Game Week 5: Stoke Aren’t a Very Good Team
I’m going to take a quick moment to brag about how every single player I recommended last week scored. You should have listened to me. Now that that’s over let’s look at how last week’s fixtures faired.
I was wrong when I said that Man Utd would win the derby. City dominated most of the first half and went 2–1 up with goals from De Bruyne and Iheanacho before Ibrahimovic managed to claw a goal back. Claudio Bravo was at fault for Zlatan’s goal, the debutant let the ball slip through his hands in a move that left Joe Hart with a giant smirk on his face. Middlesbrough vs Palace also ended 2–1 with goals from Benteke, Zaha, and Ayala. Arsenal vs Southampton followed the trend and finished 2–1 as well. An unlucky own goal by Cech was offset by a superb bicycle kick from Koscielny and an extremely late penalty from Cazorla. Bournemouth beat West Brom 1–0 with Callum Wilson scoring for the first time since his injury last September. Burnley and Hull drew 1–1. Burnley went ahead after a goal from Defour, but a 90+4th minute free kick from Snodgrass leveled the scoreline, salvaged Hull a point, and saved my predictions.
Stoke hosted Spurs in a fixture that always features a lot of goals. Spurs looked like their former selves and absolutely dominated the match, winning 4–0. Christian Eriksen assisted Son Heung-min in netting the first two, Alli scored the third, and Son put the fourth on a platter for Harry Kane to end his goal drought. West Ham vs Watford was one of the strangest matches I’ve ever witnessed. The Hammers gained an early 2–0 lead after two goals from Antonio, both of which were assisted by Payet, one of which was a fancy rabona (Lamela was unimpressed). After that things just fell apart for West Ham. Watford leveled the score before halftime when the duo of Ighalo and Deeney both scored. Capoue and Holebas put the Hornets up by two by the 63rd minute leaving most FPL managers angry that they left Capoue on the bench with 13 points… again. Although I don’t think anyone was as angry as the West Ham fans, who ended up fighting with Watford fans, the stewards, and themselves.
An investigation has been launched after a number of West Ham fans clashed with stewards and Watford supporters during…news.sky.com
Liverpool smashed Leicester 4–1. Firmino finally got off the mark with a brace, Mane and Lallana scored the other two. Vardy was the sole scorer for Leicester. Oscar assisted his father, Diego Costa to open the scoring in Chelsea’s 2–2 draw with Swansea. The Spaniard/Brazilian probably should have been send off for the third time this season. A penalty from Sigurdsson and a goal from Fer put the Swans up 2–1 before Oscar’s Dad leveled the score in the final 10 minutes.
Sunderland vs Everton ended 0–0 at halftime, however 23 year old Romelu Lukaku changed that to save many FPL managers’ weeks. The 23 year old Belgian scored an 11 minute hat trick to secure a 3–0 win for Everton and end his six month goal drought. This is a very impressive feat for someone who’s only 23 years old, he probably set some sort of record for doing things while being 23 years old. Did I mention that he’s 23 years old?
Enough with the “Lukaku is young” narrative. Let’s look at Game Week 5.
1. Kevin De Bruyne
Last week’s match showed us that when Aguero’s away De Bruyne will play… up front. Although he was listed as a playing on the right wing De Bruyne spend the majority of the game in the centre of the field playing further up the pitch than Iheanacho. Aguero usually occupies this position but it seems like De Bruyne was playing as a centre forward vs Man Utd. His more advanced position was integral to his terrific performance, he registered six shots in total, for of which were from within the penalty area. One of them was a goal, two hit the woodwork, one was saved, and two were off target. Those are ridiculously impressive stats and his performance is what gave City a leg up over Utd.
City host Bournemouth in GW5. At a glance Bournemouth are not the weakest when it comes to defense. They’ve only conceded five goals so far, just over one per game. But when you look at things a bit closely things get dire. Looking at their home and away form tells us that Bournemouth are much, much more comfortable playing at home. At home they concede an average of 11.5 shots per game, which is fairly average. However, that number almost doubles to 20 shots per game when playing away. It’s a mystery that they haven’t conceded more goals, but with how clinical this City team is I don’t see their fortune continuing much longer.
De Bruyne is a great pick in FTSY as long as Aguero isn’t on the pitch. He put on the best solo performance of the season against Man Utd and he’ll likely do it again, if he plays. De Bruyne played the full 90 in City’s Champions League match against Borussia M’Gladbach (*tips fedora*) on Wednesday and there’s a chance that Guardiola might rest some of their key players over the weekend. Keep an eye on the City’s press conference before the match to get an idea of what Pep is planning. De Bruyne isn’t likely to be on anyone’s radar in FPL. Most people will have one premium midfielder (or even none if you’re going to try and mash Aguero, Ibrahimovic, and Costa into your team), which is most likely taken up by Hazard or Sanchez. But if you do have De Bruyne, now is the time to captain him.
2. Benteke
Benteke plays for Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace are playing Stoke. Stoke are awful.
If you want more convincing I’m just going to list off some stats about how Benteke seems to have settled into his new team and how they’re building their attack around him. Benteke won the most aerial duels out of any player last week. This is mostly due to Palace directing the majority (73%) of their attack down the flanks, and have put in the most number of crosses this season by quite a margin. All of this points to Benteke scoring goals with his head.
Stoke are terrible. Last week’s match against Spurs highlighted the fact that if you want to win your league this year your tactic should be to bet against Stoke. Stoke faced 20 shots on Saturday, somehow they allowed 14 of those to come from within the penalty area. Out of the shots taken only 4 went off target, 8 were blocked, 4 were saved, and 4 went in. Stoke are only on one point and this is their worst start to a season in 110 years. They’ve only won one game out of eleven since Jack Butland was injured in March.
If these stats don’t convince you of how bad Stoke’s defense is maybe you’ll be persuaded by the fact that (according to ex-Stoke defender, Marc Wilson) they don’t even practise defending in training!
Benteke is good and Stoke suck. Do you need any other reason to pick him? He’s going to be a great pick in FTSY this week seeing as he’ll be overlooked by a lot of people, giving him a high value. Now’s the time to jump on the Benteke bandwagon in FPL too. I think a lot of people are looking for replacements to their 6.5 priced strikers (I want to get off of Andre Gray’s WIld Ride). Benteke is the guy to go for if you have a spare 1.0. But act quickly, his price might rise this week.
3. Kane/Lamela/Alli
Pick a Tottenham player, any Tottenham player. Spurs look back to top form after their 4–0 win against Stoke. They played the kind of fluid, attacking football that placed them in the title race last season. Adding to that, Mousa Dembele is back! As I said last week, Spurs are a much, much better team if Dembele is on the pitch. The problem here is that Pochettino likes to rotate players and Spurs played Monaco in the Champions League on Wednesday. As with De Bruyne, keep an eye on the press conferences to see who’ll be rested.
Spurs go up against Sunderland in GW5 who have won just the one point so far (a draw against 17th place Southampton). Losses to Man City, Middlesbrough, and Palace have left them with 8 goals conceded (an average of two per game) and a -5 goal difference. Their measly 36% possession when away from home plays right into Spurs’ play style, expect Spurs to spend the majority of the game in possession.
With this being a relatively easy game on paper expect some of Spurs’ more important players to be rested. Janssen is a capable back up to Kane, so we might see Kane on the bench. Whether or not Lamela and Alli get rested is a toss up. Spurs are have options when it comes to the three positions behind the striker, so we might see any number of combinations there. Look out for the Spurs press conference and the player’s FTSY values before choosing which player to go with. In FPL a lot more managers have Lamela than Eriksen or Alli. I’m not sold on Alli yet, but Eriksen seems to be back to his best now that he’s sorted out his contract negotiations (excluding his poor performance against Monaco). He could be a good differential, somehow he always ends up within the top 5 scoring midfielders every season.
There you have it, the bottom line is to bet against Stoke and Sunderland. Sorry if I angered or offended any Stoke and Sunderland fans but you have to admit, you guys are pretty terrible.
