We continue our analysis of the Gameweek 29 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) action in our Scout Notes series.
Here, we focus on the Monday night meeting between Everton and Tottenham Hotspur at Goodison Park.
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.
Two red cards were quickly followed by two goals, as Michael Keane’s (£4.2m) late screamer cancelled out a Harry Kane (£11.7m) penalty to earn Everton a vital point in their quest for Premier League survival.
Spurs were about to mask a poor performance with three points in their first match without Antonio Conte in charge. A 58th-minute red card was given to Abdoulaye Doucoure (£5.3m) for lashing out at Kane and the forward, although booked during the incident, soon made amends by scoring from the spot.
However, substitute Lucas Moura (£5.8m) put some studs into Keane’s ankle to receive his own marching orders, motivating the centre-back to then fire home from 30 yards in the 90th minute.
KANE TORMENTS TOFFEES AGAIN
On the ‘eye test’, England’s all-time record goal scorer had a fairly quiet game until the hour mark. He flashed a header wide in the 16th minute but little else, to the frustration of his 4.49 million owners.
Suddenly, he found himself in the referee’s notebook for his role in Doucoure’s sending off. Whilst the Mali international deserved red, Kane certainly made a meal of the facial contact.
He entered this match with 14 goals from 15 league meetings with the Toffees, joint with Arsenal as his second-favourite opponent, so it wasn’t a huge surprise to see him get his moment soon after. Cristian Romero (£4.9m) was tripped in the box, allowing Kane to send Jordan Pickford (£4.4m) the wrong way from the penalty spot.
BITS AND PIECES
Apart from James Tarkowski (£4.2m), no other participant has over 2% ownership inside the top 100k, so there wasn’t much else of FPL interest. It was almost a clean sheet for Spurs and Clement Lenglet’s (£4.8m) 38,000 owners will be delighted that he was substituted before the equaliser, meaning he snatched three bonus points.
Tarkowski was lucky to avoid his own yellow card in the first half for a lunge on Kane, whilst Son Heung-min (£11.6m) continued his under-par season by having no goal attempts and an expected goal involvement (xGI) tally of just 0.02.
At least Spurs were able to welcome back goalkeeper Hugo Lloris (£5.4m) after missing almost two months because of a knee injury. He made five saves here, culminating in a crucial tip over the bar from Idrissa Gana Gueye (£4.8m).
Those who couldn’t take part included hamstring victim Ben Davies (£4.8m) and the unfit Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£7.9m), with Nathan Patterson (£3.9m) not involved despite two cameos for Scotland over the international break. Meanwhile, Brazilian forward Richarlison (£8.4m) was unable to make a return to his former club due to a muscle injury.
Everton XI: Pickford; Coleman (Mykolenko 77′), Tarkowski, Keane, Godfrey; Iwobi, Doucoure, Gana (Davies 84′), Onana (Garner 84′), McNeil; Gray (Simms 77′)
Tottenham XI: Lloris; Romero, Dier, Lenglet (Sanchez 77′); Porro, Hojbjerg, Skipp, Perisic; Kulusevski, Son (Lucas Moura 82′); Kane