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 second part of the fantasy premier league GW9 review. Last year, Joseph finished with an overall rank of 13k.
FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GW9 REVIEW – PART 2
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.
SOUTHAMPTON (2.02) 1-0 (0.50) WEST BROM
Southampton picked up their second home win of the season but required a piece of genius play to get them the 3 points.
Another clean sheet was on offer for a defence that wasn’t really tested. Bertrand hit the bar from a free-kick but it was Van Dijk who collected maximum bonus points and he looks the best buy in their defence currently.
What a brilliant goal from Boufal after an amazing solo run directly through the opposition defence, though he did rather let himself down with his celebration. He remains to be seen whether shouting at his manager will get him the start he clearly wants. Tadic is starting to make a habit of missing big chances after missing another one on Saturday, though I’m not sure we can be surprised by this anymore.
Gabbiadini did have 3 shots but there wasn’t too much joy for him to enable a continuation of the form shown last week.
Seriously though, who’s idea was it to put this game as the live Saturday evening match? I was surprised to even get one goal, but this defeat puts West Brom in deeper trouble.
Injuries were the story in Pulis’ defence and he couldn’t offer much good news regarding the fitness of Evans and Dawson. His side have been a little disappointing for clean sheets so far and it may be time to move their assets on looking at the fixture list.
Last week’s goalscorer Chadli started again but was unable to provide the magic again this time around.
The Baggies’ only good chance fell to Rodriguez but he was unable to convert after being sent through on goal.
STOKE (1.55) 1-2 (1.12) BOURNEMOUTH
Another poor result for Stoke and you’ve got to wonder whether the pressure is starting to build on Mark Hughes.
Shawcross returned to the starting XI but gave away the penalty which was converted for Bournemouth’s second goal. The captain’s return meant there was no place for 4.4mil Wimmer.
No Shaqiri for the Potters, but Choupo-Moting further enhanced his credentials with an assist. He posted some more good stats with an xG score of 0.61 and continues be a good choice in the budget midfield bracket which suddenly has a few decent options.
Diouf is surprisingly one of the form PL players at the moment and scored his 3rd goal in 3 games to go with an assist which means he has 25 points in that time. He was finally positioned in the striker position and is gaining popularity.
A crucial win for Eddie Howe and his team which will help to ease the tensions around the club.
They reverted to a back 4 for this game and there has been some Twitter talk about investing in their defence. There’s certainly some potential from GW11 especially if Daniels does finally drop to 4.8mil.
I mentioned budget midfield options and another one emerged in this game; 5.9mil man Stanislas. I’m a big fan of his as he seems to always get returns when he’s fit. He scored the penalty in this game and also grabbed the assist for the goal from 4.6mil Surman. The winger could be worth a punt with Bournemouth’s good upcoming fixtures.
There was no sign of Defoe or King as they missed out through injury and illness respectively. The Cherries looked a more fluid outfit in the absence of the veteran and I wonder if he’ll struggle to make the starting line-up once fit.
SWANSEA (0.56) 1-2 (1.82) LEICESTER
Swansea’s home struggles were evident once again and they seem much leakier at the back in front of their own fans.
In this game, Fabianksi was called upon to make several saves just to keep his side in the game and will continue to rack up save points. Two defenders were on the scoresheet but unfortunately for Fernandez, his header was into the wrong net; a sad sight for managers who picked him for his bonus point potential. Mawson was the man to score at the right end.
Some decent stats from everyone’s favourite cheapie Carroll who took 3 shots and created 2 chances. Indeed, it was his corner that was flicked on for goal.
Ayew was the one to grab the assist and continues to be a 5.0mil striker that looks assured of starts. There wasn’t too much on offer for Abraham who was an extremely popular transfer after his brace last week, but you can’t expect goal every week for 5.8mil
I can’t say that I was too surprised to see Leicester winning in the game after they sacked their manager but this was a much needed 3 points.
Not much to say about their defence who conceded a high quantity of shots, 19 to be precise, but not many of much quality as seen by Swansea’s low xG score.
It looked like Mahrez was back to his best in this game and provided both assists in this game on his way to an xA score of 1.22. Priced at 8.4mil, he’s in a very competitive bracket so we will need further evidence of this form before he can be trusted.
Okazaki was king of the expected stats again and registered his 4th goal in 6 starts. Where was this form when I made the foolish decision of choosing him over Vardy 2 years ago just before the latter embarked on his record run!? Back to 2017 and the Englishman missed a 1v1 opportunity in this game which continued the strange trend of him underperforming against the lesser sides.
EVERTON (0.81) 2-5 (3.91) ARSENAL
It doesn’t get any better for Everton fans and their side were awful in this game so it was no surprise to see Koeman sacked on Tuesday.
Pickford was one of the few bright sparks and he made some great saves, especially in the first half. Unfortunately, the defence in front of him was abysmal and collapsed after the red card, allowing way too much space to an opposition that can punish you.
Gueye was the one sent off after picking up two bookings but will just miss the League cup tie in midweek. I really like Sigurdsson and I’m praying that the new manager will finally put him in the no.10 role where he will surely thrive.
A great goal from Rooney was the start his side were looking for but couldn’t build on. Niasse came off the bench to pounce on some sloppy defensive work to grab a goal.
Arsenal did play very well but I do question how much of this was down to who they were playing. Either way, they created a hatful of chances and converted several of them.
A second goal in three games for Monreal but he was partly at fault for the awful goal conceded late on. It’s hard to believe that he can keep up this goalscoring form given his history and I’m not sure that I can trust the Arsenal defence.
It’s fair to say that there’s some decent stats in midfield though! Ramsey and Sanchez both had 7 shots while Ozil created a remarkable 8 chances. Naturally, this helped all three to some wonderful expected scores to go with a goal and assist for each of them. I have to begrudgingly say that I was very impressed with the German in this game but I’ll need more games like this before I consider him.
Lacazette’s xG score wasn’t exactly bad either and he missed a glorious opportunity before getting his goal. Arsenal assets look tempting with a game at the Emirates against Swansea next, but it’s worth remembering this was a poor Everton side and they face Man City after.
TOTTENHAM (2.67) 4-1 (0.67) LIVERPOOL
I was fortunate enough to be in attendance for this game where we saw a brilliant Spurs performance which should truly dispel any lack of confidence at Wembley.
Pochettino sprung a surprise by playing two right-backs to counter Salah’s pace and leaving Davies on the bench again. I personally think Rose will start in the League cup on Wednesday then we will see the Welshman line up at Old Trafford on Saturday. Similar story at right back where I think whichever of Aurier and Trippier doesn’t play against West Ham, will start against United. What is certain is that we can expect this rotation to continue and it may be time to look at the Spurs’ centre backs for security.
It was interesting to see both Alli and Eriksen positioned in deeper positions as part of a midfield 3. The former still managed to get on the scoresheet and both almost claimed assists after sending Son through on goal. The Korean hit the bar with one of these shots and the other was saved but he still managed to get on the scoresheet after Pochettino decided to use his pace up front.
What a performance from Kane who continuously made the Liverpool defence look foolish. He finally got his first league goal at Wembley and followed that up with an assist and another goal to give him the highest FPL score of the week. To me, this confirmed him as the striker that you leave in your team and never look to take out unless injury occurs.
It was a second thrashing for Klopp’s men against one of the bigger teams and they were outclassed at Wembley.
The defence was shambolic at times and Lovren was withdrawn after just 31 minutes due to a horrendous performance. One thing I did notice is that Moreno often gets forward well from LB and is looking nailed at 4.5mil.
As an opposition fan, Salah is terrifying to watch with his pace but this makes him a brilliant fantasy asset. He scored the goal with a tidy finish and had the most shots and chances created in his team. Coutinho is still the man that makes Liverpool tick and had one shot sensationally tipped onto the bar, but the Egyptian is definitely my favoured option.
Firmino was kept very quiet and failed to register a single shot or key pass. The best thing he did was a sensational block on his line which unfortunately fell straight to Kane to score.
That concludes part 2 of the GW9 review. Part 1 can be found here. Feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments section or you can find me on Twitter.
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