Injuries, chances squandered, widely sold players hauling: Double Gameweek 25 might be heading for Fantasy Premier League (FPL) notoriety.
And it’s with three of the four ‘doublers’ that we start Saturday’s Scout Notes.
The key takeaways from Brentford v Liverpool and Manchester City v Chelsea are covered in the article below.
JOTA, DARWIN + ALISSON INJURY LATEST
All was looking rosy for owners of Diogo Jota (£8.3m) and Darwin Nunez (£7.6m) after the pair combined for the game’s 35th-minute opener at the Gtech Community Stadium.
Fast forward to the start of the second half and neither player was on the field.
Jota was stretchered off with a serious-looking knee injury shortly before the interval, while Darwin was hooked at the break, seemingly as more of a precaution.
The attacking duo had followed a limping Curtis Jones (£4.9m) in being withdrawn for fitness reasons.
“We have to see how much it costs us, we don’t know that yet.
“Curtis got a knock on the lower part of his shin, or above the ankle. We will see what that means. It was what he felt but he was not 100 per cent sure. That Curtis cannot play on tells you that it must be something because he would have played on at all costs.
“Diogo looks probably the worst. I didn’t see it back but I heard the pictures didn’t look great, as well, so we have to see there.
“Darwin, we took off because he said he felt ‘un poco’ – a little – but that was obviously today enough to immediately push the brake and that’s what we did, so we took him off and brought Cody [Gakpo] on and that worked out really well.” – Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool had myriad issues even before the game, with Alisson (£5.8m) the latest to join the injury list.
FPL’s joint-cheapest player, Caoimhin Kelleher (£3.7m), was between the sticks in west London as a result. He may be there for a little while yet.
“That Trent [Alexander-Arnold] is injured, Thiago [Alcantara] is injured, Dom [Szoboszlai] is injured, that was all clear. And yesterday in the last training session, minus one, Ali pulled out. That’s really not cool.
“No, I don’t know the severity of the injury. It’s a muscle and we don’t know yet. We have to wait. How it always is, maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will know more.” – Jurgen Klopp on Alisson
We’ll get two pre-match press conferences from Jurgen Klopp (one before the Luton Town game on Wednesday, one before the EFL Cup final), so we should know more about the walking wounded in advance of the Gameweek 26 deadline.
SALAH RETURNS
The Reds, of course, blank in Gameweek 26.
That hasn’t stopped Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) from being the most-bought player of the round so far:
Salah’s ‘rustiness’ – one sitter missed just after half-time – lasted all of about ten minutes.
A superb pass for Alexis Mac Allister‘s (£5.8m) 55th-minute goal took him to nine assists for the season. His 15th goal of the campaign arrived shortly after when he held off a Bees defender to finish well. Had you not known he’d been out for a month, you wouldn’t have guessed on this evidence – bar one or two incidents when he seemed to hold back on full sprints.
Now may not be the time to pounce (one confirmed blank, another likely blank and Manchester City in the next four Gameweeks) but come the run-in, many of us will no doubt again be looking at two-premium or ‘threemium’ set-ups to accommodate him.
Elsewhere, there were solid performances from the budget Kelleher and Conor Bradley (£4.1m). The latter threatened to add to the attacking returns he delivered in his previous two appearances, marauding forward for two shots.
Mac Allister’s recent positional change is also worth noting. Now an ‘eight’ rather than a ‘six’, he’s had twice as many penalty box touches in the last two Gameweeks as he’d managed all season.
His goal against Brentford was his first shot in the area of 2023/24.
SURGE REGUILON
TW8’s answer to Marcos Alonso, Sergio Reguilon (£4.4m), sometimes leaves much to be desired from a defending perspective. He’s not alone in the Brentford backline, with their centre-backs having a torrid time in the second half on Saturday.
It’s now just one clean sheet in 14 matches for the Bees.
But Reguilon, who is on a share of set plays, has been showing plenty of attacking intent in his first few appearances for Thomas Frank’s outfit.
A wing-back system certainly suits him and allows him to get forward at will, as the below average position map v Liverpool shows:
He popped up in the middle of the box for Brentford’s consolation, his saved shot falling to goalscorer Ivan Toney (£8.2m).
This was actually a bit of an off-day for Toney. And yet, he still registered four times as many attempts as anyone on show (eight) and notched his fourth goal in five games.
Come a decimated Gameweek 29, whether you’re Free Hitting or otherwise, both Toney and Reguilon are surely going to be close to your squads.
HAALAND HORROR
Last week, Erling Haaland (£14.4m) scored with two of his three shots in the box.
In Gameweek 25, with a record-breaking number of managers backing him with the Triple Captain chip, he missed all nine of his efforts. Most of them weren’t half-chances, either.
The fact that the three biggest openings he missed ruined assists for Julian Alvarez (£6.7m), Phil Foden (£8.m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£10.8m), three other widely owned City assets, added another layer of absurdity to the farce. De Bruyne created seven chances in all, the most of any player in Gameweek 25 so far.
It’s the type of script that FPL frequently serves up to ruin our best-laid plans. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh at the ludicrousness of scenarios like the below panning out in a key Double Gameweek:
Haaland at least gets the chance to make amends against a Brentford side conceding goals for fun on Tuesday, assuming he isn’t Norway-bound for his grandmother’s funeral.
He’ll no doubt start if he’s available; the same can’t be said for a number of other City assets, given the quick turnaround.
“It’s good to have nine shots and next time he’s going to score. I was a football player for 11 years and scored 11 goals. What stats – one goal a season. I’m not a proper man to give advice to strikers. We create the chances, he had the chances and next time he’s going to score. I don’t blame him. It’s football, it’s human beings. As a team and a group, the first half was not like we are.” – Pep Guardiola on Erling Haaland
ALVAREZ DEEPER
Alvarez kept up his own ever-present starter status in the Premier League this season but was disconcertingly deep at times.
While he still got forward enough to rack up five shots, the evidence so far is that De Bruyne is going to be the one more consistently closest to Haaland even when all three are in the same XI.
Alvarez will be benched in the league soon, of that there is little doubt. It might not come on Tuesday, though, if Pep Guardiola replicates his Gameweek 23 tactics of trying to get as much attacking support around Haaland to break that Brentford block.
Rodri (£5.6m) was the unlikely saviour on Saturday, smashing home a deflected rebound after Kyle Walker‘s (£5.5m) shot had been blocked. This is already Rodri’s best-ever year for attacking returns (ten), with a third of the season still to go.
DISASI CLASS
Chelsea are one of the last clubs Fantasy managers are concerned about right now, with a blank in Gameweek 26 and another probable in Gameweek 29.
But they’ll no doubt have a say in our seasons after the March international break, with two or more Double Gameweeks likely to happen.
There have been green shoots of recovery of late, with an excellent cup victory over Aston Villa preceding this draw at the Etihad.
Cole Palmer (£5.8m) wasn’t the main story, for once, as City specialist Raheem Sterling (£6.9m) yet again saved his best for his former employers after weeks of nothingness.
Axel Disasi (£4.9m) was excellent at centre-half, too, but from a Fantasy perspective, the main attraction at the rear is the dirt cheap Malo Gusto (£4.2m).
Twice the attack-minded full-back got forward to supply huge chances for Sterling and Nicolas Jackson (£6.8m), both unconverted.
So long as Reece James (£5.3m) remains crocked, Gusto will be a Watchlist candidate come Gameweek 30.
Above: Since his return to the Chelsea XI in Gameweek 18, Gusto is second among defenders for expected assists (xA)
