FPL Daily: Ronaldo latest, Lamptey fit, AFCON news, Burnley v Watford off

We round up the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points of the day in FPL Daily, a weekday series that serves non-Premier League matchdays and days when we don’t bring you a team news/press conference round-up.

GOOD NEWS ON RONALDO?

Ralf Rangnick will hopefully let us know more about Cristiano Ronaldo‘s (£12.5m) availability for the midweek clash with Brentford in tomorrow’s pre-match press conference but the player himself hinted at positive news in a social media post.

The forward missed out on Manchester United’s draw with Aston Villa on Saturday evening with a hip injury but he was pictured back in training on Monday, along with the similarly flagged Paul Pogba (£7.4m) and Marcus Rashford (£9.4m).

The Tweet suggests Ronaldo and co were in competitive first-team training action, too, rather than individual rehab, with the pictured players presumably victorious in an in-house seven-a-side contest at Carrington.

BURNLEY v WATFORD POSTPONED

The Premier League confirmed on Monday night that they have approved Burnley’s request to have their Gameweek 22 match against Watford postponed.

Sean Dyche told reporters earlier in the day that the Clarets were in worse shape than they were before Saturday’s postponed fixture against Leicester City.

“We’re actually slightly worse off than we were in the game that’s just been called off because Charlie Taylor has took a knock. So far at training today there were 10 recognised first-team players.” – Sean Dyche in Monday’s pre-match press conference

Dyche provided a glimmer of hope that the Gameweek 23 match between his side and Arsenal would go ahead, although we’ve of course yet to hear from Mikel Arteta on how the Gunners’ own decimated squad is faring.

“Later this week I’d hope to have a better view on what situation we’ve got, with some players coming back from injury, some players coming back from Covid, hopefully clearing the situation in our favour.” – Sean Dyche

BRIGHTON v CHELSEA TEAM NEWS

Brighton and Hove Albion v Chelsea does look set to go ahead on Tuesday, at least.

Graham Potter and Thomas Tuchel both faced the media on Monday, with the former confirming that Tariq Lamptey (£4.5m) will be fit to feature after a muscle problem reduced his involvement to a second-half substitute’s role against Crystal Palace.

Tuchel meanwhile said little had changed regarding the Chelsea team news picture.

“[Lamptey] had a problem last week, it was more precautionary. That’s why he didn’t start against Crystal Palace but he came on as a sub and is available for selection.

“Dunky’s made good progress but tomorrow will be too soon. Shane [Duffy] looks like he will miss the game too with his ankle. Adam [Lallana] has a hamstring issue which might rule him out. Enock [Mwepu] is also out with his hamstring.” – Graham Potter

“We train later. I think we have no re-injuries and no new injuries. This is actually the good news but I think no-one is coming back for tomorrow’s game.” – Thomas Tuchel

Claudio Ranieri had earlier given Watford a clean bill of health, existing injuries aside, ahead of their ill-fated meeting with Burnley.

NEW COVID CASES FALL

The Premier League has recorded the lowest weekly number of new positive Covid-19 cases since early December.

In the seven days up to and including Sunday 16 January, there were 33 new positive cases among players and staff, from 13,625 tests. There were only three new positive cases between last Friday and Sunday.

It is the third successive week that the number of positive tests has fallen:

22-28 Nov: 3,379 tests; seven positive
29 Nov-5 Dec: 3,154 tests; 12 positive
6-12 Dec: 3,805 tests; 42 positive
13-19 Dec: 12,345 tests; 90 positive
20-26 Dec: 15,186 tests; 103 positive
27 Dec-2 Jan: 14,250 tests; 94 positive
3 Jan-9 Jan: 12,973 tests; 72 positive
10 Jan-16 Jan: 13,625 tests, 33 positive

FPL ASSETS AT AFCON – WILL ANYONE RETURN EARLY?

The final round of group games at the Africa Cup of Nations will take place from Monday to Thursday this week, the results of which will determine the shake-up for the knockout rounds.

Any Premier League players who are representing countries who are eliminated at the first hurdle could theoretically return early in time for Gameweek 23, so it’s worth taking a quick look at the current situation before we bring you a more definitive round-up later in the week.

The top two nations from each group qualify, while four of the six third-placed teams also make it through.

Burkina Faso, Morocco and Nigeria have already qualified, while Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Mali are all sitting pretty on four points and are almost home and hosed.

Algeria look the most at risk above – a draw will almost certainly see them eliminated while a loss to the Ivory Coast will definitely put a premature end to their competition. Even if that were to happen, however, the fact that Riyad Mahrez (£8.6m) and Said Benrahma (£5.9m) play for their countries on Thursday suggests that they still almost certainly wouldn’t feature in Gameweek 23.

Ghana and Mohamed Salah‘s (£12.7m) Egypt need wins to progress into the knockout rounds (this isn’t definite for Ghana but very likely to be the case) but are odds-on favourites to win their respective final group games. The Pharaohs could quite easily get through with a draw, while even an embarrassing defeat wouldn’t 100% eliminate them as they could still progress as one of the best third-placed teams. Only if Sudan and Guinea-Bissau win their final matches in Egypt’s group will Salah definitely be on the plane home for Gameweek 23 – and you’d get over 100/1 for that to happen at the bookies.

One player who is making an early return to the UK is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£9.6m), who will have “heart lesions” assessed after a recent positive Covid-19 test.