New Signings – Fantasy Premier League 2015/16. Deulofeu, Cleverley
We continue our pre-season look at the relevant FPL signings today with a couple of players who you should already be familiar with from past FPL exploits but who have both decided to move to the house of Martinez… You know the house we mean. The one that had rock solid foundations under it’s previous owner Senor Moyes. The one that Senor Martinez decided was too functional and needed more flair and a few nice touches. Many, many nice touches. Far too many bloody touches. So he hung up a few fancy drapes and the foundations simply crumbled under the weight of them. His response has been to go out and buy a few more frilly bits. Lightweight ones at that. And so we bring you his business so far…
Gerard Deulofeu
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[/three_fourth]Everton
Age : 21
Position : TBC (Mid / Fwd)
Signed from : Barcelona
Fee : £4.2m
The man with the hardest name to spell in FPL is back. We forgive you now for the inevitable 45 variations that we will surely see in the run up to the season. The question is whether the young Spaniard is actually worth the effort in trying. The proof will be in the pudding but it depends a lot on his FPL classification. Last time he graced our shores he was a ‘forward’ according to the FPL site, although he rarely, if ever, featured as one. He’s more of a wide man and we feel he should be classified as a midfielder. If he is, and he’s kindly priced, then he could be a good pick up for a budget 4th or 5th midfielder if he is pitched at a realistic £5m – £6m.
Gerard spent the 2013/14 on loan at Goodison and made a good impression in fleeting appearances before returning to parent club Barcelona. His initial spell with Everton was hampered with a hamstring injury that kept him out of contention for a while but in all honesty the intention was that he would get a bit of experience of top flight football while not necessarily being first choice and when he did feature he did well enough to convince Martinez to splash the cash and sign him up permanently for about £6m this summer. He managed to fit in just 25 appearances for the Toffees in that spell notching 3 goals and 4 assists which doesn’t sound great but let’s break that down a bit and make it sound better! – He only actually had about 900 minutes of action in total which is effectively 10 full games so those goal and assist ratios actually represented a pretty decent return.
Since he last graced a Premier League pitch young Gerard returned to Barcelona and was promptly loaned out to Sevilla where he had mixed fortunes. He only managed 17 league appearances but did get 6 assists and a solitary goal in those outings and it was 9 assists across all competitions so again his returns are good when he actually plays.
He’s a rough diamond that needs a lot of polishing but hopefully Martinez will do that. As a player he’s a tricky winger who loves a dribble. His main flaw is that he’s yet to look up and find a final pass. That said if you look up and all you see is Steven ‘honestly, I’m a professional footballer, it just looks like I’m playing with a balloon’ Naismith and Romelu ‘Is that a Champions League class pass, no then I couldn’t be bothered going after it’ Lukaku, then he can be forgiven for that somewhat.
His main issue will be game-time. Assuming he plays as a winger in a 4-3-3 then competition for places will be fierce as Everton have a plethora of options in the shape of Mirallas, Pienaar, Naismith and McGeady not to mention the likes of Barkley and Osman who can also fill those berths and the possibility of Lennon coming back in on a permanent deal having impressed in his brief loan spell. If he can nail a starting spot then he should provide great value. If he’s classed as a midfelder and is cheap enough then he’s one to consider for your 5th spot but either way, Everton’s opening fixtures are a bit of a nightmare so you could always sit back and assess him from afar to begin with.
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Tom Cleverley
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[/three_fourth]Everton
Age : 25
Position : Midfield
Signed from : Manchester United
Fee : Free
Martinez clearly wants to surround himself with familiar faces and as such moved early to snap up Cleverley on a free transfer having missed out on doing so last season. Cleverley played under Martinez during a successful loan spell at Wigan back in the 2010/11 season when he helped himself to 3 goals and 2 assists in 25 appearances. Martinez has indicated that he sees him playing an advanced role and adding some much needed creativity to their attack which may mean he actually plays as a ‘No 10’ and is tasked with providing the bullets for Lukaku to fire.
Whether Cool Hand Luk-aku can aim properly is another matter entirely but it’s a fascinating prospect as Tom fared fairly well at Villa last season and indeed surprised a good many naysayers. 3 goals in 3 games towards the end of the season helped Villa secure their Premier League status and they would have loved to have kept hold of him but he had his heart set on a reunion with Martinez. Those 3 quickfire goals were however his only ones all season and he somehow failed to register a single assist. So either Martinez sees things we don’t or he’s simply clutching at straws. Only time will tell but we’d take a back seat on this one and see what happens. He was £5.5m last season and will probably come in at the same this time around so as per Delofueueoufoueue he’d be a luxury 5th midfielder for you really.
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I’m actually very excited by Deulofeu coming back to Everton. It almost makes you wonder if he’s not here to take Mirallas’ place should he get to pouting again.
Great little player with a lot of pontential.
Yeah, he could be worth picking up in November if he’s established himself by then.
I liked him Guy, bit greedy and needs a lot of coaching on that aspect but he’s young too so that’ll come eventually. My first thought when he signed was that Mirallas was offski and that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all in all honesty. He seems a decisive personality and not a very intelligent one at that. Bit of a bad apple if you will.
Palace have wrapped up the Cabaye deal from what i hear. Just a matter of a press announcement to confirm it. Fee & terms have been agreed. The budget midfielder merry-go-round begins 😉
Is it anyone who knows when i can create my team for 15/16?
Hi Marcus. Unfortunately, there is no set date for FPL launch. We’re all waiting too but it should be this week sometime.
Thanks for the run down on these two players Init.
Have to be honest and say that neither particularly interests me for my fantasy squad. Everton themselves don’t inspire me greatly. But you’ll understand that I bet!
Hey GP, thanks. I began writing with great hope and by the end I’d basically written them both off! Which negated the article but I guess not every player will come with a ‘good buy’ sign though and I suppose that’s also the point of these.
We will fare better this season purely because of the absence of Europa games but as NIN said above and I may have said on the article (can’t remember now!) these will possibly have to wait until the Autumn when our fixtures ease up as the first 9 are a bloody nightmare!