The Overthinking Roundup: Gameweek 4

In which a prodigal Son returned, Evan Ferguson arrived for the year and Erling Haaland responded to us commenting on his penalty miss in last week's headline as only he can

And so we reach the first pause of the 2023/24 Premier League Season. As it does every year, it feels as though it’s come too soon. The English Transfer Window has also closed, meaning the Player Pool is mostly shut, bar a player exit to one of the countries with a different calendar.

This International Break can be a tough one for managers, particularly if you’ve had a bad start to the season record-wise. Resisting the rash cut or trade, whilst spotting the smart adds or opportunities is the aim of the game. But, as ever, if you’re in doubt what to do with a player that you’d previously thought highly of: selling low is rarely a benefit.

We’ll be putting out a set of International Break content over the next ten Premier League-less days, which we hope will help tide you through. Until then, lets revel in the football we did see. We’re trying a slightly different format for the game recaps, which we think will make it easier to read (moving to headings instead of bullets below). Hopefully it’s an improvement. Sorry to any bullet point fans!

Luton Town 1 - 2 West Ham United:

The weekend kicked off with West Ham getting to be the first Premier League side to head to Kenilworth Road this season, riding high near the top of the table and with new signing Mohammed Kudus available for selection. And… Luton Town did not make it easy for them. This might be the season for Danish CB’s named Andersen in Fantrax, with Mads Juel (18.5) perhaps taking inspiration from his Palace counterpart, putting in a late goal that was no less than Luton deserved. It’s still the case that Luton look a little short of the quality that they’d likely need in order to survive, but this was a bit more like it. Ross Barkley (12) has looked pretty good for Fantrax historically whenever he’s had a run in a side and his 4 KPs tonight bode well for his ability to still contribute whilst in a Luton shirt.

On the West Ham side, though this wasn’t the most convincing 90 minutes of their season, we saw continued Fantrax excellence from Jarrod Bowen (14.5), Lucas Paqueta (13.5) and James Ward-Prowse (13). They’re funnelling most of their production through these guys and it’s pretty refreshing to know what you’re getting week-in and week-out. For those on Kudus watch, he played for one minute, got one Fantrax point. Based on that Points Per Minute rate, we can assume statistically that he’s the best player the game has ever seen. More on this as it develops…

Sheffield United 2 - 2 Everton:

So then Everton, it’s time we have an uncomfortable conversation. We’re happy to point at your xG and say that it’s been broadly good. We’re happy to point out that variance makes strange things happen. But if you’re coming out from playing Fulham, Wolves and Sheffield United and you’ve got just a point to show for it, you’re in for a long season. Sure enough, playing Sheffield United solved their goalscoring woes though. Those who followed our Transactions last week could’ve benefitted from Arnaut Danjuma’s performance (16.5) and Abdoulaye Doucoure (19) continues to look good value in Sean Dyche’s system. Beto (9) had an ok debut in real-football terms too, with some lively touches, though he won’t have many easier days in terms of pressure on the ball. And if you want to be optimistic, Dwight McNeill was back on the field as a late substitute and he and Jack Harrison may be back on the field post-International Break. They host Arsenal next, though.

Turning to Sheffield United for just a moment: what a start for Cameron Archer (15.5) whose two long range strikes earned his team the points on his debut. He put up really good expected numbers in the Championship last year, but really we need to be seeing a consistent method of Sheffield United building up before he’s a man you can truly trust. His 0.17 xG is not necessarily worth jumping on, though his Championship exploits suggest there’s at least upside there. Spurs, Newcastle and West Ham are the next three after the break. Rather someone else than me, for those games I think.

Chelsea 0 - 1 Nottingham Forest:

We’ve said it before, there’ll be some amusing results at Chelsea this year, particularly whilst Christopher Nkunku is out and all these new, young pieces are trying to work out the formula. Rather than litigate what went wrong with Chelsea (whose underlying numbers so far are broadly fine, especially compared to last year’s less than good xG generation), we’d like to comment instead on Nottingham Forest because their defensive effort was fantastic this weekend and popular streaming picks like Willy Boly (19.75)—a feature in our transactions section last week—and Matt Turner (12.25) repaid the faith of their fantasy managers. We talked a little about Taiwo Awoniyi (10.5) last week and he continued his double digit games streak, giving Thiago Silva (7.75) in particular a really hard time today. Forest have signed a whole bunch of players again, so who knows what their settled state truly looks like, but Steve Cooper deserves so much credit for surviving the tumultuous period mid-season last year. In our Team Previews we had Nottingham Forest as mid-table, with the addition of a striker to support Awoniyi (Kelechi Iheanacho was linked at the time). Clearly the striker didn’t materialise (in fact, we saw Brennan Johnson exit) but with the other additions and the form of Taiwo and Morgan Gibbs-White (5), they should be comfortable this year.

Manchester City 5 - 1 Fulham:

Manchester City scored 5 goals against Fulham. So far, so normal. It’s worth saying that they did it on less xG than Chelsea generated against Forest (2.26 xG). It helps to have Erling Haaland (43), of course, who was responsible for 1.58 of that tally. And Julian Alvarez (26) continues to look really good. But Fulham, who are without Palhinha after some deadline-day shenanigans, did stifle City for decent stretches. Your two authors discussed City a bit during this weekend and both agree that, although their inevitable march towards another title seems no less likely, they are still a different (lesser) proposition without Kevin de Bruyne. Fulham were scrappy and made things reasonably hard work at times for City, but just don’t really have the quality in the lineup to hold up for 90 minutes against a juggernaught like City. There’s sadly no medals for effort and we remain very worried for the West Londoners, especially if Palhinha is not in the right frame of mind to come back into the team straight away.

Burnley 2 - 5 Tottenham Hotspur:

Writing about the promoted sides early in the season always feels a bit fraught. We’d say year on year they’re typically under-estimated. This year we’ve commented on how both Sheffield United and Luton look like opponents to target. We haven’t said a tonne about the third promoted side in this regard yet. It’s time. Burnley have played three games. It’s been something of a murderers row of a schedule, with them facing Manchester City, Aston Villa and Spurs. But regardless, they’re letting teams rack up huge Fantrax point scores. And it’s not just the unstoppable elite guys, in each of the three weeks we’ve seen a forward go off alongside a less likely name. Week 1: Haaland: 25.5, Rodri: 27. Week 3: Diaby: 22, Cash: 30. This week: Son: 36, Solomon: 28. Admittedly, they’ve faced some good teams, but this is becoming a bit of a pattern. And their fixture run doesn’t really ease up post-international break. Sorry to friend of the blog Brett, but we’re a bit nervous here. Sure, Lyle Foster (15.5) is a positive, scoring from 0.55 xG this week but it’s unlikely to be enough to hold significant optimism for the Turf Moor faithful yet.

Tottenham have marched their way to the Top 4 at time of writing. But we’re not too worried about whether that’s real or not. What does seem to be real is that Ange Postecoglou is a fantastic Fantrax point generating manager. Even as someone predisposed to not hugely liking Tottenham, I’m a big fan of what he’s bringing to the league this season. Don’t change, Ange. Also nice to see Son get a run at striker. Long may it continue. Also: I remain Solomon doubtful, but that was certainly something points-wise this weekend.

Brentford 2 - 2 Bournemouth:

So that was pretty fun. Bryan Mbeumo (18.5) was Brentford’s hero, as he has been time and again this season, equalising at the death. Brentford had previously been denied by the woodwork on chances for both Kevin Schade (18) and Yoanne Wissa (2). They’ve made a mockery of suggestions that they’d struggle without Ivan Toney. Thomas Frank has been consistently one of the best managers in the League since Brentford were promoted and he’s showing it again this year.

For Bournemouth, the performance was better and Dominic Solanke (14) continues to put up decent output as the focal point of this attack. They still feel like a team in limbo, though. We need to see Dango Ouattara, Alex Scott and Tyler Adams at a minimum in this lineup before too long and they are likely to really need them, going into a tough set of fixtures post-International Break. Even with a squad that we quite like on paper, if they don’t have any points to show for it by the time we hit mid-October, confidence can be a very fragile thing.

Brighton 3 - 1 Newcastle United:

Evan Joe Ferguson (37), take a bow. It’s been a bit of a slow start this season with the manager’s rotations. But he’s going to be a superstar. We’re normally careful balancing our praise here, because honestly everything in football is just probabilities with a whole bunch of luck chucked on top. On this one, we’re not holding back. He earned a profile after two games. He was in our Breakouts picks for this year. And we tried to convince you to buy him after GW1. The window is probably gone after his dismantling of last season’s second best defence (by xGA) this weekend. It was a muted day for most of the rest of the Brighton stars—solid, if not spectacular—with the exception of Billy Gilmour (19) who ended up with two assists. He only had 0.17 xGA, so he’s got Evan Ferguson’s finishing to thank for a lot of those points. We’re not chasing them and considering adding him and you shouldn’t either. It was a tough day at the races for Newcastle. They’ve lost three in a row, which is partly down to the way the fixtures have fallen. Their defenders, so valuable last year, have suffered as a result. If you’re someone that’s rostered the likes of Fabian Schar (0.75) and need some optimism: their fixtures after the International Break get a whole lot nicer. We’re not saying that you shouldn’t be worried (they do look less solid generally this year) but we are saying that you should know you’re likely at the lowest point of their value if you wanted to cut on them.

Liverpool 3 - 0 Aston Villa:

Aston Villa are one of the more confusing sides this season. They’ve delivered two thumpings: one to Burnley and one to Everton. They’ve also now been on the other side of two. Liverpool played a big chunk of the second half like it was a training game, having done their damage pretty convincingly by the hour mark. Darwin Nunez (15.5) was handed the start and it continued to be a wild ride. He had five shots (hitting the woodwork twice) for 1.17 xG and he had two assists. The man is box office. Other big days at the office were recorded by Dominic Szoboszlai (17) who opened the scoring with a lovely strike and the usual suspects of Mo Salah (21) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (26). Trent exited the game with an injury but it doesn’t seem like there’s any suggestion it was anything too serious at this point. A more cynical blog might note that we’re heading into an International Break. Anyways. The headline remains that Liverpool have some things to work out, but looking at the 10 points in the bag and the way they played today when they let a little more attacking verve into the front three, there’s plenty of reasons for optimism. On the other side of things, Unai Emery needs to sort his big game tactics out. Only Lucas Digne (11.5) recorded starter level numbers. And he probably wouldn’t even be playing if Alex Moreno had a full pre-season. Chelsea and Brighton in the next three for Villa. Lets see if he can go back to the drawing board for something better.

Crystal Palace 3 - 2 Wolves:

Do not make the Wolves blurb about Pedro Neto (29) again. Do not make the Wolves blurb about Pedro Neto again. I’ve got basically nothing else to say. Wolves keep bringing players off the bench to score and that’s basically useless for Fantrax. Mario Lemina (13.5) did have a day but… like… we’ve seen him for years and he isn’t a Fantrax guy. Wolves did make a new signing that piqued our interest a little (find that in the Transactions below) but there’s so little to say about them other than praising the Portuguese wing-wizard. Crystal Palace, on the other hand, rode a huge game from Eberechi Eze (27) points to the win. He remains one of the most consistent guys around, even without a star supporting cast, creating a tonne and adding his first goal of the season. Odsonne Edouard (25.5) added two more goals to his tally and he looks a good bet to score against the lower half teams. He’s never going to be an elite guy, but he is good and deserves streaming consideration whenever the matchups good. Also, we really like Tyrick Mitchell as a defender but 5.5 points with an assist is truly an impressive commitment to not scoring Fantrax points and deserves a call out.

Arsenal 3 - 1 Manchester United:

Though Arsenal ran away with the scoreline late, the game itself was pretty cagey for much of the running time. In the GW Preview, we discussed wanting to see signs of life from Arsenal’s (non-Bukayo Saka) attackers. And we saw some. Martinelli (14) and Martin Odegaard (14) both started and with an assist and a goal respectively, put up healthy enough tallies (though very little in terms of ghost point production). Gabriel Jesus also hit 14 points, scoring a late goal to really rub things in. It wasn’t quite at last season’s levels, but at least we were back in double figures. We don’t have much interest piling on the Kai Havertz (4) discourse, but it’s fair to say that this new role has limited Fantrax potential from what we’ve seen so far. This was the draft season risk and, if you paid for him, you’re probably best off holding for a little while longer but, even with Everton and Bournemouth in the next three, I’m not sure I’d confidently start him until we see something more.

On the other side of the ball, we didn’t see a huge amount of anything. Christian Eriksen (13.5) made an excellent pass to set up Marcus Rashford’s (16) goal. In doing so, the two of them accounted for 43% of Manchester United’s Fantrax points on the day in just two kicks of the ball. That’s not great. Bruno Fernandes (9) accounted for the only other significant percentage. Not everything seems well in the United camp, with Erik Ten Hag calling out everyone from the referee to Jadon Sancho in the post-game. They need to perk up, because they get Brighton next.

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