We begin our round-up of the big Gameweek 29 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points in our Scout Notes series.
The first match of Saturday, Manchester City v Liverpool, is the focus here.
Any numbers you see in this article are taken from our Premium Members Area, where you can access Opta player and team data from every single Premier League fixture.
PEP ON HAALAND’S FITNESS
Erling Haaland (£12.0m) failed to make the Manchester City squad for the lunchtime game, a groin injury that put paid to his involvement with Norway over the international break also depriving him of the chance to face Liverpool.
Attention now turns to the trip to Southampton, as a fit Haaland would likely be the go-to Gameweek 30 captaincy pick for those that own him.
A post-match press conference and interview with BT Sport failed to yield any update on the Norwegian’s fitness so we had to rely on good old Match of the Day for the latest from Pep Guardiola on his star striker.
“Yesterday, we spoke, the day before, and he didn’t feel fit. And of course, we wouldn’t take a risk – I know it was an important game, but we have Julian [Alvarez]. Now we have a long week to recover and hopefully the next games he can be involved.” – Pep Guardiola on Erling Haaland, speaking after the Liverpool game
There’s plenty of uncertainty left in that statement, then, so we’ll have to twiddle our thumbs for another week before we get around to Guardiola’s next pre-match presser (and no doubt just-as-ambiguous update) on Friday.
A UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie against Bayern Munich looms on the Tuesday after the trip to St Mary’s so Haaland’s Gameweek 30 game-time prospects depend on your view of Guardiola: will he really risk his forward on the south coast 72 hours before the Bavarian giants visit the Etihad or will he want Haaland to establish some “rhythm” in advance of that match?
GREALISH’S BEST CITY DISPLAY?
City barely missed their free-scoring number nine, with stand-in striker Julian Alvarez (£6.0m) walking away from this game with one goal, an assist and a double-digit haul; what might have been for Haaland against this flimsy Liverpool backline.
Kevin De Bruyne (£12.0m) top-scored with 13 points after also helping himself to two attacking returns but the star of the show was Jack Grealish (£6.8m), creator of City’s first goal and scorer of their last.
We’ve seen players before such as Bernardo Silva (£6.7m) and Luka Modric, whose talent and vital on-field contributions were not reflected in their FPL scores, and we’ve witnessed Marcos Alonso types who were generally a bit rubbish but somehow also Fantasy gold. Grealish fell into neither category in his first year-and-a-bit in Manchester, with just six attacking returns recorded in 2021/22 amid some unremarkable displays.
His performances have been excellent since the restart, however, culminating in perhaps his best-ever display in a City shirt on Saturday.
“All this season he has been playing really well. Now it’s the Jack we thought. Aston Villa fans know this Jack. Nothing changed, it’s just a question of believing ‘I am part of that, and I can be here.’
“Now he has more minutes. The way he behaved in the beginning when he was not playing was exceptional.
“We are so satisfied for his performance. Today was amazing, he was really good. I like the standing ovation from our fans. He really deserved it. Not just that, all season he has been playing well.”
“Football is more than stats, it’s many things. The way he gives us the tempo to play and to make extra passes. I could not imagine with the big name he is and the price the club paid to have this humility to run like a teenager. That means a lot to me and the team. At the same time, he has to score more goals at home. Definitely.” – Pep Guardiola on Jack Grealish
This was his 10th successive Premier League start, with mainstays Rodri (£5.6m) and Haaland the only City outfield players to have started more league fixtures than the former Villa man (12) since the World Cup.
Grealish has been helped, of course, by Phil Foden‘s (£8.0m) post-Qatar fitness issues, with appendix surgery currently sidelining him for 2-3 weeks.
The rush to acquire City assets for Double Gameweek 34 begins now (especially for Gameweek 32 Free Hitters) and Grealish is certainly throwing his hat into the ring as a differential, although it should be said that potential positional rival Foden ought to be recovered by the time that Gameweek 34 double comes around. Still, it was Riyad Mahrez (£7.4m) who made way in Gameweeks 24-27 when Foden and Grealish were both available and fighting fit.
What prospective City owners (Grealish or otherwise) really need next is for Bayern to dump them out of the Champions League, leaving the tilt at the Premier League title their primary focus.
Above: Grealish is third for non-penalty expected goal involvement (NPxGI) and indeed attacking returns (nine) among City players since the restart
MORE OF THE SAME FROM LIVERPOOL
In the international break, we studied Liverpool’s away form and concluded that their attack wasn’t as bad as the meagre goals scored total suggested but also that their defence was arguably worse than the goals conceded column made out.
We got more of the same from the Reds at the Etihad, with their backline torn to shreds by the reigning champions; even the return to fitness of Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) and Ibrahima Konate (£4.8m) can’t paper over the cracks. For fans of expected goals (xG), Jurgen Klopp’s side were walloped 2.96-0.33.
It wasn’t a vintage display going in the other direction either, with just four shots registered, but there was at least a real threat early on that resulted in Mohamed Salah‘s (£12.8m) 17th-minute goal. But for Grealish’s vital interception shortly after, Liverpool would have probably been 2-0 up.
“You have to defend City in the moments where you have the opportunity to do so. If you are too deep, too passive or whatever, then they use that immediately. That was for 2-1… 3-1 [was] super-quick after, how I remember it, and I have to watch it back obviously, we have a three or four versus one situation against Grealish, but in the end nobody has a challenge and the ball arrives in the box again. They can finish by taking the rebound. Then you saw what happened.
“We were not there anymore; we were completely open, we were too passive, too deep, too far away from everything. If you look at the game, I think we had around about four performances which were OK: the two midfielders with Hendo and Fab worked a lot, tried to close gaps, Cody especially in possession and Ali, of course, and then that’s obviously very difficult. If you want to get something from here, then you have to play 11 players, 14, 15 players have to be on the top of their game and that was not the case again.” – Jurgen Klopp
The good news is that, after Gameweek 29 is over, six of Liverpool’s remaining 10 fixtures are at home. And after Gameweek 30, only one of their matches is against a top-seven side.
On the subject of team selection, Darwin Nunez (£8.8m) was only among the substitutes – perhaps that should have come as no surprise given that a cut to his ankle affected his ability to train during the international break. He would, you’d think, now come into the reckoning on Tuesday night.
The early substitution of Salah also hinted at the Egyptian being spared for the trip to Chelsea.
