fantasy premier league transfers – new player profiles – Southampton forward Graziano Pelle

Graziano Pelle is a 6 foot 3 inch 29 year old Italian centre forward who has moved from Feyenoord to Southampton for an undisclosed fee.  We look at the background to his transfer, his stats and his fantasy premier league prospects plus his initial fixtures

fantasy premier league transfers – new player profiles – Graziano Pelle

Background

A fairly simple background to be honest on this one.  After a very successful season in which Southampton finished 8th in the premier league it all began to unravel spectacularly.  First the manager Pocettinho left for Spurs followed by Lambert for Liverpool, Shaw for Man Utd and Lallana for Liverpool.  It’s looking likely that Lovren could also join Liverpool.

With Jay Rodriguez injured with no return date and Osvaldo not even returned to the club after his loan spell with Juventus last year Southamptons only striker was teenager Sam Gallagher.  Hardly sufficent for a premier league campaign.

Manager Koeman knows Striker Pelle and he has been one of his first transfers. At 29 Pelle is an experienced player.  At 6 foot 3 inches he physically has the strength and power to adapt to the hurly burly of the premier league. He’s a penalty box finisher though and not just a hold up target man as he has a good touch. Last season all of his goals bar 1 were scored from inside the penalty area.  Given his height it’s no surprise that he’s excellent in the air. He can provide chances for others too which was one of Lamberst great streength having a good assist and creating chances stats at Feyenoord.

He’s £7.5m in FPL which is the same as Lambert, Remy, Podolski and Torres.  Slightly more than Welbeck and Carroll.  Of those only Carroll seems a certian starter although that has been cast in doubt with E Valencia joining and him not playing in the first 2 preseason games.

Here’s what Koeman said of him which gives you some view of his strengths:

“We needed a good player in that position.
“He’s a tall striker with a lot of movement and he’s fast. He’s a player who gives confidence to the team because he keeps the ball.”

Here’s his league stats:

Lets make no mistake. The stats of the last 2 seasons are excellent.  His goal/assist ratio of 86 last season and 72  are very good.  Just as a comparison with the best, Daniel Sturridge who last year had a goal/assist every 73 minutes.   The benchmark for the absolute best is Suarez and Aguero every 57 minutes.  Comparing him to similar costing players,  Jay Rodriguez last year had a goal/assist every 142 minutes, Rickie Lambert every 117 minutes and Remy every 123 minutes.  However before we get over excited, the Dutch league is a completely different kettle of fish to the premier league.  In the Dutch league football is very open and attacking, helping strikers.  There are more goals scored in the Dutch league per game than any other major league.  While it’s had sucess with Suarez and Ruud Van Nistelrooy, its also had the failures of Alfonso Alves and Metja Kezman.  Most recently it’s seen Wilfreid Bony who for Vitesse scores 31 goals in 24 games.  He had a slow start but came right at the end.  Even his slow start could be put on Laudrups seeming distrust of him.  On the reverse side is Jozy Altidore who scored 23 goals in 21 league games for Alkmaar. He has been absolutely hopeless for Sunderland.  Another failure was Bryan Ruiz for Fulham.  So it’s a bit of a lottery to say the least.  Pelle’s time at Parma in Serie A was a telling failure.  That is a far more defensive league though than even the premier league.

Pelle has no full international experience so obviously didn’t go to the World Cup.  His European experience hasn’t been as sucessfull.  Overall he’s played 5 Champions league games for 1 goal and a goal or assist every 146 minutes.  In the Europa League/UEFA Cup he’s played 6 games for 2 goals at a goal/assist every 209 minutes.  Neither are impressive as his  League scoring.  If you concentrate on his very sucessful last 2 years he only played 2 games in Europe.  That was in a Europa League qualification game for Feyenood last season against Russian side Kuban Krasnador where he played 2 games for 1 goal and no assist.

So we have a goal scorer who has been very successful in the last 2 seasons in the Eredivisie. The question is will he be a Suarez or will he be a Altidore?

 Fantasy Premier League prospects

As I said above, he’s £7.5m in FPL which is the same as Lambert, Remy, Podolski and Torres. Slightly more than Welbeck and Carroll. A range with alot of uncertainty surrounding it.  The one thing that is certain for him at the moment is gametime.  With Lambert gone, Rodriguez injured with no return date and misfit Osvaldo not having even returned to the club then he’s the only option for Koeman at the moment.  To give even more security Koeman favoured 3-5-2 with Feyenoord.

The problem for Southampton is that the heart of the team has been stripped with Lambert, Shaw and Lallana gone.  Lovren also looks on his way out.  A decent purchase in Dusan Tadic may help the situation but how they will perform is very questionable.  What they do have is good fixtures.  Here’s there first 6 fixtures:

Liverpool (A)
West Brom (H)
West Ham (A)
Newcastle (H)
Swansea (A)
QPR (H)

Apart from the opening game (and even the Liverpool defence is pretty questionable) the fixtures couldn’t be much better.  So if you want to have a punt on a new player with good fixtures who has low ownership (7.7%) then you could do worse.   In the long term if you saw my article on last years new players though very few were successful over the whole of the season.

Summary

• Tall, skillful, strong player.  £7.5m in FPL, low ownership
• Great Dutch league stats over last 2 years
• Gametime should be secure with lack of alternative options
• Great fixtures to start with.
• Big questions is whether the Dutch league form and goals can be moved to the Prem league

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fantasy premier league transfers

fantasy premier league transfers

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