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
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]
[/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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Thx Init. Martinez will do you good this season. No Europa league is enough to get everton’s well known work rate to normal levels which should be enough for top 7/8 maybe? Is Baines totally fit? Everton’s defense is top.
That’s a major plus for sure. Weighed heavily last season and was no surprise that we picked up once we finally got knocked out of it. Baines should be fine, he’s had a whole summer off to recover.
Hey guys. Everything good? Good to see some new FPL related articles. Noticed I cold login to FPL again but it still gives last seasons results.
Hey Raz, all good. You? Yeah you need to re-register in prep. It’ll be live any day now.
All good. Tomorrow big party at the Greek Restaurant. After ummmmmm let’s see 50 years of working my father is retiring. At the Greek because it is the best restaurant in the city. Funny, I don’t mind though. The waitresses there are super hot.
Excellent stuff Raz, have a great day. Sounds like a right knees up is in store…
Had to look it up. Yeah, something like that. Will be cool though. Happy for the man. He hated his job after they made him work inside, which has been for about 20 years now.
Hey Raz things are starting to move again now , getting excited love the football & the banter let’s hope for a good season so easy to drop off 😉
Hey mate. Yeah, hoping for another good season. Hoping to seem more Dutchies at work. NOticed today Koeman bought a rather weak FC Twente defender. Really don’t get that buy. He isn’t half the player Toby was.
Raz I like Koeman he seems to know what he’s doing , but I will stick with you on the Dutchies
Noticed on Dutch football sites that most people expect dude to flop. Elia was also a flop in my opinion and that guy from Portugal ummmmmmmmmmmm the Serb I think.
Djuricic
Yeah, that dude. Better than Elia but still overrated.
One player i’m sure We wont see in there articles is Bryan Ruiz. He has signed for Sporting!!! Yeaaahh!!!
Happy for him. Good player. Good technique, always loved watching him in Holland.
Right i am starting a new classic league this season for regular posters on the site, there will also be a cup competition aswell. So, can you e-mail me please giving your regular site name, your real name and the name of your fantasy football team, so when people ask me who someone is i can tell them, cheers.
E-mail address is :- Elleffcee@fantasyfootball247.co.uk
Do I count as regular poster yet 😉
Me?
Yes to the 2 of you. Its all the people who post, even if its only now and then.
I have sent you the mail.
Follow the balls and you shall find.
email sent Elle, i’ll give it a go
email sent ell.
looking forward to it.
Morning all,
You’ve still got 30 minutes to get a team entered in our fantasy ashes league http://ashes.fantasy.ecb.co.uk the entry code is 121-18
Hey Kop have the teams been put up yet ?
No. The teams wont be confirmed until the toss.
Well that’s really good no teams , will just field who I have then
Teams as predicted;
ENGLAND: Cook, Lyth, Ballance, Bell, Root, Stokes, Buttler, Moeen Ali, Broad, Wood, Anderson
AUSTRALIA: Warner, Rogers, Smith, Clarke, Voges, Watson, Haddin, Johnson, Starc, Hazlewood, Lyon.
joined in at the very last minute.
with lack of research, my selection has mostly been intuitive 😛
why couldn’t you post this reminder a few hours before?
all the best everyone.
Sorry Jasprit, but I have posted details a number of times in recent days and we’ve also put details up on twitter
i will have only 10 playing in the first test as finn and marsh won’t play. damn it.
needed more research 😛
11 playing for me but not sure I should have dropped Root Cap is Starc
captain smith for me. lets see how this goes.
here are the last 10 years fpl launch date details:
according to this, the site should be active about anytime now.
FPL launch date (day) (time – all in UK time) season launch date
xx July 2015 (xx day) (xx time) 08 August
16 July 2014 (Wednesday) (11:00am) 16 August
15 July 2013 (Monday) (03:00pm) 17 August
19 July 2012 (Thursday) (06:00pm)18 August
20 July 2011 (Wednesday) (10:30pm) 13 August
12 July 2010 (Monday) (01:35pm) 14 August
07 July 2009 (Tuesday) (03:45pm) 15 August
04 July 2008 (Friday) (04:00pm) 16 August
06 July 2007 (Friday) (09:35am) 11 August
09 July 2006 (Sunday) (01:00am) 19 August