City win puts Chelsea’s FPL form and fixtures under the microscope

Our Gameweek 16 coverage ends with this look back at a player, team and discussion point that attracted our interest in the weekend’s matches.

Newcastle United’s Salomon Rondon is perhaps the best budget forward option currently available for under £6.0m, while Chelsea sit near the top of our Season Ticker for the next six Gameweeks and enter this favourable run of fixtures off the back of a 2-0 win over Manchester City on Saturday.

We also debate team value and early transfers in our regular opinion-meets-analysis piece, The Digest.

The Player – Salomon Rondon

Newcastle United were deprived of a draw by a last-gasp Matt Doherty (£5.0m) winner on Sunday but there was plenty of encouragement in defeat for the Magpies, who looked as likely as Wolves to grab all three points despite playing for much of the second half with ten men.

As eye-catching as Doherty and Diogo Jota (£5.9m) were in that encounter, the best player on the park before DeAndre Yedlin‘s (£4.5m) 56th-minute dismissal was arguably Salomon Rondon (£5.8m)

After an injury-hit start to his Newcastle career, the on-loan West Bromwich Albion forward has made the lone striker’s role his own in Rafael Benitez’s side over the past six Gameweeks, starting in each of the Magpies’ last half-dozen matches.

During that period, no FPL forward has registered as many attempts on goal, shots in the box or headed efforts as Rondon, while Wilfried Zaha (£6.7m) is the only player in the Venezuelan’s position to have recorded more penalty box touches.

Rondon has three goals to his name during this spell, while his one assist over the last six Gameweeks came on Sunday: the towering striker’s superb cross nodded in by Ayoze Perez (£6.1m).

Rondon was a handful for the Wolves defence in the opening period, forcing Rui Patricio (£4.6m) into a save in the first minute and then coming within inches of a fourth goal of 2018/19 when his free-kick attempt bounced down off the crossbar and back out.

With Marko Arnautovic and Callum Wilson (both £7.0m) injured, plus Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.7m) a yellow card away from a one-match ban, Fantasy managers may be looking for a short-term punt on a budget/mid-price striker to tide over them over the festive period.

Newcastle’s next two games – Huddersfield Town (a) and Fulham (h) – are certainly among the most eye-catching in the division, and while the Magpies’ fixtures stiffen thereafter, Watford (a) and Manchester United (h) rank in the bottom ten for big chances conceded this season and have only registered a combined five clean sheets in 32 matches.

While Newcastle rank in the bottom five for shots in the box and attempts on target, it is no coincidence that their underlying attacking statistics have improved across the board since Rondon established himself in the team from Gameweek 11 onwards (United’s rate of big chances has doubled, while they are averaging almost four more shots per match compared to an admittedly tricky Gameweek 1-10).

We urged caution after his two-goal haul against Bournemouth and the fact remains that Rondon hasn’t hit double figures once in his three seasons as a Premier League player.

With Raul Jimenez (£6.1m) regularly chipping in with attacking returns this season, there will also be few managers willing to part with the Mexican striker for Newcastle’s chief goal threat as their go-to budget forward.

For those FPL bosses looking at a short-term punt on a player who will be assured of minutes over Christmas or those who are going with a “power five” in midfield, however, Rondon has the potential to tick over nicely in the coming weeks and certainly has been impressing on the eye and in the underlying stats tables over the past month.

The Team – Chelsea

Chelsea are the only Premier League side not to face another member of the “big six” over the next six Gameweeks.

The Blues warmed up nicely for this favourable run with a 2-0 victory over Manchester City on Saturday evening, which was all the more surprising after their lacklustre displays against Everton, Spurs, Fulham and Wolves in the preceding four Gameweeks.

Did we learn anything new from that unexpected success over the reigning champions, though?

Not particularly. This was a Chelsea performance unlike any other this season and one that is unlikely to be repeated over the coming six matches, a period in which Fantasy investment looks appealing.

The keep-ball mentality was abandoned for the day as the Blues recorded their lowest rate of possession of 2018/19 by some distance, seeing only 39% of the ball. That, indeed, was only the third instance this season in which Chelsea have registered less than 60% possession in a Premier League match.

For a side that is essentially built around the metronomic Jorginho (£4.9m) in midfield and reliant on accurate, intricate short passing in order to function, Chelsea were unrecognisable on Saturday – no Premier League club recorded fewer passes in the opposition half than the Blues.

We say “unrecognisable”, but this was a performance that conjured up memories of the Antonio Conte reign, with Sarri’s troops soaking up pressure and content to hit City on the break.

The Chelsea boss said after the match that the Conte-esque approach wasn’t completely by design:

We know the ball possession is usual for us; today it was a problem. We knew there would maybe be more space for counter attacks, but it wasn’t a total choice to defend in our half.

We also saw Eden Hazard (£10.9m) deployed as a “false nine” in Gameweek 16, and although the Belgian registered two assists, he failed to record a single shot on goal and only touched the ball once in the opposition box.

The Brighton match on Sunday, and the league fixtures thereafter, will pose a different challenge. Five of Chelsea’s next half-dozen opponents all have an average of possession rate of below 50%, with only Leicester (50.7%) marginally above this threshold.

Breaking teams down, rather than keeping a potent attack at bay, will be their primary objective, something they failed to do against Everton in Gameweek 12 and then didn’t particularly excel at against Wolves last week. Even the win over a porous Fulham side in Gameweek 14 proved something of a graft.

Over the last five Gameweeks, Chelsea rank only 10th for big chances created and 12th for shots in the box attempted.

What may be a significant by-product of Saturday’s win, though, is the unquantifiable psychological boost that beating a team that were previously undefeated in 2018/19 can bring.

The victory could have a galvanising effect on a squad short on inspiration in the preceding matches, though that it was done without the misfiring Alvaro Morata (£8.6m) and Olivier Giroud (£7.7m) in the starting XI is unlikely to fill either striker with much confidence.

We have only discussed Chelsea’s attack so far but Saturday was a reminder that, when their first-choice back four are deployed, the Blues have a defence as solid as any in the top flight.

The 2-1 defeat to Wolves was an indication that Andreas Christensen (£5.0m) is far below the required standard on current form and it was no coincidence that the clean sheet against City was achieved with their regular defensive quartet playing in front of Kepa Arrizabalaga (£5.5m).

Marcos Alonso (£7.0m) remains suspect defensively but even the out-of-sorts left-back showed signs of improvement in keeping City at arm’s length in the second half of Saturday’s encounter.

David Luiz (£5.6m) and Antonio Rudiger (£6.0m) were impressive again at centre-half, while Cesar Azplicueta (£6.3m) was also his own self at right-back and produced perhaps his best performance of the season in nullifying Leroy Sane‘s (£9.5m) threat.

Chelsea didn’t allow City one “big chance” (according to Opta), with Raheem Sterling‘s (£11.6m) early scuffed effort as close as Guardiola’s side came to getting on the scoresheet.

Only Liverpool have recorded more clean sheets this season, with the Reds and City the only two clubs to have conceded fewer goals, shots on target and attempts in the box.

All of Chelsea’s next six opponents rank tenth or below for goals scored this season, meanwhile.

One final thing to note that was brought to our attention by site regular Apple Bonkers: from Gameweek 4 onwards (and thanks to Saturday’s goal and bonus), David Luiz has outscored Alonso by 65 points to 64 in FPL.

The Talking Point – Team Value

FPL team value was a talking point on our Scoutcast on Tuesday evening, with opinions differing on whether moving early for in-demand assets was a necessity in order to build up squad value for later in the season.

The front-runner in our Fantasy Football Scout Members’ league, Tore Bjørheim, has amassed a tidy team value of £105.3m (£104.3m + £1.0m in the bank), via a combination of shrewd pre-season purchases and early transfers, with some late-in-the-day transactions thrown in too.

Our very own Mark Sutherns, of course, is renowned for his drastic, early moves in the FPL market (he has already made two transfers this week) – and there is little arguing with his current form or fantastic track record.

By contrast, the leader of our FantasyFootballScout.co.uk league, Matthieu Raoux, has a more modest squad value of £103.9m, having routinely waited until 24 hours before the deadline to make his transfers.

Given the quick turnaround in fixtures in December, rotation in full swing and the added complications of Champions League, Europa League and Carabao Cup ties to add to the mix, it could be argued that now would seem a good time to start placing less emphasis on accruing team wealth – at least for the moment.

Seeing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang rise from £10.9m to £11.5m in the space of a week is, of course, patience-testing stuff for a Fantasy manager.

The fear of missing out is what drives some of our early transactions and there are of course instances when a quick-off-the-mark transfer is understandable or indeed advisable, particularly when we know an asset is injured/suspended for the coming Gameweek(s) and is set to plummet in value as a result or indeed if we are about to be “priced out” of a move for a player we covet.

Taking this week as an example, however, there would have seemed little sense in making knee-jerk transfers for Liverpool and Spurs assets before we had seen their line-ups for Tuesday’s Champions League matches and heard about the injuries that ensued – Trent Alexander-Arnold (£5.4m) being one casualty of that victory for the Reds.

It’s not just the fear of knocks and sprains that would make a delay advisable. Rotation is now well underway after the carnage of Gameweeks 14 to 16 and any additional information we can gather in order to limit the damage that Premier League bosses can do to our FPL squads with their maddening tinkering is priceless.

We can now, for instance, take a good stab at guessing that Lucas Moura (£7.0m) will feature for Spurs against Burnley on Saturday, having been rested to the bench for their match in Barcelona last night.

There is no guarantee, of course, that waiting for the Thursday/Friday press conferences will shed any new light on developing injuries.

Roy Hodgson and Eddie Howe have withheld information about Wilfried Zaha (£6.7m) and Callum Wilson‘s (£7.0m) fitness in their pressers this season, while Pep Guardiola has assumed the mantle of least-helpful Premier League head coach with regards to his inability to clarify the Manchester City team news.

Unpredictable rotation will happen over Christmas, of that there is no doubt. We can at least give ourselves the best chance of fielding 11 players on a given Gameweek over the festive period by just holding fire for a day or two to glean as much guidance as possible – even if it costs us a £0.1m here and a £0.2m there in the long-run.

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