Continuing the Gameweek 27 Scout Notes is a Fantasy Premier League (FPL) round-up of Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City and Brentford v Everton.
- READ MORE: FPL notes – Mateta again, Rogers goal + why Robinson was benched
- READ MORE: FPL notes – Palmer’s misses, ‘OOP’ Neto + Evanilson’s first minutes
- READ MORE: Round-up of Wednesday’s goals, assists, bonus points + stats
- READ MORE: Round-up of Tuesday’s goals, assists, bonus points + stats
The numbers and graphics you see in this article come from our Premium Members Area. Here, you can access Opta player and team data from every single Premier League fixture.
A WELL-TIMED HAALAND REMINDER
After missing Manchester City’s last two versus Real Madrid and Liverpool with a knee injury, Erling Haaland (£14.7m) returned to score the winner and remind FPL managers that it could soon be time to reunite.
In the 12th minute, he stayed onside to convert Jeremy Doku’s (£6.2m) squared pass, though no assist was awarded. It was a dominant start for the champions, to the point where it felt like these missed attempts would surely come back to haunt them. All three of Haaland’s were labelled as a big chance, tallying 1.35 expected goals (xG).
So with fellow premium asset Cole Palmer (£11.1m) in terrible form, could the masses start buying Haaland again?
Beginning this week in just 1% of the best 100k squads and 2% of the top million, he’ll be at home to Brighton and Hove Albion in Blank Gameweek 29 and Pep Guardiola’s side have a decent chance of Double Gameweek 33, as both they and opponents Aston Villa are still in the FA Cup. A home clash with Leicester City sits in-between.
Team-mates Phil Foden (£9.2m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£9.3m) were only named as substitutes, while forward Omar Marmoush (£7.2m) blanked.
SPURS ROTATIONS
In fact, Haaland could’ve bagged another one deep into second-half stoppage time but it was deemed to be a handball. The VAR check lasted ages and, within seconds of the restart, Pape Matar Sarr (£4.8m) missed a huge opportunity to dramatically equalise.
But ultimately Man City weren’t punished for earlier misses by their ‘bogey side’. Regardless of whether they preferred being called Tottenham, Tottenham Hotspur, Spurs or North London FC, this home team had won seven of the previous 13 meet-ups in all competitions.
For FPL managers, they’re just an unpredictable team that names unpredictable line-ups. James Maddison (£7.4m) and Brennan Johnson (£6.2m) are in and out of Ange Postecoglou’s plans. Pedro Porro (£5.3m) was a Saturday substitute, too. This time it was Son Heung-min (£9.7m), Dejan Kulusevski (£6.3m) and Djed Spence (£4.4m) being moved to the bench.
“It’s something [the opportunity to rest players] we’ve missed, obviously. I think they will benefit. Those three have played a lot of football in recent times. It allows guys like Destiny [Udogie], Brennan [Johnson] and now Wilson [Odobert] to get up the match minutes after missing a fair bit of football, but without losing sight of the fact that we have a big challenge [ahead of us] tonight and we want a strong team out there.” – Ange Postecoglou, speaking pre-match about his surprise benchings
All three came on in the 67th minute, with Mathys Tel (£6.0m) making way. The January arrival was only involved in one shot but Wilson Odobert (£5.3m) poked an exciting effort wide in his first start since Gameweek 3.
Man City stopper Ederson (£5.3m) had to make six saves, walking away with three bonus points.
WISSA + MBEUMO COMBINE AGAIN
At the Gtech Community Stadium, Brentford and Everton shared points. Once again, the combination of Bryan Mbeumo (£8.0m) and Yoane Wissa (£6.4m) came to fruition when a long throw led to the midfielder’s header hitting the bar, coming back down for his friend to tap in.
This first-half stoppage time strike denied both Jordan Pickford (£5.1m) and Vitalii Mykolenko (£4.4m) a clean sheet, taking him to a joint league high of 10 home goals.
Wednesday’s three shots on target make it 13 over the last eight outings, part of 30 attempts during this period. In fact, his season-long total of 25 big chances ranks joint-sixth, where all above have played more minutes.
One of the standout FPL forwards right now, Wissa has been involved in several disallowed goals in recent matches and had another one here in the second half. This comes days after controversially not getting the assist for Fabio Carvalho‘s (£4.5m) goal at Leicester City.
600,000 have bought Wissa over the last three Gameweeks and this number should escalate as Blank Gameweek 29 gets closer. He’ll be against Bournemouth.
MULTIPLE BETO MISSES BUT A MYKOLENKO ASSIST
Back to left-back Mykolenko, who later provided a deep cross for fellow defender Jake O’Brien (£4.5m) to head home. It blocked Brentford goalkeeper Mark Flekken (£4.4m) from a third consecutive clean sheet.
Meanwhile, in-form striker Beto (£5.0m) did everything but score. An acrobatic volley went over the crossbar and numerous one-on-one chances were fluffed, including an incident in the final minutes.
The Guinea-Bissau international racked up five goals in his previous four but this wasn’t to be his night. A pair of big chances, a couple on target and an xG of 0.62.
Also of note is that cheap midfielder Carlos Alcaraz (£4.9m) accumulated five attempts and set up three others, just like in his other Everton start in Gameweek 25. He couldn’t match that afternoon’s goal and assist but the numbers are very promising.
