A World War Two classic match, the French painter Genskof, Roy Hodgson’s bedtime drink of choice & much more!

Let’s review GW7 for all its goals, VARsical decisions and I believe Arsenal had a game?

Written by @JackAGoodwin in a timely fashion

Wolves 2-0 Crystal Palace

5ft 4 Daniel Podence and new chap Rayan Ait-Nouri scored both goals in a first half which sealed the win for Santo’s Wolves side who brushed aside Palace in a lively opening fixture for the weekend.

21% owned Romain Saiss was dropped for the first time this season, missing out on those juicy cheap sheet points, and after a 2-game scoring spell it was a quiet affair for the 2012 Olympic gold winning Raul Jiminez (I know, random). He was incredibly vacant despite his team winning but is one of few “fixture-proof” players that won’t be getting his P45 from FPL managers just yet even with a darker spell of fixtures looming for Wolves.

Another absentee from the team sheets (& highly owned at 24%) was Palace’s Mitchell which I guess was silver-lined with the 2-0 loss – perhaps wouldn’t have taken home points anyway. Really the only other player of note for you FPL hooligans is Wilfy Zaha – nearly 30% owned, 5 goals so far this season didn’t manage to add to that with the closest chance being a penalty appeal waived off. 2018/19 penalty king Luka Milivojevic was given a red card near the game’s end to further give Roy Hodgson reason for a double-strength Horlicks that evening.

Sheffield Utd 0-1 Man City

T’was then onto the weekends action, spearheaded by Pep’s City crossing the Pennine’s to try and batter a pretty-poor Sheffield side. Batter at the door they did, only to get past the once as ex-Blade Kyle Walker scored the games only goal after 16 attempts by City. And yes, KDB got the assist.

With Liverpool and Spurs on the horizon for Pep, FPL managers will be cautious to bring in Walker (& and defensive assets) right now – but the attacking options also come with caveats. Pep’s famous roulette will be in full force with Champion’s League on his mind and it’s anyone’s guess how the teams will line-up. KDB & Sterling will be your go-to’s but even they are at quite astonishingly low ownerships at the moment (15% & 7%).

An FPL season unlike most so far, Sheffield’s highest scoring FPL player is Ramsdale at GK who on 18 points hasn’t even seen any clean sheet points. Nobody is bringing these lads in, and the Championship is already dangling its bait looking to pull down the Blades before we even get to the Christmas period.

Burnley 0-3 Chelsea

Kurt Happy Zouma (real name, cute) scored his 3rd goal of the season as Chelsea brushed aside a Burnley team competing with Sheffield for the 20/21 Worst Start Award. Hakim Ziyech grabbed his first goal (& assist) of the campaign, Timo his 3rd goal to seal the 3-0 dismantling of Dyche’s lads.

Pulisic was injured in the warm-up to kill off any hope of a 19/20 form return & Jorginho can’t seem to replicate his European form in the League with his 5th low scoring game out of 7 – strangely still reasonably high ownership at 13%. Also, after quite a tidy run of form, Havertz has been quiet since Ziyech’s introduction, small concern for those that planned to set- ‘n’-forget the man with the largest mouth in the League.

An extremely routine win for Chelsea who made this look a doddle against a side who has zero FPL interest for any of us. Clearly 2 losers so far this GW (Sheffield & Burnley) look the odds-on favourites for the drop at this point in the season. Still a LONG way to go, and actually, they’re only 6 points behind Man United so who knows right? (crying inside).

Liverpool 2-1 West Ham

Diogo Jota is seriously flying under the FPL radar at the moment. Registering his 2nd goal in 2 games and 3rd for the campaign which he lacks starts – he even bagged a hattrick in Europe to show Klopp his potential and is surely due to become a regular starting-11 player for Liverpool. At only £6.4m, and 4.8% owned, he’s really finding form from the bench and looking to perk your interests immediately – next up is Man City, but should that really stop you bringing him in?

Fornals ruined any clean sheet points early on as West Ham took the early lead – Fornals with his second double-digit FPL return this season taking home 10 points. Literally no other West Ham players scored more than 2 points, which is quite telling of the game it was, always on the back foot and quite happy I assume with only conceding the two goals.

Just short of DOUBLE the FPL value as Jota is Mo Salah who did score in this one after over 1.5 million of us decided to throw our captain’s armband around him. Shaqiri assisted in his first game of the season, but in truth nobody is looking at him as Jota is the exact same price and having a blast.

What to do with Trent? His 4th blank game in a row, only 1 assist to his name so far and tough fixtures ahead. 31% of you still have him, his £7.4m price tag looking more and more insane as clean sheets become a thing of the past in this crowd-less season. As someone without him, or Robertson, I am very happy I was able to spread his value elsewhere so far – telling by my 130k overall ranking I guess, I took to the punt NOT to invest in a heavy back line. Liverpool will be up there come the end of the season. Will they do it as confidently, authoritatively or attacking as they did last year? Our survey says no. (Just ask Jack Grealish).

Aston Villa 3-4 Southampton

Who’d have thought! THIS game on Box Office probably drew in the smallest amount of revenue, but to those that did purchase the game you got yourselves a little cracker. Ward-Prowse had the performance of the GW as he and the Saints marched up to Brummy to see off Villa in a game filled with top FPL returns.

Villa had 19 shots, 10 on target yet still lost the match to a much more efficient 9 shots, only the 4 on target all of which slipped through Emiliano Martínez’s transparent hands who made ZERO saves. Villa’s 3 goals coming from Mings and then an extra-time double by Grealish & Watkins in a match where against anyone else would’ve sealed the 3 points, if it weren’t for that dastardly McCarthy with his fine 7 saves.

As I said, Ward-Prowse was the MOTM for good reason, scoring twice from direct free-kicks which would make David Beckham clap and toast his glass of Haig Clubman as well as assisting one of the other goals. His 17 points the second double-digit FPL return in succession which could be 3 as Newcastle head to Southampton next. Highly in form Ings grabbed a goal only then to be injured in a scare which has FPL managers refreshing Twitter so fast it becomes a blur of Trump tweets, EPL Statman stats and the occasional non-FPL related witty tweet by FantasyYIRMA just searching for Hasenhuttl’s team news (still a fun surname to say).

Southampton are in-form. Like, really in-form. One of the most consistent since Project Restart kicked-off months back. Ings aside however, FPL managers aren’t yet convinced – what more do we want?

Note/ As I write, Southampton just confirmed Danny Ings out for 6 weeks. 17% of you now have a decision to make!

Newcastle 2-1 Everton

Who’d have thought, when Bournemouth were getting relegated last season that Callum Wilson would fire like this on his debut for a new team (we all knew he’d be signed by someone!). Josh King is looking on, sulking into his Championship mug thinking “that should’ve been me”. Wilson now with 6 goals in 7, 2 in this game which ended a surprise victory for the Toon Army in their first win in the last 3 games.

The result showing the cracks in the Everton paint, defensive worries in an attack heavy squad missing some key personnel (Coleman, Rodriguez & Richarlison). DCL of course got his obligatory goal to take his tally to 8 for the season in a form not looking like slowing down with Man United up next. Now at a crazy 56% owned, DCL will be in our teams until he does a Danny Ings and breaks something.

30% of us also own the injured Rodriguez, the FPL world holds it’s collective breath in hope he can return against Man United this weekend in a game he will undoubtedly prove that United should have splashed the cash way-back when they were negotiating for him only to lose out to Real Madrid. Fun fact, Rodriguez was married to ex-Arsenal GK David Ospina’s sister Daniela.

Sorry, got lost in Wikipedia for a moment! Did you know that the French painter Genskof is a pioneer in laser eye surgery? Anyway…

Man Utd 0-1 Arsenal

And now for Jack’s “Skip One Match From The Review of the Week” …

(Aubameyang scored his first goal, a penalty, since he scored against Fulham in GW1…In case you wondered).

Spurs 2-1 Brighton

Harry Kane scored. Son did not. There, is your in-depth FPL review for this match (because that’s all you guys care about, isn’t it)?

Aside from all that, Gareth Bale scored his first Premier League goal since 2013, helping Spurs take all 3 points against a stubborn Brighton whose Lamptey is grabbing all the right spotlights – scoring Brighton’s only goal. Reguilon grabbed his 2nd assist in just 3 starts for Mourinho meanwhile it was a quiet FPL game for the ever-present Son. West Brom next, don’t panic.

Lamptey now with a goal and 3 assists has Burnley next, however has been flagged as injured so keep an FPL ear to the ground on that one – he is very much an FPL darling with the 11% of managers grabbing him likely doing so through FPL Twitter chat.

Spurs only really have West Brom (next) as a kind fixture remaining. After that, things really begin to test them with City, Chelsea & Arsenal in back to back fixtures immediately after the international break (yes, we are still having them) so be prepared for injuries, Covid cases and every curveball 2020 can throw at us in the lead up to GW9.

Fulham 2-0 West Brom

Damn, I already used my skip, didn’t I? OK…Mitrovic has zero shots on target yet still registered both assists for crazy 8% of managers still clinging on to him (yes, I am one of those idiots).

It was Fulham’s first win of the season, climbing them out of the relegation zone and just 3 points behind Man United (which is my measure of how crap we are). Bobby Decordova-Reid and Ola Aina grabbed both of Fulham’s goals to absolutely no applause from FPL managers as BOTH are sitting at a huge 0.1% ownership. And, none of you, literally none of you own any West Brom players, do you? Good, they were pants. Every last one of them. Already booked on the plane down to the Championship next to Sheffield and Burnley.

Leeds 1-4 Leicester

And finally, we wrap the weekend off with a 5-goal thriller. An emphatic win at Leeds moves Leicester to within a point of Premier League leaders Liverpool.

Jamie Vardy took home his 3rd double-digit FPL return (14) with a goal + 2 assists, Tielemans grabbed 15 points with his fine 2 goals, Harvey Barnes taking 8 points for his goal. Dallas’ goal for Leeds wiped out any hopes of clean sheet points but it was all smiles for Rodgers & co.

Leeds surprisingly didn’t have any goals from Bamford, after his hattrick against Villa couldn’t convert many chances which any other day he’d have tucked away. Fixtures aren’t too kind for Leeds, but with his recent form you’re likely to stick with the man up top for Leeds in your FPL teams.

In 124 games between these two teams since now and 1920, there has never been a 4-1 result, although there have been some crackers. Who could forget Leeds beating Leicester 8-2 back in October 1938 during WWII?

How could we not remember the 6-2 result for Leicester back in the Summer of 1942? Classics.

Written by @JackAGoodwin in a timely fashion

FOLLOW JACK ON TWITTER @JACKAGOODWIN

Written by Jack A. Goodwin -Follow him on Twitter @JackAGoodwin

Jack is an “alternative FPL writer” (Who knew, right?) looking for hidden tales behind the most obscure players, dark humour in the game and the creative storytelling to the most mundane of GameWeeks!He’s played the official game for over 7 years, running leagues throughout the offices of his day job.