Dilemmas of the Week - GW18

 

Throughout this hectic December, the main uncertainties are likely to surround 'rest rotations' - and the sudden realisation of 'totting up' suspensions -  as much as injuries. But with such a tight turnaround after last weekend's games, there's been little - if any - team news released for the upcoming 'gameweek', so uncertainties of all kinds abound even more than usual.

And even if we can (mostly) trust the modern professional footballer not to go overboard with the festive eating, they're likely to have had only light training this week - so, the level of tactical preparation for this round of games is likely to be low. And it is inevitable that many players will get rested - though it's just about completely impossible to predict which ones! As I warned at the start of the month, this makes it a particularly rash time to be considering using either of the bonus chips, because you just can't be confident that some of your players - perhaps even your star performers - won't be missing from the lineups; and even if they are all present, you can't be confident in how well they'll perform, when the teams around them might be somewhat unfamiliar, somewhat below par. The immediately post-Christmas games are almost always some of the most eccentric and unpredictable of the whole year: a few teams may do surprisingly well, but some will almost certainly flounder abysmally, and almost all will likely be well below their best. You just can't tell what's going to happen: Liverpool could lose to Leicester tomorrow evening!

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 18?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The one BIG injury issue, of course, is Bukayo Saka, who limped out of the weekend's game against Palace with what looked like quite a serious hamstring problem. His owners were no doubt hopeful that his usually superhuman powers of recovery might mean only a short absence was likely, but Arteta has muttered darkly that he might be missing for "several weeks" (although we can't usually trust anything he says!). I fear we must anticipate that he'll be out until sometime next month at the earliest. And a big sell-off was almost immediate: 1.75 million managers have already dropped him, and his price has dipped by 100k, must be poised to drop again. So, alas, we need to offload him promptly, to avoid a loss of squad value; at least he should be quite a bit cheaper when we want to buy him back.

Brentford's Kristoffer Ajer is also likely to be out for several weeks after suffering an ankle injury in the game against Forest. And Mads Roerslev, who picked up quite a bad cut on his forehead in that game, could also be a doubt - which would leave the club with very few defenders available.

Mats Wieffer may be a slight starting doubt for Brighton, after coming off early against West Ham with some quad tightness.

Fulham's Sasa Lukic and Sander Berge may both be struggling to shake off 'knocks' they picked up against Southampton. However, Emile Smith Rowe, whose unexpected absence in that game was apparently due to a minor injury in training rather than a tactical or disciplinary omission, might be back in contention for the trip to Stamford Bridge.

Matheus Nunes' omission against Villa was apparently due to an injury picked up in training (although it had seemed very possible that he'd just been dropped, after having a bit of a stinker as a makeshift left-back in the Manchester derby the week before), which is likely to keep him out of contention again this week.

Matthijs De Ligt's absence last weekened was due to 'illness', which makes him doubtful for the Boxing Day trip to Wolves too (good news for Harry Maguire owners - both of them!).

Wolves' Mario Lemina was another whose unexplained absence at the weekend was down to a training ground knock, and he might be available again to face United.

In better news,.... Eberechi Eze is said to be close to a comeback for Palace, though perhaps only coming off the bench in the Bournemouth game.

Do we have any players who are dropped, or not looking likely to get the starts we hoped for?

Ashley Young, Sam Morsy, Nicolas Dominguez, and Lucas Paqueta are this week's occupants of the 'sin bin' for accumulating five bookings (though presumably no-one owns any of these!). 

But Matheus Cunha somehow still hasn't been banned....??

And Maxwel Cornet, on loan at Southampton (who knew??), is ineligible to face parent club West Ham.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Well, poor Danny Ward had an absolutely dreadful game in goal against Wolves on Sunday. Van Nistelrooy will probably stand by him, if Mads Hermansen still isn't fit to return, but - it doesn't look like he'll be keeping the place for long, or contributing any worthwhile points while he does; so anyone who'd rushed to buy him as the cheapest starting keeper should be reconsidering their rashness.

Nearly 190,000 FPL managers have dropped Ollie Watkins after his omission at the weekend; but there's really no reason to suppose that was anything other than a one-off rest rotation. People don't yet seem to have responded quite so negatively to Raul's replacement by Rodrigo Muniz - although he's probably much more of an ongoing selection doubt, having only scored 1 goal (albeit a very good one) in his last 9 league outings.

And Spurs's woefully wobbly form - and the increasingly erratic behaviour of their manager - must surely make any of their players a very dodgy choice at the moment. James Maddison looks to be in tremendous form, yet somehow doesn't enjoy Big Ange's full confidence - he was again pulled off well before the hour against Liverpool, although he had looked much their best player.

Did anyone play so well, you have to consider bringing them in immediately?

Well, many people are getting rampantly excited about the excellent performances of Morgan Rogers and Jhon Duran. But it should be noted that City were absolutely dreadful in that game - really looking like a relegation candidate rather than a title contender! Rogers's confidence is sky-high, and I think there are encouraging signs that he's starting to play much higher up the pitch (perhaps liberated to do so by Kamara's return making the team stronger in the middle of the park, and giving them much more resilience against possible counter-attacks); but for me, he'll need a few more performances like that one before he can really enter the conversation for the cheap fifth midfielder spot. And Duran, I fear, is just a little too expensive for a third forward pick; and really can't be a first or second pick unless he does become Emery's preferred starter (which, I will confidently say, ain't going to happen [Oops!! Well, I still stand by that as a general prediction; I think there must be some fitness issue with Watkins at the moment, prompting a limitation of his minutes. It really seems incredibly unlikely that Duran will permanently displace him as first-choice centre-forward, however strong his goalscoring form looks.]).

Jacob Murphy has looked Newcastle's best player in his last couple of outings, and is probably the strongest competition to recently popular Enzo Fernandez and Amad Diallo for the 4th/5th midfelder slots.

However, I think the absolutely outstanding midfield performance of the weekend was from Dominik Szoboszlai. He is thriving in a freer, more advanced 'No. 10' role and - if he keeps a regular start - could, I think, be the strongest replacement option for Saka. (So far, only the rather unimpressive total of 55,000 managers have seen fit to acquire him this week....)

Jordan Pickford was extremely lucky not to get sent off against Chelsea on Sunday; but he and the Everton defence really seem to have recovered last season's remarkable clean sheet mojo over the last month or so, and are all becoming tempting picks again; perhaps especially Vitaly Mykolenko.who tends to offer greater potential for an occasional attacking contribution than the others.

We saw an even more oustanding goalkeeping performance from the returning Aaron Ramsdale (despite his broken finger evidently being not yet completely healed). Southampton have always shown potential going forward; and, since they have been hampered by a particularly disastrous manager until now, I think there's a very good chance of a strong 'new manager bounce' for them - and they do have a reasonably nice fixture run over the coming month. Since his price has fallen to 4.4 million, Ramsdale might become a tempting choice as a back-up keeper for occasional rotation.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

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