New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2018/19 – Riyad Mahrez and Ben Foster

New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2018/19 – Riyad Mahrez and Ben Foster

Welcome to New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2018/19 – Riyad Mahrez and Ben Foster. Two familiar faces and yet their transfers create uncertainties that must not be ignored. Well, I guess Foster’s could be but I just do what I am told. Mahrez’s £60m move is an indicator of his quality and whilst Ben Foster joins Watford for a relatively tiny £4m, his guaranteed route into a once solid West Brom backline will be fondly remembered by many a fantasy manager. Pre-empting that many of you are here to read about Mahrez, I have put him first.

Riyad Mahrez
Manchester City
FPL Price: £9.0m
I just love watching Mahrez play. Do not worry though, this article won’t take a weird ‘Rosco turn’. Mahrez’s tricky playstyle juxtaposed Jamie Vardy’s directness almost poetically at Leicester. There is one major negative about the transfer from a fantasy perspective though. It is an obvious one, but then you are not reading this as a result of paying me on Patreon and clicking on the article did not throw a barrage of unwanted video adverts and betting pop-ups at your computer screen, so it could be worse!

Anyway, I digress. The negative: whilst I cannot wait to see how he links up with Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, and the rest of Manchester City’s hyper-talented squad, picking him would also leave me a nervous wreck waiting for the line-up to be announced every weekend to see if he is even in the hyper-talented squad that day and disappointed when he is sometimes (inevitably) not there. Perhaps for the first few gameweeks at least, with Raheem Sterling sunning it up somewhere for almost bringing football home, Mahrez might offer a decent route into the thereafter unpredictable City attack.

Excluding goals scored whilst he was not on the pitch, Mahrez scored or assisted 46.9% of Leicester’s goals last season. Leicester only scored 56 goals. City scored 106. I am not suggesting that Mahrez will score or assist 50 goals next season, of course, but even 30% would do! If the game had been released a week later, after City had signed Mahrez, I would have been surprised to see the Algerian listed for £9.0m.

Leicester’s title-winning season saw Mahrez rack up 17 goals and 10 assists which he replicated to an extent last season with 12 goals and 11 assists given that he was not on penalties last year, which accounted for four of his title-winning tally. The 2016/17 season was a difficult one for a Kante-less Leicester and Mahrez in which he only managed six goals – three of which were penalties – and four assists. However, more promisingly, his shots and key passes were not significantly different to the other two seasons.

With a current record of nine penalties scored out of 13, I highly doubt the newcomer will oust both Aguero and Jesus from penalty duties. Indeed, it might be better if he does not! Mahrez had a large role in corners for Leicester and so, given that De Bruyne is De Bruyne, this must be factored into the newcomer’s value. However, only two of his assists came from corners last year despite taking over 80 of them, and he has only ever assisted one other goal from a corner.

Ultimately, any City attacker is a risk this year except Kevin De Bruyne. £9.0m is a lot of money if it is used to warm the bench with (although, rather amusingly, City’s substitues/professional bench warmers cost a lot more than that!) but, as Mito pointed out in his Ramblings article, City’s fixtures after the Arsenal game are too good to miss. I will be taking the rough with the smooth – and the rotation is pretty rough – but last season’s promoted teams along with this season’s in a GW2-7 multipack is as smooth as it gets (no weird imagery in the comments, please). Let us hope that the Community Shield sheds some light on Pep’s plans. We can but hope.

Ben Foster
Watford
FPL Price: £4.5m
Watford Player of the Season 2007 Ben Foster returns to the club, seemingly to replace loanee Orestis Karnezis who has returned to Italy. Heurelho Gomes appears to be looking for a move away from Vicarage Road which would leave Foster to battle it out against 19-year-old Pontus Dahlberg for the starting berth. It is an apprenticeship rather than a battle that Javi Gracia has in mind though with Dahlberg expected to learn from Foster from the sideline and in training whilst the latter wears the gloves week in week out.

Although Watford’s first three fixtures look okay on paper, Watford conceded 64 goals last term, a figure only beaten by West Ham and Stoke. Watford fans are expecting/hoping that the club fork out for an established centre-back, which could increase the appeal of Foster from a clean sheets point of view.

The visit of Brighton in Gameweek 1 is a promising induction for the goalkeeper though given that Chris Hughton’s men only managed to score 10 goals on the road all last season. This dismal figure was even bettered by Huddersfield who seemingly spent much of last season just trying not to lose. This opening day generosity continues into the following two gameweeks; Burnley only managed to score 16 at home last season and Crystal Palace 16 away (although, like a good ‘friend’ on FIFA, Palace only started trying halfway through (the season)!).

After that they have visits from Spurs and Manchester United followed by Arsenal away in Gameweek 7 before a relatively kind string of fixtures up until the third international break after Gameweek 12. At least against the two North London clubs, Foster’s points are more likely to come from saves. Foster recorded 99 saves in 37 matches last season, 16 fewer than the previous season. The Watford duo of Karnezis and Gomes chalked up 93, which was 24 fewer than Gomes managed the year before that. Six of one and half a dozen of the other, really, but not all too close to Lukasz Fabianski’s 137 of last season. Last year, Watford’s keepers faced 2.7 fewer shots per game than the number Foster and Boaz Myhill were exposed to behind the Baggies backline (although that was still an average of 10.9).

Thanks for reading New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2018/19 Riyad Mahrez and Ben Foster. This article was written by AT

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It’s been a busy summer already with Arsenal, Everton, West Ham and Chelsea appointing new managers, Manchester City adding to their already dominant squad, Man Utd continuing to splash the cash and Liverpool trying to protect Karius by beefing up their midfield. Spurs may even have a new home soon.

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