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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Morning all. Alderweireld has signed a five year deal with Spurs. Excellent signing for them.
Yes NIN I agree with that but wont make him a good player FPL wise Spurs never good @ keeping clean shts
Yeah, might not be a great pick fop FPL but he’s a good signing for them.
*for
don’t know silverback. spurs seem to be strengthening their defence of late.
will lloris, vertonghen and now toby – you could see more clean sheets than we expect.
if any one of their defenders is decently priced, wouldn’t mind putting him in my roster.
Yes Spurs could get more clean shts , but there MF isn’t exactly strong on def
Their schedule is pretty dodgy to start with too. Cant see myself starting with any Spurs players.
Hey NIN I don’t think any of the big 8 teams have great starts all have possible 4 wins out of 7 GW what are your thoughts
Silverback – Working off the first two months of the season, i’m not seeing anything near a bad run for Arsenal, City, Chelsea and United. Those are the four teams i’ll be trying to get as many players from as possible.
Arsenal – Chelsea (a) on Sep 19th is a tricky one, but not one they’re definitely going to lose. The rest are winnable or bankers, in my opinion.
Chelsea – Jose, nuff said.
City – Chelsea (h) Aug 16th is a big one but again, the other 6 games are more than winnable for a team like City. #Kun
United – October is tough but the first 7 games are a delight. After October it’s into a beautiful run so i’m going to try and stack three United and roll with them.
Hey NIN looking @ top 4 hard GW in 1st 7
Ars CRY A , Liv H & Che A other 4 winnable
Che MC A , Eve A & Ars H other 4 winnable
MC Che H , Cry A & Tot A other 4 winnable
MU Tot H , Swa A , Liv H & Sou A other 3 winnable
I’M not saying they cant win them all but the above will be tough
Plus coleman NIN? If he joins you can have 4 Utd!
Surely we cant consider away games to the likes of Palace & Swansea to be tough games for any team with aspirations of winning the league?
With Darmian set to join United I don’t see them signing Coleman as well.
It all comes down to how we rate teams. Personally, i don’t see Liverpool and Spurs being big tests for the top 4. Recent history suggests they’ll roll over more often than not. Lets not forget that Liverpool have lost everything that made them a handful a couple of seasons back. Everything. Spurs regularly get mashed up by top 4 teams too. I honestly expect United to easily beat them on day1.
Hey Kop. Yeah, cant see us even bothering with Coleman now. I would have loved him to sign but if it’s not to be, then so be it. Darmian is pretty good anyway, and will be a ton cheaper that Seamus. 5.5m would be a steal.
I agree Kop with Darmian it’s perhaps not likely that Louis would go for Coleman too.
Are there any other transfers-to-be out there between BPL sides that would allow us to have 4 of one single team?
I’m not saying they are not winnable just thk they will be hard games , you can guarantee I will stick as many of the big 4 players as I can in my team , I thk MU will be a totally different animal this season as well
Palace lost more than half their home games last season too.
How many of them was Pardew in charge for I thk they only lost 8 since he took over I know your right NIN the big 4 should win all there games against teams like this
Pardew won 4 home games, drew 1 and lost 5. I think Spurs and Liverpool are the ones to be most wary about. Top 4 and Southampton look fair game to me.
here’s one for the lookout:
cabaye to crystal palace.
if he is below 7 – could be a very good differential.
Cabaye could be a very interesting
+1. I think Palace generally could be a shrewd pick in a few places. I haven’t looked at their fixtures but reckon they could be a decent outfit this time around. Very keen on Cabaye, specially if he gets set pieces.
Anyone expect FPL to start today?.
I hope it starts today, but i think it will start next week ……
They emailed me saying sonetime this week.
oh nice
Was just going after last years date (16/7)
It starts earlier this year tho so maybe the fantasy will.
Hey lads I have just re-registered my FPL account so cant be far away
First blood to the Aussies!
Hey Kop was Lyth out for a duck , quack quack
No Silver, he made 6!
Thank god for that , what a waste of time he was @ least my Cap has 2 maidens rack the points up
Possibly not Kop but Swa where no push overs & I thk CRY could do well this season
They certainly could go well, but I would still expect the top teams to beat them more often than not.
Cook gone
Aussies are well on top