We assess the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Southampton v Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers v Leeds United in the next Scout Notes article from Blank Gameweek 28.
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CONTE RAGES
Not for the first time this season, Antonio Conte delivered bridge-burning comments in the aftermath of a disappointing result for Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs surrendered a 3-1 lead to claim only a share of the spoils in the six-goal thriller at St Mary’s, leaving their manager simmering with rage.
“We are 11 players that go into the pitch. I see selfish players, I see players that don’t want to help each other and don’t put their heart.
“Before today I prefer to hide this situation and to try to speak, to try to improve the spirit, the situation, with the words, with a lot of situations. Because about tactical or technical aspect, this is one situation. The most important thing if you want to become a strong team, if you want to become competitive, if you want to fight to win, is the desire, the fire that you need to have in your eyes, in your heart, and you have to show this in every moment. In every moment.
“If I have to compare last season and this season, we have to improve, but now we are worse in this aspect.” – Antonio Conte
We could have posted any number of similar quotes from his post-match media duties on the south coast and Conte’s latest tirade does beg the question of where Spurs go from here. It’s Everton at Goodison Park next for the Lilywhites, with the Toffees showing the kind of collective spirit under Sean Dyche that Conte claims his squad is lacking. The blue half of Merseyside have also won three of their last four home matches 1-0, so owners of Spurs players in FPL may be having a crisis of faith – especially with no ‘doubles’ remaining.
There were at least attacking returns for Harry Kane (£11.8m), Son Heung-min (£11.7m) and Dejan Kulusevski (£7.9m) at Southampton, while wing-backs Pedro Porro (£4.8m) and substitute Ivan Perisic (£5.4m) both got on the scoresheet.
While Perisic’s goal masked another sub-par display from the veteran Croatian, Porro was excellent going forward again. The wing-back created three chances and had as many shots in the box of his own, and his totals since his return to the starting XI in Gameweek 26 are eye-catching.
No involvement in the cups at home or abroad means we’ll likely see less fatigue-led rotation, too, although Porro’s positional rival Emerson Royal (£4.9m) is concerningly now back fit.
AYLING’S THREAT, RODRIGO’S FITNESS
Of the four sides featured in this article, only Leeds United double in Gameweek 29.
Even the 4-2 win over Wolves probably isn’t going to catapult their players up many FPL managers’ shopping lists, with minutes risks abounding in attack and the defence again looking suspect at Molineux.
Wilfried Gnonto (£4.9m), for example, returned to the starting XI here but was hooked on the hour mark, while the newly fit-again Rodrigo (£6.3m) – who scored his 11th goal of the season on Saturday – is still working his way back to full match sharpness.
“Rodrigo has always been a key player for this club and I think he will be in the future as well. Now we are trying to recover his best condition because he needed to work today, play only a part of the last game as well. 50 minutes no more, then 50 minutes and day by day I think he’s going to improve and but you can see the quality in playing. Even playing 30 minutes.”
“Of course, we need it. We need to work with him, it is one of the targets we have for the next two weeks. I cannot tell you if for the next game he will be ready to complete 90 minutes but for sure he’s going to improve.” – Javi Gracia
Jack Harrison (£5.7m), with four attacking returns in as many matches, is arguably the safest route into the Leeds attack right now, although it should be noted just how much he is ‘overachieving’ of late: those four goals and assists have come from an expected goal involvement (xGI) figure of just 1.54.
The only Leeds player to beat that total in the Javi Gracia era, and the only FPL defender to better the aforementioned Porro for xGI, is Luke Ayling (£4.5m). On the scoresheet at Wolves, Ayling is getting into some very dangerous shooting positions – as his below xG map shows:
Above: Luke Ayling’s shot xG map in the last four Gameweeks
SAINTS + WOLVES
Wolves and Southampton look destined to be Fantasy footnotes for the rest of 2022/23, unless they are still embroiled in a relegation scrap come the final few weeks and having ‘something to play for’ becomes a consideration for some FPL managers.
The two clubs won’t have any more Double Gameweeks to come, while Saints indeed are bottom of our Season Ticker for fixture difficulty in the run-in. Six of their remaining 10 matches are against sides sitting 9th or above in the Premier League table.
Theo Walcott (£4.8m), who played a part in two of Southampton’s goals, was arguably the best player on show at St Mary’s on Saturday; what a time to be alive.
As for Wolves, there’s too much chopping and changing in the attacking positions for any of their players to make it onto the FPL watchlist. There’s even uncertainty at the rear after this four-goal battering, although Craig Dawson‘s (£4.8m) half-time substitution was likely more to do with him walking a red card tightrope.
Arguably the main beneficiary of Saturday’s defeat was Hugo Bueno (£3.8m), who saw one left-back deputy in Jonny (£4.3m) shown a straight red card and another in Rayan Ait-Nouri (£4.2m) omitted from the squad entirely for “tactical reasons”.
