Here’s the seventh in a series of fantasy premier league hints articles where we look at each clubs most disappointing FPL player so far this season and see whether they can rebound this or next season. Hopefully it will identify some value players for this or next season. In this article we’ve looked at Newcastle and Norwich.
fantasy premier league hints – Each clubs disappointments and can they rebound? – part 7
I outline my FPL strategy along with 10 other FFGeek contributors in our new EBook.
Newcastle – Joelinton £5.5m
In my pre-season new player profile article I gave some stats on Joelinton
Here’s the first part of what I said:
Newcastle have signed for £40m Brazilian Joelinton from Hoffenheim. He’s a 22 year old 6 foot 1 inch CF who got 7 goals and 7 assists from 25 starts plus 3 as sub in 18/19. That’s a goal or assist every 152 mins which is ok. No International experience.
His xG90 was 0.37 and xA90 0.22.
So that’s ok I guess which isn’t that encouraging but certainly for the price you’d be expecting something from him. However to end up with 1 goals and 2 assists from 27 starts culminating in being shifted to the left wing and then dropped in GW29 the season couldn’t have gone any worse.
That result was partly bad luck in that he quite significantly under performed his xG but he already had a history of that and the basic xG and xA were just completely ridiculous they were so bad.
Newcastle are in the stages of a takeover so should it succeed it will be hard to see him having a starting place. Personally I don’t see any positive future for him
Norwich – Buendia £6.0m
The Norwich play making midfielder came in to the PL with a big reputation after 8 goals and 12 assists in their promotion season in the Championship and with Norwich talking like they were going to continue playing attacking football then Buendia looked a good potential option for one of your FPL cheap midfield slots. Although at £6.0m he was probably £0.5m too expensive for my liking.
He certainly started well with 4 assists in his first 5 games including 2 against Champions Manchester City. His link up with Pukki, who himself had scored 6 goals at that stage, seemed to have seamlessly transferred to the Premier League.
That’s when it all fell apart. He then went 11 games without a return, 4 of which he had to settle for a place on the bench. In those 17 starts that followed the opening 5 games he made a miserable 3 assists and failed to score all season. In fact only 3 times in the season did he come away with an xG from a game of over 0.20.
His PPM of 2.9 says alot about his season and the 6 sub appearances also did as, despite positive words, even Farke lost faith with him over the season.
He does have potential though. Norwich are bottom of the Premier League and 8 points off survival with 9 games to play. It seems a tall order for them to survive.
While Buendia’s shot production was poor he did have some potential at the creative end with a xA90 of 0.30 backed up by good volumes of 3.27. The xA90 was 7th in the league among all players who played over 1,000 minutes and ahead of the likes of Willian, Bernardo Silva, Dwight McNeil and Jack Grealish. It’s just if you don’t score all season you’re never going to be a viable FPL option.
However given the first season adjustment in a difficult campaign where Norwich, despite attacking intentions, are sill only 18th in xG, that xA stat could be the foundation for an improved campaign next season.
He’s certainly been linked with a number of other Premier League clubs and there’s also a very positive view of him on analytics site statsbomb.
So I see him as a possibility for next season with another club but that will depend on alot of circumstances
I outline my FPL strategy along with 10 other FFGeek contributors in our new EBook.
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Best fixtures to the end of the season defenders
A deep dive on the 10 top FPL managers stats
Andrew Whitfield gradual wildcard
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