Buying Jack Grealish (£5.9m) was supposed to make bench decisions easier, but the Englishman’s performances have been way above my expectations.
Over Gameweeks 13 and 14, only Mesut Özil (£7.2m) (eight) and Kevin de Bruyne (£10.3m) have created more chances than his seven amongst midfielders.
After benching him against Manchester United and seeing how poor Chelsea were defensively against West Ham, I played the Aston Villa man in Gameweek 15 instead of benching him as per the original plan.
My last three transfers were Tammy Abraham (£7.9m) and Raheem Sterling (£11.9m) out for Raúl Jiménez (£7.6m) and Christian Pulisic (£7.5m) in Gameweek 13 and Mason Mount (£6.6m) to Dele Alli (£8.5m).
The decision between Son and Dele Alli (£8.6m) was a difficult one.
As Tom Freeman pointed out in his ProPundits piece, Alli’s shot locations were far more central and Son appears to have taken on a more creative wide role.
Spurs next four included games against Manchester United and Chelsea where I expected Son to have to do a lot more defensive work than Alli. After all, the Korean was top for attempted tackles (10) and successful tackles (five) in Gameweek 14.
In the entire period prior to that (Gameweek 1-12), Son attempted just 23 tackles, succeeding with just nine, over 10 appearances. That’s an average of less than one successful tackle per match.
I’m sure Son will keep ticking along and I still have an eye on bringing him in for de Bruyne at some point, but for now I went with the form man in Alli.
It was tempting to give Mount another week but his performance against West Ham had me concerned about his starting role against Villa and with £4.9m burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to ship him out.
That leaves me with £3.0m in the bank to bring in Abraham for Aaron Connolly (£4.7m), which I will likely be funding by a downgrading Fikayo Tomori (£4.9m) for Martin Kelly (£4.1m).
Andreas Christensen (£4.9m) starting against Valencia in the Champions League was worrying and with Antonio Rudiger (£6.0m) nearing fitness, Tomori’s place in the starting lineup is under threat, as we saw against Villa last night.
Crystal Palace once again showed their defensive potential with a clean sheet against Bournemouth on Tuesday night and Kelly’s spot should be reasonably secure given all their defensive injuries. The fixtures could hardly be better.
I’ve already got my eye on the upcoming blank Gameweek 18 for Liverpool and what I noticed was the lack of a clear cut captaincy option then. Manchester City play the league’s meanest defence in Leicester that week and Spurs host Chelsea.
The standout fixture for me is the Norwich vs Wolves game, with Jiménez a great captaincy pick. I’m undecided whether to bring in Abraham now or wait until after Chelsea play Everton in Gameweek 16.
Normally it would be at the expense of Jiménez but his Gameweek 18 fixture means I am inclined to keep the Mexican.
Captaincy is likely to remain on Jamie Vardy (£9.9m). Sadio Mané (£12.2m) playing 90 minutes on Wednesday has me worried he might be benched against Bournemouth keeping in mind their Champions League game on Tuesday.
4 years, 4 months agoSave?, Ditch Tomori?
1FT 0.9ITB
Heaton
TAA, Lundstram, Soyuncu
Mane, KDB, Son, Mount
Vardy, Abraham Ings
Tomori, Cantwell, Rico