brazilian.
In the 173 minutes of action that Richarlison has played since then, he has had only one attempt on goal – that being a header over from a Lucas Digne (£4.8m) corner-kick in the first half of the 2-0 win over Crystal Palace.
Anyone watching Sunday’s victory over the Eagles would have surely reached a similar conclusion: that the outwardly positive move “out of position” to attack appears to the detriment of Richarlison’s goal threat.
Eden Hazard (£11.4m) has run into similarly underwhelming form when moved to a “false nine” position in the past and it seems, admittedly on the evidence of just two matches there, that Richarlison also presents much more of an attacking menace when running at opposition defences rather than playing with his back to them.
Richarlison’s inclusion as the spearhead of the Everton attack was again to accommodate Bernard (£5.9m) on the left flank, though the latter of the two turned in a particularly ineffectual display and Everton’s two goals came after his withdrawal and Richarlison was shunted back out to the wing.
Bernard had turned in an excellent performance at Leicester, of course, so it remains to be seen whether Marco Silva perseveres with the pint-sized Brazilian on the left wing and his countryman up top for the trip to Manchester United next weekend. It may be, indeed, that Richarlison is more suited to the striker’s role when playing away from home against a “bigger” side, given the damage he could potentially wreak on the counter-attack.
As it was at Goodison, though, there was little to cheer for the two Brazilians or Theo Walcott (£6.5m). The trio had only two shots on goal between them, with Walcott wasting the best chance of all when played through on goal by Gylfi Sigurdsson (£7.4m).
Bernard should have squared for the unmarked Walcott just after the hour mark in what was to be his final major act, with Everton’s subsequent substitutions turning the game.
Ademola Lookman (£5.1m) crossed for fellow substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.3m) to open the scoring on 86 minutes, before Bernard’s replacement, Cenk Tosun (£6.7m), latched onto Michael Keane‘s (£4.9m) hoofed clearance-turned-pass to put the match beyond Palace two minutes later.
Silva hailed his squad depth at full-time:
I’m really happy for them. Cenk has come on in the last two home games and scored two important goals, for us and for him as well.
I was pleased for Dominic and Lookman because they created the first goal and are working really hard as well to get into the starting XI.
It’s important for us, now we have solutions on the bench to solve some problems during the match.
Sigurdsson was the pick of Everton’s starting front four, supplying that excellent chance for Walcott and having five attempts on his own – the most any player at Goodison recorded.
As usual, most of his efforts were from outside the box, with the pick of those attempts from distance being a shot that whistled just wide of Wayne Hennessey‘s (£4.6m) left-hand post.
The Icelandic midfielder’s only effort from inside the Palace area drew a smart stop from Hennessey in the first half, meanwhile.
Aside from Silva’s substitutions, the game’s turning point came on 60 minutes. After the fit-again Seamus Coleman (£5.2m) had felled Wilfried Zaha (£6.9m) in the Everton box, Luka Milivojevic (£6.1m) was given the opportunity to register his first attacking return of the season from 12 yards.
So dependable from the spot in 2017/18, Milivojevic could only find the trailing leg of Jordan Pickford (£5.9m) this time and with that glorious chance went Palace’s last real opportunity of the match.
His manager, Roy Hodgson, backed the Serbian midfielder to bounce back and take Palace’s next penalty, with no suggestion that someone like Zaha would oust Milivojevic from spot-kick duties:
The fact is you have to take your chances and we came across a goalkeeper in form who made two outstanding saves in the first half which meant we came in at half-time 0-0, and we had the penalty which would have made a difference. It definitely lifted the crowd and they really got behind the team and gave them fresh impetus going forward.
Luka has only missed two penalties out of around nine or 10 so I’m sure he’ll score the next one, and I’m sure we’ll get penalties and opportunities because we do send people forward into the opposing team’s box.
Hodgson’s side arguably had the better of the match in the first half and most certainly had the biggest chances: James Tomkins (£4.4m) demonstrating his aerial threat by firstly heading Andros Townsend‘s (£5.8m) cross narrowly wide and then nodding on for Cheikhou Kouyate (£4.8m) to strike the Everton woodwork.
Zaha – passed fit after the recurrence of an adductor injury – and Townsend were paired up front in a 4-4-2, with Jeffrey Schlupp (£4.5m) and James McArthur (£4.8m) taking up the “wide” roles either side of Milivojevic and Kouyate.
Zaha and Townsend didn’t have a great deal of joy up front (registering only one shot each), but Zaha’s trickery did cause problems for Coleman in particular – culminating in that aforementioned penalty award.
Hodgson paid tribute to his strike duo after the match:
I think it went well and both played well. They caused problems and did their work defensively as well which helped the team, so I think they’ve got to be very satisfied with their day’s work.
We do have other alternatives. Sorloth was sick, as was Max Meyer, so there’s a couple of players there who I’m sure will be available for the next game, and Connor Wickham after two years at least got onto the field of play; albeit with three or four minutes left and he was unlikely to be able to perform any miracles.
Palace’s stand-out players were perhaps at the back, with Tomkins and Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£4.3m) particularly impressive and in the mix for bonus points prior to those two late strikes. That Bernard and then Richarlison were so impotent down the Everton left was a testament to Wan-Bissaka’s defensive work.
With Palace facing “big six” sides in the next four Gameweeks, Wan-Bissaka will likely be sitting on countless benches between now and the beginning of December but many will rightly be keeping hold of this budget gem for when the Eagles’ fixtures turn for the better in Gameweek 14.
Connor Wickham (£4.9m) returned for the visitors as a late substitute after almost two years out, while Yerry Mina (£5.4m) was on the bench for Everton on his own return from injury.
Max Meyer (£5.7m) and Alexander Sorloth (£4.9m), meanwhile, missed out with illness for Palace.
Andre Gomes (£5.4m) made his Everton debut in the double pivot and Silva was positive about the on-loan Portuguese midfielder, who is unlikely to be coveted by many FPL managers going forward:
He did well, like we expected. He is working really hard and well. He is a player who can give us different things in that zone.
I am happy with Tom Davies and his performances as well. I knew and I expected a tough game this afternoon and we needed Andre to control the ball and give different solutions for us in some moments. He is a little bit of a different profile from Tom.
Everton XI (4-2-3-1): Pickford; Coleman, Keane, Zouma, Digne; Gueye, Gomes (Calvert-Lewin 82’); Walcott (Lookman 82’), Sigurdsson, Bernard (Tosun 67’); Richarlison.
Crystal Palace XI (4-4-2): Hennessey; Wan-Bissaka, Tomkins, Sakho, Van Aanholt; McArthur (Wickham 89’), Milivojevic, Kouyate, Schlupp; Townsend, Zaha.
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