After each gameweek, Joseph Crilley is going to be writing an article reviewing all the Premier League games from a fantasy perspective. He will be providing some stats and a brief summary on the performances and prospects of a few of the players. This is the first part of his fantasy premier league GW16 review. Last year, Joseph finished with an overall rank of 13k.
FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GW16 REVIEW – PART 1
For each game, I will be providing a stats table containing the following: Goals (G), Assists (A), Shots (S), On Target (OT), Key Passes (KP), Bonus points (BP) and fantasy points (FP). Any statistic highlighted in yellow signifies that the player leads that category for his team. Blue highlight shows the players that registered a fantasy return (goal, assist or clean sheet) and green shows any player that scored 10+ points.
The tables also include the Expected Goals and Expected Assists for each individual player. This is in addition to the expected goals for each team in brackets within the scoreline. BBC Sport provided a very useful piece to help explain this statistic. Essentially each shot is given a score between 0 and 1 as to how likely it is to go in the net. For example, suppose a shot taken from inside the box is worth 0.56; this will be added to the xG tally of the player who take the shot and added to the xA of the player who passes the ball to him. All underlying stats are from the brilliant website understat.com. References to average position come from the twitter site 11tegen11.
WEST HAM (0.36) 1-0 (0.85) CHELSEA
After the crushing late defeat at City last week, the Hammers ground out a fantastic victory which was their first under David Moyes.
There’s a double gameweek on the horizon which means it’s worth keeping an eye on West Ham assets. With Moyes at the helm now, we have been expecting the defence to improve and this performance was evidence of that. Adrian kept his place in goal; cheap keepers did very well in the double gameweeks last year, so we’ll see if the Spaniard keeps his place. A player that I will be watching is Masauku at 4.4mil who has started the last 4 PL games and often plays in an advanced position.
Record signing Arnautovic finally started to repay the outlay spent on him with a finely taken goal in the early stages. The star man is often Lanzini in midfield and he picked up the assist. After the double gameweek, there’s some good fixtures for West Ham so a midfielder could be a good punt. Antonio continued up front but seems to be incapable of lasting 90 minutes at the moment.
A bad day at the office for Chelsea who had far too many poor displays across the pitch which led to the difficulties to break through a stubborn defence.
There has been a fair amount of investment in their own defence with the good fixture list, but this is yet to return points for owners. The biggest disappointment was Alonso who returned zero points after a booking and an early withdrawal. Cheapie Christensen started again, and my advice would be to hold on to him and his fellow defenders for now as surely the clean sheets will come soon.
Watching the game, it seemed Hazard was the most likely to create something, but Chelsea struggled to get him on the ball enough. He had 3 shots but they all missed the target and the expected stats were rather poor. Looking at the next two fixtures, I’m not sure that I’d be looking to captain him due to potential threat of rotation.
The best chance of the game fell to Morata, but he could only find the side netting after the ball came to him in the box. He’s certainly the focal point of the attack and surely goals will continue to flow over the festive period.
SOUTHAMPTON (1.22) 1-1 (0.61) ARSENAL
Southampton so nearly claimed all 3 points, but they couldn’t quite see the game out as they eventually succumbed to the pressure.
The popular Cedric missed out again with his hamstring injury, however it was Stephens who stepped in this time and put in an assured performance. There was a great chance for Bertrand after he was sent through while the game was still 1-0, but he couldn’t convert.
A beautiful reverse pass from Tadic meant that he picked up just his second assist of the season. He had 4 key passes in total which helped him to a decent xA score of 1.16.
Like others, I have spent all season completely baffled that a team who struggles to score goals has continued to leave Austin on the bench. When he plays, he scores goals and that’s 4 in his last 3 starts now. There are two caveats for those looking to invest in my mind; poor upcoming fixtures and the likelihood of rotation given his fitness record.
Before the game, Arsenal would certainly have been looking for a victory, but I’m sure that they’ll be grateful to go home with a point in the end.
They conceded early on for the second straight game and have only kept 2 away clean sheets compared to 5 at the Emirates. Mustafi was absent but there is hope that he’ll return for the midweek fixture against West Ham.
There was a serious worry for Arsenal and FPL managers alike, after it appeared that Ramsey played the last 10 mins with an injury. He earlier had a low shot which was well saved and, fitness dependent, he continues to look a great mid-price option. Sanchez grabbed the assist, but 11.8mil is a lot to pay for a player who doesn’t look that interested to be at the club.
Giroud was required off the bench to save his team and he now has tied the record for most goals after coming as a substitute in the Premier League. Lacazette does seem to prefer home comforts and he was kept fairly quiet on the South coast.
LIVERPOOL (1.80) 1-1 (0.82) EVERTON
You can’t help but feel that Liverpool really let 2 points slip out of their grasp here in a game that they dominated.
The defence was comfortable throughout apart from a brainless mistake from Lovren who gave the referee a decision to make. An assist for Gomez and our very own FFG who brought the budget defender into his team and he also sent a header just over. Liverpool continue to look solid at home and are good rotation options.
What more is to be said about Salah; a fantastic curling finish which sent him on the way to another double-digit haul. His ownership continues to soar and it’s seemingly now at the stage where if you only own him, a goal will actually harm your overall rank due to the sheer number of captainers. Mané was guilty of passing up a wonderful opportunity in the first half where he probably should have passed, but instead dragged the ball wide. A surprise benching for Coutinho highlighted that Klopp is the one to worry about the most with rotation; it personally puts me off considering a double up on their attack.
He was joined on the bench by Firmino which stung the over 200k managers that brought him in after last week’s brace. On a side note, it was great to see Ings get some minutes after all his injury troubles.
Allardyce continues to work his magic and picked up a valuable point in the derby which takes his side into the top half of the table.
A defence under his leadership can often be trusted and there’s some good budget options within there; I’ll be considering bringing 4.3mil Kenny into my team for this week. The lack of shots and key passes from defence shows how much they were pinned back during the game.
A very quiet game for Sigurdsson who has started to show a bit of form recently but is looking a tad overpriced in FPL.
I’m sure that Rooney would have loved slamming home that penalty which was actually his 8th goal of the season. It was won by Calvert-Lewin and he’s getting closer to sealing victory in the battle of the cheap Everton strikers after Niasse was withdrawn at half-time for tactical reaons.
MAN UTD (1.72) 1-2 (2.03) MAN CITY
It was a bit of a disappointing performance from United and the majority of their xG score came from one attack.
There was finally a return to the squad for Jones, but it’s difficult to imagine him starting all the games over Christmas. Bailly has been ruled out until the New Year and it will be interesting to see if any defender can secure their place in the starting XI soon. Otherwise, we are still stuck with the expensive pairing of Valencia and De Gea if we want a solid investment.
It was clear that Mourinho’s team were missing Pogba again and they will be waiting for his return from suspension. Intriguingly, he has dropped down to a price of 7.9mil which could be worth spending when he comes back.
Not much service for Lukaku, though he did miss one great chance when he sent the ball straight into the keeper’s face. Rashford pounced on a defensive error to put his side back on level terms at half-time.
A massive result for City against the rivals which was their 14th PL victory in a row; a new PL record.
Clean sheets are becoming an issue though and that’s four games without one. Otamendi bailed his owners out again as he grabbed the winner to bring home another 11-point haul. Injury struck for Kompany it seems which could hinder the chances of future clean sheets.
Silva also scored for the second successive game with a close-range finish from a loose ball that fell to him after a corner. Sané continues to position himself very close to the touchline and his fantasy stock continues to dwindle as a result. Every time De Bruyne shoots from distance, he seems to test the keeper and he did just that with a low drive from 20 yards. Regardless of the above, Sterling still looks the best City option as he often popped up in very central areas and could have easily picked up some points in the latter stages.
It was the turn of Aguero to lose at Pep roulette and he didn’t appear off the bench at all. There wasn’t too much on offer for Jesus and it’s still best to avoid investment in either in my opinion.
SWANSEA (0.86) 1-0 (0.24) WEST BROM
A crucial win for Swansea in a game that would have pencilled in as a key opportunity to collect valuable points.
As seen by the total xG, it was a solid clean sheet for the Swans which was their 6th of the season. It’s perhaps a slight surprise to see Fabianksi second in the points standings for goalkeepers but he continues to be one of the better budget keeper options. No bonus points this time though as they were collected by Mawson and Naughton.
The Swansea midfield doesn’t have much popularity besides 4.5mil Carroll who returned to the starting line-up.
Bony grabbed the winner and also took home maximum bonus points after being preferred to Abraham from the start. The latter came on to pick up an assist and also had the time to miss a great chance after being sent through.
Despite the comparatively bold approach of Pardew to his predecessor, West Brom are still winless under their new manager and face Liverpool next.
Hegazi is still owned by 18% of managers; a surprising statistic considering that it’s just one clean sheet since GW5 for his team. Looking at the next 5 fixtures, it’s tough to see many more coming in the near future.
There isn’t much to say on the West Brom midfield.
The same can be said for the forwards though they continue to play three up front.
That concludes part 1 of the GW16 review. Part 2 will be coming shortly. Feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments section or you can find me on Twitter.
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