Following up on his 17-point haul there last season, Cole Palmer (£10.4m) returned to Molineux on Saturday to score a hat-trick.
His first-half treble is where we kick off our Scout Notes from Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers.
PALMER “STILL NOT THERE PHYSICALLY”
Is Palmer ‘back’ then? Maybe not quite yet – even by his own admission.
The England international was given a huge helping hand by two of the daftest penalty concessions of the season, with Joao Pedro (£7.6m) twice fouled in the box when going nowhere.
Still, Palmer’s status as chief penalty taker is a huge part of his Fantasy appeal. He made no mistake from 12 yards here.
The most encouraging goal was his third; a dash into the box to meet Marc Cucurella‘s (£6.0m) cut-back, bang central, from eight yards.
Those were his only three shots of the day and he came off after 60 minutes. Preserved for Tuesday? We’ll see, but Palmer has yet to start a single midweek game under Rosenior and he admitted himself that he is “still not there yet physically”.
“It feels good to get back on the scoresheet. Still not there yet physically, with little niggles and injury and stuff, but I’m sure working closely with the medical staff and whatnot, I’ll overcome the injuries and show my level again.
“Obviously, never being injured before in my career, this is something new to me. So, I’m finding out how to deal with it and stuff. Yeah, obviously, it has been frustrating, not playing a single game where I’ve been fully fit, or coming into games thinking, “Can I do certain things?”, kind of not overthinking it, waking up on a day thinking, “Oh, am I going to be sore? Am I not?”
“But I’m not here to make excuses. I’ll get over the injuries and I know what I can do when I’m fit. So, yeah, hopefully I’ll get back to that soon and for now, just manage it and get there.” – Cole Palmer
ENZO’S ‘NEW’ ROLE
Palmer’s recall, plus roles in the double pivot for Moises Caicedo (£5.7m) and Andrey Santos (£4.5m), meant a new position for Enzo Fernandez (£6.9m) – sort of.
The Argentinean international was, as far as the teamsheet goes, on the left wing.
But really, with Cucurella bombing up the left flank (as seen below), Enzo was – on the ball, at least – again operating as a left-sided 10.
“Enzo’s playing in exactly the same position that he’s been played in probably 80 to 90% of the season, which is in the left pocket. That’s where he plays.
“Actually, he’s got more freedom because we’re interchanging a little bit more from our system and from our structure. Without the ball, he’s on the left, so that’s probably why it looks different today because of the way Wolves played. He’s not changed his position, to be honest. It looks that way, but his position in possession is the same.” – Liam Rosenior
Enzo’s touchmap below is further proof of what Rosenior discussed above:
Enzo had two good chances in quick succession, with Jose Sa (£4.2m) denying his rabona and follow-up chip. Then, late on, Pedro Neto (£7.0m) wasted a headed sitter from Enzo’s pinpoint delivery.
A blank, and a new-ish role, but still more than enough threat.
It’ll be interesting to see what Rosenior says about Andrey in his pre-Gameweek 26 presser. The midfielder seemed to be injured when coming off; any absence for him would only further diminish the likelihood of some managed Enzo/Caicedo minutes at Elland Road.
JAMES INJURY LATEST
There was no Reece James (£5.7m) in the matchday squad but it sounds like he’ll be fit for midweek.
“He’s so close, and he should be fit for Tuesday. I know I said that today, but honestly, at the moment with the games that we’ve got, everything is day by day.
“He’s really, really close. There’s not a major problem at all, and it’d be great to have him available for Leeds on Tuesday.
“It’s just a knock. It’s a pain management issue, and to be honest, Reece was out running yesterday, but just wasn’t right, and it’s not right. Again, we’re still in the midst of a really, really difficult period of games for demo games that we’ve got. Hopefully, he comes back fully, fit, and fully rested for Tuesday.” – Liam Rosenior on Reece James
The defenders who did play saw a clean sheet go up in smoke again. It’s now just two shut-outs in nine competitive matches under Rosenior, and one of those was against Pafos.
Trevoh Chalobah (£5.8m) at least compensated with DefCon points for a sixth straight game and 13th time all season. He’s still started every league match he’s been available for this campaign.
MANE AS A ’10’ AS WOLVES CHANGE SHAPE
Rob Edwards sprung a surprise with his teamsheet, sending his troops out in a back four. Most of the recent improvements had come in a 3-5-2.
That saw budget forward Matheus Mane (£4.6m), who had been operating as something akin to an ‘eight’, line up further forward as a ’10’.
However, three first-half goal concessions put an end to that experiment, and Wolves were back to a wing-back system by half-time.
“Lately, we’ve created some chances but we haven’t scored as much as we’d like. We wanted to be really positive. We wanted to be brave and press higher and then we wanted to try and then have more of an attacking threat on the pitch. Sort of, you know, moving a defender and then putting a more attacking player on, in its simplest form. That was the thinking. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but that was the idea.
“We started pretty well and you’re thinking, “Okay, well, this can work”, but after gifting away two penalties, then it became really challenging. And I don’t think, then, it was a tactical thing. I think it was then a mental thing for a period of time. I think one or two, not froze, just felt the heat and felt the pressure and then it looked a little bit messy for a period of time.
“[Changing back to a 3-5-2 was] to stop the bleeding. At that time, then it was, “Okay, look, we don’t want any more”. So, we need to be more solid on the last line. Go back to something that we know.” – Rob Edwards on his tactical changes
Mane was tricky again, cracking the upright with one of three shots.
DEBUTS FOR NEW BOYS
Adam Armstrong (£5.5m) and Angel Gomes (£5.0m) got their full debuts, starting on the left flank and in central midfield, respectively.
Armstrong even got an assist on his bow, when his flick-on from Mane’s corner was prodded in by Tolu Arokodare (£5.4m).
Armstrong was effectively up top with Arokodare after half-time.
“I thought I thought they were real positives today. I thought they played really well, made a very good first impression.” – Rob Edwards on his two new signings
Elsewhere on Wolves-watch, Yerson Mosquera (£4.3m) racked up another three shots. He’s had more of those over the last seven Gameweeks (14) than any other FPL defender.
It says Mosquera is on nine bookings on the FPL site – but the official total is eight, with a caution erroneously chalked up to him in Gameweek 24. He’ll be able to get through Double Gameweek 26 at the very earliest, then, as he needs 10 yellow cards to receive a suspension.
