FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GW28 REVIEW BY JOSEPH CRILLEY

Fantasy Premier League, Gameweek analysis

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 fantasy premier league GW28 review. Last year, Joseph finished with an overall rank of 13k.

FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GW28 REVIEW

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.

 STATS TABLES

The stats tables are all available via the following google spreadsheet link and I will speak about a few key players during the gameweek.

KEY PLAYERS




Liverpool

The Reds are a key team for FPL managers currently as they are the only top-6 side that have a game during GW31 and the attack certainly passed their audition in the home game against West Ham. Inevitably, they were led by Salah who bagged his 3rd consecutive double figure haul after a goal and an assist. It could have been more the Egyptian after he hit the post early on and missed a great opportunity with a back-post header.

He was ably supported by Firmino again who picked up his 20th FPL return of the season with a comfortably taken goal; he also missed a big chance and created three opportunities for his teammates for a decent xA score. Speaking of expected scores from this game, it’s amazing how Mané only scored one goal after his total of 6 shots combined for an xG score of 1.95. He struck the woodwork when sent clean through and sent a header over; on both occasions, the ball really should’ve been nestling in net.

There has been some debate over who managers should be selecting as their 3rd Liverpool asset, Mané or Van Dijk, and the winger seems to be leading the battle after this game. The £75mil man only returned 2 points and was actually outshone at the back by Robertson who picked up an assist and created two other chances, including the headed chance for Salah that I mentioned earlier.

Spurs

A largely frustrating day for Spurs ended with a sense of relief when that man Kane bagged a late winner from a header. He had previously missed two wonderful opportunities, but he was not to be denied; it will be an interesting battle for the armband next week between him and Salah.

In midfield, the run of starts came to an end for Son as I had suspected after his start in the FA cup as Lamela was preferred. Eriksen picked up the assist from his corner, but he had one of his poorer games in terms of the quality he produced. Nevertheless, he created one of the other big chances for Kane and had a good opportunity of his own.

It’s consecutive clean sheets for the Spurs defence now, but Vertonghen missed out after suffering a knock to his ankle in training. Popular transfer Davies did start and was a good outlet on the left-hand side; he created one wonderful opportunity which was inconceivably not converted. I still worry about rotation throughout the Spurs line-up though and managers should look to the FA cup replay on Wednesday for clues about the next league game.

Chelsea

It’s now 3 losses in the last 4 for Chelsea and they face a trip to Man City next; things are looking a little bleak for Conte’s men at the moment. The form of Willian is one of the few positives and he scored from one of his 4 shots in this game. If he continues to start, then he could be a nice option for the season run-in at 6.8mil.

The goal was laid on by Hazard who was impressive in the first half and it was strange to see him taken off early which saw his side lose the initiative in the match. Alonso was finally back in the starting XI and he was as attacking as ever with 3 shots and 2 key passes. He created one early opportunity for Morata, but the striker was only able to turn the ball onto the crossbar.

Man U

We finally got to see a big performance from Lukaku against a fellow top-6 side where he was involved in both of the goals. He took his goal well and seemed to have renewed confidence following his finish as best demonstrated by a wonderful acrobatic effort that was well saved. I wonder if he’ll become an option for us again before the end of the season.

His cross was finished off by Lingard who emerged from the bench in the second half to frustrate managers who had either sold or benched him. He outshone his more illustrious teammate Sanchez who has yet to set the world alight in a United shirt, though he did have one good chance in this game.

As expected, Jones missed out with his injury, but there was no clean sheet for his defensive teammates. Managers will be keenly awaiting any news about his injury this week as they may wish to hold for their trip to Palace next week.

Vahrez

There has been some strong interest shown in Vardy and Mahrez ahead of Leicester’s promising end of season schedule, but they disappointed in their home game against Stoke. The striker was kept particularly quiet with just a single shot on goal, though he did have 3 key passes at least. Mahrez was heavily involved in his side’s attacks and he had a total of 6 shots on goal; a cross from the Algerian also led to a headed effort that hit the post. The best opportunity came for Mahrez when he was sent clean through on goal, but he slightly delayed which allowed a combination of defender and goalkeeper to deny him.

GW31 teams

With the upcoming blank in GW31, I thought that I would make a specific section in this review article for those teams that have a game.




In all honesty, there weren’t too many impressive performances from these players, though Shaqiri did score for the 3rd game in a row after a fine finish. His team played well and only a goalkeeping error denied them a clean sheet and a much-needed victory. Since the appointment of Paul Lambert, Stoke have certainly tightened up and he seems to given Shaqiri the necessary freedom to express himself; it looks a good idea to have the Swiss international in your side for GW31.

It was a must-win game for West Brom, but they put in an awful display in front of their own fans in an attacking and defensive sense. The only positive was the performance of Brunt, who picked up an assist and the attacking threat of Dawson who scored the goal and could’ve grabbed a crucial equaliser.

On the other hand, it was great win for their opposition, Huddersfield, and there could be a couple under the radar options from them. One of these is Mounie who now has a pair of goals and assists in the last two gameweeks; home games against Swansea and Palace in GW30&31 could provide the opportunity for him to pick up more FPL points. His goal was assisted by Janaury signing Pritchard who has could rival the currently injured Mooy for those looking at the Terriers’ midfield. There was also an assist for cheap striker Quaner, but he’s not certain to keep his place.

The other GW31 team to pick up a victory were Watford and they were the only ones to register a clean sheet. Unfortunately, they face Liverpool away in GW31 which isn’t ideal for their defenders so I’m not sure they’re worth bringing in. In midfield, there were early withdrawals for Deulofeu and Richarlison after quiet displays with the former picking up an ankle injury.

The late winner from Watford meant that it was another game without a clean sheet for Everton; Big Sam was speaking about the need for his side to be tighter at the back in his post-match interview again. Niasse was taken off before the hour mark without taking a single shot on goal which damages his GW31 credentials.

It’s been a sudden decline in form for Bournemouth and Wilson in the last couple of weeks, though at least the team fought back well to claim a point. The striker is certainly testing the patience of his owners who are probably only holding because of the good fixture in GW31. The Cherries were poor at the back and Daniels was withdrawn at half-time to return zero points.

It was the start of a tough run for Palace which began with a loss and these games are tough to judge their prospects for GW31. The only thing to note was that cheap midfielder Milivojevic added corners and free-kicks to his penalty duties.

Other players

A thumping win for Brighton which included a brace for Murray whose form has picked up since the new striker signings in January. Summer signing Izqueirdo was lively again with an assist and a decent xA score.

Cheap striker Ayew hit the post in the same game from his only shot, but his minutes remains strong.

Arnautovic was a popular choice before his injury and he looked good against Liverpool as he had two decent long-range efforts, one of which hit the bar.

That concludes the GW28 review. Feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments section or you can find me on Twitter.

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