There’s one more of the weekend’s Gameweek 24 matches to recap in our Scout Notes: Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-2 Bournemouth.
TAVERNIER INJURY UPDATE
We start with a Bournemouth injury update that actually came on Friday but was embargoed until Saturday.
It concerns, amongst others, Marcus Tavernier (£5.4m), who briefly flickered onto the FPL radar as a penalty-taking budget midfielder before injury struck.
Gameweek 27 is the likely return date for him, with David Brooks (£5.0m) and Tyler Adams (£4.9m) also nearing comebacks.
“With Tav it’s a smaller injury, but I think he will still need two, three weeks, more or less, two weeks.
“I think we are playing Aston Villa, Everton. I don’t think he will arrive because we’re talking about 10 days.
“I don’t think he’s going to be ready for this. But from there, after those games, he might have a chance.”
“I think the next ones that we should recover should be [David] Brooksy, and then Tyler [Adams], Tav, I think those would be the next ones in line, I think.” – Andoni Iraola, via the Bournemouth Echo
IRAOLA ON KROUPI AFTER BUDGET FORWARD SCORES
Eli Kroupi (£4.7m) has benefited from Bournemouth’s injury crisis of late, and especially the absence of Justin Kluivert (£7.0m).
He was making his fourth successive start in Kluivert’s vacated ’10’ role on Saturday, bagging the Cherries’ first goal of the afternoon with a superb effort. Remarkably, despite his limited game-time in 2025/26, that was his eighth Premier League strike of the season.
Above: Kroupi is up with the leaders for minutes per goal in 2025/26
There is little doubt about his finishing ability.
Kroupi has the best shot-to-goal conversion rate of any FPL forward this season (38.1%). He’s also first for xG overachievement (+4.21).
Contrast that with Evanilson (£7.1m):
It’s the ‘other stuff’ – the kind of graft that endears Evanilson to Iraola – that Kroupi has to keep proving to his manager.
“It’s something that we know very clear: if we can put him around the box, give him chances to finish, he will deliver, he will score goals.
“With him, it’s a matter of how we can make it work, playing almost with two ‘nines’. We know that we are going to lose a little bit, probably, [in] our pressing, our intensity, our duels, a little bit, but he’s trying. He’s doing a lot of jobs, so we can keep him on the pitch and he can have these chances.
“Yes [we are working hard with him on the ’10’ role], especially now that we have Justin [Kluivert] out. We are giving him a lot of minutes and starts in that number 10 position because if he can give us some of the things that other players like Ryan Christie or Alex Toth or Justin give us, he’s a player that offensively, gives us numbers.
“He started [the season] probably playing less minutes but he has earned the right with his work to be more on the pitch and I encourage him to continue in the same way. I will not rate him because of his goals; I know he has this. I am demanding in other aspects of his game and he is trying.” – Andoni Iroala on Eli Kroupi
Kroupi again came off before the 70th minute; that’s happened in eight of his 10 league starts this season.
RAYAN DEBUT
The new wonderkid from Brazil made his debut on Saturday.
Rayan (£5.5m), a versatile winger signed this January, came on in the 68th minute, replacing Amine Adli (£5.4m) on the left flank.
It sounds, though, that Iraola fancies him more on the opposite wing.
“Probably he’s more of a right-winger but they were pushing a lot from that side, so we decided to save him a little bit defensively and put him on the left.” – Andoni Iraola on Rayan
Rayan nearly bagged an assist when releasing fellow new boy and substitute Alex Toth (£5.0m) on the break but then did get his rewards shortly afterwards, crossing for Alex Scott (£5.0m) to seal the win.
LONG-AWAITED CLEAN SHEET FOR THE CHERRIES – BUT A LUCKY ONE
Bournemouth secured their first away clean sheet since Gameweek 3 at Molineux. It was their first shut-out at any venue in nine league matches.
Budget buy James Hill (£3.9m) started his sixth successive match alongside Marcos Senesi (£4.8m) at centre-half. And, for the sixth successive match (he was upgraded to 10, post-FPL-cut-off, in Gameweek 21!), Hill hit the DefCon threshold:
Above: Players meeting the DefCon threshold at Molineux on Saturday
But this clean sheet arrived more through luck than judgement.
Wolves had a hatful of chances. Tolu Arokodare (£5.4m) fired straight at Petrovic’s legs from eight yards and blazed high after doing everything right to get himself into a shooting position. Jorgen Strand Larsen (£6.1m) scuffed a great chance wide. Joao Gomes (£5.3m) hit the post from a corner. Mateus Mane (£4.6m), who registered four legitimate shots from outside the area, also saw a goal disallowed for offside.
Not entirely convincing from the Cherries, then.
“I think the game was more level than the 2-0 [scoreline] says.” – Andoni Iraola
MOSQUERA ON NINE BOOKINGS AHEAD OF POSSIBLE DOUBLE GAMEWEEK 26
For Wolves, it’s all eyes on the result of Tuesday’s EFL Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Chelsea.
A Gunners win and it’s a Double Gameweek 26 for Wolves.
Mane aside, there aren’t too many of Rob Edwards’ squad who FPL managers will be interested in, even with two fixtures.
Yerson Mosquera (£4.3m) might have piqued some interest as a DefCon machine but he’s now on nine bookings for the season. One more before Wolves have contested 32 games and he’ll serve a two-match ban.
