New Signings – Fantasy Premier League 2016/17. Southampton
It has been another summer of turmoil down on the South coast as once more Southampton have lost a number of their key assets. Liverpool clearly felt that they did not have enough ex-Southampton players in their ranks so decided to shell out a reported £34m on Sadio Mane. Spurs splashed out £11m on midfield enforcer Victor Wanyama, while Graziano Pelle has buggered off to China where he will earn a reported £260k per week. The world has officially gone mad! However perhaps the biggest loss will be manager Ronald Koeman who has taken over the reins at Goodison Park. Koeman has been replaced by Frenchman Claude Puel who has spent the past 4 seasons in charge of Ligue 1 side Nice, and prior to that he had spells in charge of Lyon, Lille and Monaco. Over the years he has developed a reputation for developing youngsters and playing an attractive brand of football. This should see him fit in well at Southampton. Although he has big shoes to fill as Koeman had built on the work of Mauricio Pochettino. What he have seen in recent years is that Southampton typically spend their money wisely and judging from their latest two signings they have once more spent wisely.
For Southampton’s pre-season games, line-ups and general musings here is their link on the Pre-season hub we have created Southampton Pre-season info
Nathan Redmond (£6.0m)
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After three years at Carrow Road Redmond decided to leave Norwich after they were relegated for the second time in three seasons. Redmond clearly wasn’t bought by Puel as his appointment was confirmed after the purchase of Redmond, although he has apparently been a long-term target for the Southampton hierarchy and we’ve seen how successful they have been over the years. The 22 year old will undoubtedly be seen as a direct replacement for Sadio Mane, but is he good enough to do so? Last season Mane scored 11 and assisted six while Redmond managed just six goals and three assists. Such basis stats are not always the best means to compare two players and some of the underlying stats suggest that Redmond can replace Mane. He created more chances per 90 minutes than Mane did. Surrounded by better quality players we must assume that more of these chances will now be scored! He’s certainly not the goalscorer that Mane is, he’s only managed to find the back of the net on 18 occasions in 174 league appearances. Although he did get his Saints career off to a flyer yesterday with two goals. Against… Zwolle. I would certainly expect him to pick up more fantasy points than in previous season but whether or not he’s worth considering will be determined by his price.
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Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (£4.5m)
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Just as many will view Redmond as a replacement for Mane they are likely to see Hojbjerg as a replacement for Wanyama. He is a defensive midfielder by trade but can just as easily play as a box-to-box midfielder. The 20 year-old has long been seen as one of Europe’s hottest properties and when he moved to Bayern back in 2013 many expected him to kick onto the next level under Pep Guardiola. Unfortunately it didn’t work out at the German club as he was kept out of the team by Kroos, Thiago and Schweinsteiger. Frustrated by a lack of game time he joined Augsburg on loan in January 2015 helping them to qualify for the Europa League where his tireless running and positivity going forward played an important role. He spent last season on loan at Schalke but struggled to cement his place in the side. What can we expect from him at Southampton? Assuming Puel adopts a 4-2-3-1 formation I would expect Hojbjerg to play as part of a two man holding midfield. He should have the physical strength to adapt to life in the Premier League and I expect Puel will work with him on the training ground to encourage him to get forward on a regular basis. Is he likely to be a fantasy asset? For now I would take a wait and see approach.
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Fixture Tracker – the first 6 games
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**NEW ARTICLE**
Many thanks to Mr Kop for a quick rundown on two of the new boys at Saints and their bargain basement potential.
Just to keep everyone in the loop as to our article plans for the next few weeks – we basically have about 6 player profile ones in the can as well as a promoted teams analysis, the community team article and a special Grab, Avoid or Bore-off edition. So about 9 articles in 14 days before we launch into the normal Tips, Fixtures, Capos etc prior to GW1. So expect a fresh article at least every other day.
Great stuff init. Good to know. Gabo? Prepare yourself to answer a few questions on feghouli!!
Hmmm…he might have been left out.
No just kidding, the question in no way tried to steer the illustrious panel to agree with a certain member of this site who also happen to have provided the questions, pure coincidence. 
Sofianne is just an example of class, workrate and joy on the field. You got to love him.
As I remember it the somewhat leading question on him doesn’t even mention him! Talk about having to read between the lines
“He also can play between the opposition’s lines”, one of the interviewed said!
Cheers Init
Many thanks Kop! Not surprised you decided to cover Saints…#FutureLFCPlayers
SFC = Scouse Feeder Club 😉
So I am going to put together a quick comparison of a bunch of mids that played in the FPL last season. Simple really, just comparing them all if we gave them all the same minutes last season to see how they would compare to each other. Obviously it is just for fun as it is not a true indicator, but it does allow us to see possible potential.
Hi Kop Cheers for this. Redmond could In fact prove to be a good investment. He did very well at norwich given the quality of the team so he should perform well here. Thanks.
One for you night owls.
Did some quick number crunching, gave all these mids 3420 minutes (38 games x 90 minutes) obviously I know most if not all of these will not see 3420, but it was just way to level out the playing field in a way. I am not trying to justify one over the other, but the following are the FPL points players were on pace to achieve if they played the full amount of possible minutes. One must also take into account that tactics and positioning may change for some of these players in the upcoming season. Alli played several games at CDM, Firmino may not play at forward as many games, some may lose set pieces or in the case of others, maybe they are just not capable of logging in the minutes to make them worthwhile. Anyways here is a quick table>
Tadic looks great value, Sanchez maybe not as bad last season as many thought, Firmino DAMN!!, Alli looks the part…
Those are the things I gathered from the table.
Nice one Mito. Could you be arsed to sort that by the 3420 pts collumn?
Great minds
I want my hands on that sheet!
There you go DMC
Thx yeah Firmino rocks. Tadic has brutal projected pts but he’s probably the bigger rotation risk of that top 10. Maybe less, now that mane is Out? Tadic is a class player In deed. I had him as a punt In that 4 assists display In the 8-0 trashing of sunderland two seasons back. Alli still looks great too and Sanchez may be needed… Grrr ignorance is a blessing! Thx for this mate.
Great stuff that Mito. Slightly surprised at Siggy lagging there a bit. Definite eye opener on some players. I’d like to see it presented with a PPM column for both actual and projected and then ordered top to bottom in relation to projected. Not saying you should but if you forward on that spreadsheet to me I’ll do it tomorrow night and post it up. Various scenarios to take out of that.
It is with you, knock yourself out.
Lazy bstrd
I still have Mitro’s team to look at…
Tadic is great value and looks like not many people will have him.
Received a random tweet from someone I don’t know but basically they used our fixture tracker to create a defensive rotation analysis. May be worth a read for some. Feedback welcome!
https://kvigfpl.wordpress.com/2016/07/12/defender-rotation-analysis-1617/
I used the same science to colour that tracker in, as I use in FMLS to pick out my transfers from week to week. 😉
Let’s not tell them that though eh, the illusion is always brighter than the reality!
This one is also very helpful. I guess it goes down to each one’s views of the fixtures difficulty. As it stands, I’m going with the 3 + 4/4.5 regardeless. Happy I have a City In those 3.
Ps: I think they repeat figures 6/7 If you want to get back to them.
looks very good and is very helpful. looks like I need to change my defence then