fantasy premier league news catch up Thursday 16 February

Fantasy Premier League, News

Here’s our fantasy premier league news catch up Thursday 16 February.  We look at injuries, the Champions League, and various other articles of interest to FPL managers

fantasy premier league news catch up Thursday 16 February

INJURIES

Here’s the headlines taken from the excellent site Phsyioroom.  We make a few comments underneath each:

Danny Rose is targeting a return in GW26: “He is on plan, he’s very positive, a good reaction after his injury.”

Jan Vertonghen is “very well” and maybe Sunday [in the FA Cup] “he’ll be ready to make the starting XI or be on the bench.”

Rose and Vertonghen back could see an attempt to return to a back 3 which was so successful before the injuries to these 2.  That would really enhance the attacking potential of the full backs who become wing backs.  Disappointingly little analysis but there’s some recent stuff in this Spurs blog Cartilage free captain

Early reports suggest Gabriel Jesus [fractured metatarsal] will miss up-to three months. 

Aguero is now back to lead the line and started with the assist against Bournemouth which was 1 of a number of chances.  A definite blank in GW26 and a likely 1 in GW28 does reduce the attraction although a game against Sunderland in GW27 should never be dismissed easily.

Here’s the Guardian article on the subject




Lukaku will not travel to Dubai [warm weather training]. Instead the striker will head to Belgium for treatment on a calf problem. 

The club also said that he was expected to be fit for GW26 but it definitely needs monitoring

Here’s a Liverpool Echo article on the subject

Howe: “We were hampered by our injuries. Francis felt his hamstring and Wilshere had a pain in his ankle. Hopefully nothing serious.”

Yet to hear anything more here although both are only of interest to fill spots in GW28 depending on the blank position.  Wilshere being injured could help Stanislas get back in the side although his position is looking fairly terminal

Andy Carroll [groin] should be available for WHUFC next PL game against Watford after missing the 2-2 with West Brom as a precaution.

With West Ham having a guaranteed game in GW28 this is good news.

Pickford close: “The knee is fine. I’ve had 6/8 weeks off but I’ve been working hard in the gym. Hopefully, I’ll be ready for Everton” #SAFC

If you’re holding him on your bench you may want to keep him there. Clean sheets will be at a premium but he should get save points.  I’ve seen some stuff which suggests he may struggle to get his place back over Mannone but that certainly surprises me

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Arsenal lost 5-1 in Munich to Bayern in a fairly shambolic defensive display which has resulted in the usual hand wringing and Wenger bashing.  Purely from an FPL position it will hasten the exit of Arsenal from the Champions League which will lessen rotation risk for Sanchez.  That could be offset by the need to win the FA Cup but Sanchez is always more likely to be rested for that.  How it effects overall team performance remains to be seen

This was the team:  Ospina, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Gibbs, Xhaka, Coquelin, Ox, Ozil, Iwobi, Alexis

Here’s a Guardian article on the aftermath but the quote below is the nub of it:

“The real problems were after the third goal,” Wenger said. “We lost our organisation and we looked vulnerable from that moment onwards. The last 25 minutes was a nightmare for us. We looked like we had no response. We collapsed.”

“Overall I must say they [Bayern] are a better team than us,” he said. “They played very well in the second half and we dropped our level. I do not look for excuses.

“If you asked if I would have loved to keep Koscielny on the pitch, I would say yes. But no matter what we say now, it will be turned in a way that’s detrimental to us because we had a very negative result.

“It looked like we lost our organisation. Not only did we lose our centre-back, but we had a combination of mental and organisation problems.”

OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST




Spurs

The loss to Liverpool seems to have caused alot of reflection in the Spurs camp.  Poch going as far as saying:

“It’s true that it’s difficult to challenge and try to fight for the Premier League, but today, in the first 45 minutes, that is not a team that are ready to fight for the Premier League.”

Here’s a link to the mirror article which has some interesting words in video from Poch.  There’s another story in the Telegraph saying the team want to put things right against Genk in the Europa League.  Lastly there’s an article from the excellent analysis site whoscored showing what a problem errors are for Spurs and some other teams.

Statsbomb

There’s an interesting if quite long article showing the consensus of predictions on the premier league positions.  It shows the top 4 as being Chelsea, Man City Spurs and Liverpool with Sunderland, Hull and Palace going down.  It was done prior to last weeks fixtures

Gabbiadini

New Southampton signing FPL £6.5m forward Manolo Gabbiadini has hit the ground running with 3 goals in 2 games and was the most transferred in player when I did my bandwagons article.  It’s a fairly positive article although the goals were against Sunderland and West Ham who are down there with the worst defensive sides in my mind.  Here’s a link to the whoscored article

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