It’s been two wins from two matches for Crystal Palace since Roy Hodgson returned to south London last month.

This upturn in form happens to coincide with some Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers needing a cheap enabler to accommodate the collection of a few premium assets like Erling Haaland (£12.2m), Harry Kane (£11.7m), Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) and Bruno Fernandes (£9.6m).

Although Michael Olise‘s (£5.4m) three assists against Leeds United have led to over 88,000 transfers so far this week, identically-priced Eberechi Eze (£5.4m) is getting less attention.

In the absence of Wilfried Zaha (£7.2m) – expected to be out until around Gameweek 34 with a groin injury – it’s time to dive deeper into assessing which of Eze and Olise is the best way to invest in Palace’s midfield.

All the numbers and graphics from this piece are taken from our Premium Members Area, which you can check out yourself with a free trial.

INVESTING IN PALACE

Hodgson spent almost four seasons at Selhurst Park between 2017 and 2021, before replacement Patrick Vieira took them to 12th place – just one point short of their best 38-game Premier League total.

Yet his second campaign was a lot tougher. A freefall of 12 winless games in all competitions dragged them into relegation danger, so Vieira was dismissed to make way for Hodgson’s surprise return.

Immediately, his impact brought a late 2-1 win over Leicester City – where their 31 shots were the second-highest by one team this season – before coming from behind to thrash Leeds 5-1.

The upcoming fixtures look good in their quest to secure top-flight survival, a straightforward run without any Blank or Double Gameweeks. So grabbing Eze or Olise could quickly pay off.

GOAL THREAT

Over Hodgson’s two matches, both have had six goal attempts and, using our Members Area, we can see that Eze has generally been more likely to score – like he did at Leeds.

Looking beyond that small sample will need ‘minutes per’ data, as Eze was demoted to a substitute during Vieira’s final months after Olise began the season there.

Eze is up 5-2 on goals and scores every 386.4 minutes, with a shot once every 40.3 minutes – both better than Olise’s numbers (1018.5 and 56.6 respectively).

Although an Achilles injury kept Eze out for almost all of last season, his debut Premier League campaign brought four goals and eight assists, whilst Olise’s first season saw him net twice and set up six more in 2021/22.

CREATIVITY

Moving on to assists, we quickly see this is the latter’s favourite area. The weekend haul means his eight assists are now only bettered by Kevin De Bruyne (£12.1m), Bukayo Saka (£8.6m), Leandro Trossard (£6.7m) and Andreas Pereira (£4.3m).

Not only does Olise get the nod for creativity, but it also allows his expected goal involvement (xGI) to overtake Eze’s over the two Hodgson matches.

Overall, the France under-21 international is 52-44 ahead, creating 2.30 chances and 0.40 big chances per 90 minutes. Eze is Palace’s next-best player with 2.05 and 0.28.

When it comes to set pieces, they seem to share free-kick responsibilities but Olise has taken over corner duty since Hodgson came in.

OTHER FACTORS

Additionally, the attacking half of touch heatmaps show that right-winger Olise touches the ball further forward and out wide, with Eze – who has been operating as a ‘number eight’ under Hodgson – further back but from a more central position.

Adding fellow cheap midfielder Jordan Ayew (£5.2m) into the mix doesn’t do much, as the 31-year-old comes third-best in most of the interesting comparisons. He’s only best for shot accuracy (45%), goal conversion (15%) and penalty area touches (64).

Ayew did match Olise’s 14-point haul in Gameweek 30 by scoring twice, although it’s hard to know how secure his place will be once Zaha returns. After all, Ayew only netted once in Hodgson’s final season.

As mentioned, both Eze and Olise had spells on Vieira’s bench but the pair are now probably secure in their new boss’ preferred XI. The rotation factor can be removed, for the time being at least.

FINAL THOUGHTS

At the same price with similar minutes and only one FPL point between them, it’s basically goals versus assists for managers weighing up their cheap Crystal Palace enabler.

Eze’s goal and shot numbers are best for both Hodgson’s two matches and over the whole season but Olise – as shown at Leeds – is a superb creator who takes more set pieces.

“What I make of him is that I think he is an enormous talent – he has got a great possibility to have a wonderful career and a wonderful future. We can only hope we at Crystal Palace can give him that platform.” – Roy Hodgson on Michael Olise

Olise playing in the front three (rather than as a number eight like Eze) and being on indirect set plays perhaps gives him the slightest of edges but there’s precious little in it.

The team is scoring loads, has regained confidence and can continue this into their good run of upcoming fixtures. Eze has been restored into the line-up and Olise is bamboozling defenders – those managers who only have one of the cheap Brighton and Hove Albion midfielders could do a lot worse than invest in one of these too.

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