Stag’s Take – Gameweek 2

The familiar “what if” and “I should have” lamentations returned en masse as Fantasy Premier League kicked off for another season last weekend. However, a new species of gripe, previously spotted only seen other football competitions, reared its head for the first time.

VAR-hating is a difficult problem. In one way, of course the stoppages and the undermining through fear of the ecstasy experienced when the ball hits the back of the net are scourges on the game. Similarly, it wasn’t a nice feeling for many FPL managers who were denied points by an armpit being offside. However, don’t forget that the source of your anguish is not the introduction of the technology. No – the issue is the literal interpretation of the rules of football. During Gameweek 2 tweet at me, to the English FA, to FIFA that we need the codes which govern the sport we love amended so that football, together with technology, gets even better than it is now. Blame the rules; not the tech! Let’s not be luddites.

Liverpool’s creaking rear-guard

The main headlines emerging from the weekend were both the bashing of the template and the victories of the template. The popular attackers – Sterling, Salah, Kane – all gave their owners plenty to cheer; Liverpool defenders – less so.

Indeed, Teemu Pukki’s strike at Anfield was the least Norwich deserved in possibly the most impressive performance by a side on the rough end of a 4-1 loss that I can remember. The Canaries recorded 12 shots in the encounter, with eight of those arising in Liverpool’s box; no side had that many shots at Anfield in the whole of last season. In Wednesday’s European Super Cup, the Reds’ defence again looked less assured than we have become accustomed. Twice they conceded, though had Chelsea been less profligate they may have had even more joy from aggressively attacking Liverpool’s high line on the counter with quick interchanges and finding gaps around the back of their defence during measured build-ups. The latter vulnerability was exploited well by Pedro and Kante, both of whom recorded four key passes, one more than the magnificent Emiliano Buendía had done for Norwich on the previous Friday.

Liverpool’s defence showing signs of weakness is not a major worry from an FPL perspective – they may well have the league’s best or second-best defence when May 2020 rolls around. However, the confidence many had about a Liverpool defensive “double-up” has been dented by the fortunes of the European champions’ opponents and the injury suffered by goalkeeper Alisson Becker in the Premier League’s curtain-raiser. Suddenly, pairing two Liverpool attackers, named Salah and Mané, with on defender rather than coupling one of the sharpshooting duo with two defenders, seems a lot more feasible. Such a change requires so many moving parts that it is probably the sort of surgery most would only put their team through in a Wildcard; it seems like a sensible thing to monitor though as the main Wildcard rush of the season’s first half approaches fast (for the uninitiated, this is the two gameweeks either side of the first international break of the season – this term, the break falls between GW4 and GW5).

Norwich, by the way, look to be the real deal for FPL going forward. The aforementioned Buendía and Pukki led their team’s “expected” stats in their PL debuts; Buendía’s two shots and three key passes gave him a combined xGA of 0.47 whereas three shots and two key passes gave Pukki 0.57. For perspective, Mo Salah scored 0.71 by this metric and interestingly, Roberto Firmino led everybody who took part in the game with 0.77. A solitary assist for the Brazilian means he is going unnoticed at the moment; I recommend putting him on your watchlist, especially after he got to sit out the first half of an arduous 120 minute clash with Chelsea in Istanbul midweek.

Not so Spursy

For quite a while, it seemed like Aston Villa were going to take some points away with them from their Gameweek 1 clash at the new White Hart Lane. John McGinn’s snatch-and-grab goal had put the visitors ahead and they held on convincingly until Poch deployed Christian Eriksen just after the hour mark. The Dane added a creative spark which Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Winks, and Moussa Sissoko lacked and he brought further control to Spurs’ dominance of possession in the final third. Up until his introduction, Spurs had created about half of their total xG of 2.55. In less than half the time, Tottenham matched the quality of the chances they produced sans-Eriksen, scoring all three of their goals. Eriksen did not assist any of the strikes, and no wold class playmaker was needed to create the fortunate chance which fell to Harry Kane to give the London side a late lead. However, Eriksen’s presence did give Kane the peace of mind to stop playing as a midfield; with Eriksen on, Kane joined Lucas Moura up front and stretched the Villa defence which had previously coped well.

Eriksen’s role in Spurs’ victory will go unnoticed in FPL circles because he never provided an attacking return. However, take note that there was far more than coincidence between Eriksen taking to the field and Spurs finally managing to find a breakthrough.

Bewitched B-listers

Liverpool and Manchester City trouncing their opponents was merely the PL picking up where we left it in May. A little bit more stunning was Burnley and Brighton scoring six times between them in Gameweek 1; that’s 7.5% of their cumulative tallies in the whole of last season!

The underlying statistics behind both of last year’s relegation dogfight survivors’ clashes reveal a completely different tale to the scorelines. Burnley’s nine shots yielded an xG of 0.91 but for all their goals, the Clarets benefitted from a defensive malfunction from Southampton. Vestergaard missed a header to leave Barnes a clear shot for the first, Vestergaard failed to pick up Barnes for the second, leaving him an unopposed header, and Vestergaard gave away possession for the third (do you see a theme here?). Dyche’s men were quite good value for their clean sheet though as the Saints were smothered into relying on longballs and toothless passes for periods.

From an FPL perspective, Erik Pieters’ return to the league means that Burnley now have a genuine attacking defender again. With Pieters and McNeil on the left, a massive 43% of the Clarets’ attacks were concentrated down their flank yielding two assists for the defender. In doing so, Pieters has now picked up twice as many assists as all of Burnley’s full backs combined in the whole of last season!

Brighton looked much more convincing to the eye in their victory over Watford. Their slick play coming out from the back, long spells in possession and the sheer contrast to how they approached games under Chris Hughton completely shrouded the fact that their chances merited an xG of just 0.84. That’s a lot less than West Ham managed against Manchester City (1.08)! It may have appeared that Graham Potter’s shrewd substitutions won the day for Albion however it appears that there was no shortage of magic in the Seagulls’ success either.

For now, the biggest FPL takeaway from Brighton’s victory was that solidity of their new look three-cum-five man defence with Dan Burn joining the D&D partnership which has pertained since the club won promotion two years ago. Lewis Dunk’s passing is very important to Brighton’s tactic, which requires patient passing deep in their own territory before quickly piercing into the opponent’s half. It was quite something to see Albion defenders attempt (albeit without success) Gerrard-esque diags to their wingers. Also note that Leandro Trossard, much vaunted in these halls in pre-season, did not appear in Gameweek 1. Since then, Potter has suggested that the Belgian was “unlucky” not to get a start as he opted for the more experienced Gross instead. His absence was a watershed moment in the opening weekend for me and whilst I hope he will play a part soon, it is hard to know how influential the winger will be in the short term. Another non-appearance or a late arrival off the bench may bring about his ejection from my team.

Captaincy Corner

Raheem Sterling (Spurs H)

For the opening weeks of the season, at least, the captaincy appears to be a shoot-out between “Raz” and “Mo” every weekend. As I noted in this column last week, both players are leading contenders for the Golden Boot this season and both players have already proven their worth already this season.

Sterling had more attempts than any City player against West Ham (4), with all of them coming from inside the area surrounding Lukasz Fabianski’s goal. As you no doubt know, three of those found the net.

Mo Salah (Southampton A)

My favourite interview so far this week has come from Southampton defensive midfielder Oriol Romeu, who suggested that the Saints will find it easier to face European champions Liverpool over Burnley as the Reds are not a long ball team. The Spaniard is correct that the side which pushed Manchester City to the final day of the season last term are not a long ball team, but that he seems to have forgotten how important another pass which requires a physical presence on the other end of it is to Liverpool’s game: the cross.

As a Golden Boot winner and all round top class player for the last two seasons, Salah’s stats are extraordinary and we need not go over those again. However, I am giving the nod to Sterling over Salah this week as Liverpool’s Super Cup exploits are sure to affect their play to some extent this weekend whereas City’s relentless march will continue.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Burnley H)

For Arsenal’s win over Newcastle in Gameweek 1, many of the Gunners’ most exciting players were absent from the team; Lacazette, Ceballos, Nicolas Pepe to name just three. After a low quality attacking performance at St. James’ Park, I feel Unai Emery will be forced to call in the big guns for Burnley’s visit to the Emirates.

On another positive note for the case for Auba, the striker took the one big chance which fell his way against Newcastle in Gameweek 1 well, highlighting that eye-catching pre-season performances were not just a matter of Fortune or sluggish opposition. No Arsenal player had more shots (4), all of which came from inside the box.

Giving the armband to a player outside the Salah-Sterling axis is laden with danger at this point in the season. Both players are extremely highly-owned and will surely take the armband in almost every team they feature in. Unless you believe in Auba extremely strongly, I don’t think this is the week to take a risk with securing double points.

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Stag has been providing #FPL Tips since July 2015 and has been a contributor for Rotoworld.com since August 2016. He is a self-proclaimed wannabe fantasy football genius, a student, and die-hard tea enthusiast.