New Signings – Fantasy Premier League 2016/17. Zaza, Boufal, Manquillo

New Signings – Fantasy Premier League 2016/17. Zaza, Boufal, Manquillo

The second of this week’s review of recent transfers might easily be renamed “The most pointless article of the season”. There is no Benteke to provide your 3rd striker solution, nor is there a Pereyra to get your juices flowing. Instead, we have West Ham’s new striker whose biggest claim to fame is to impersonate an English player in a penalty shootout while wearing an Italian shirt; there is an award winning African Frenchman who is injured but who still becomes Southampton’s record signing and last but very certainly least is the Sunderland defender who wasn’t even good enough to hack it in the Liverpool backline.

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Simone Zaza (West Ham – forward – FPL price 7.0mln)
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Losing Andy Carroll and Andre Ayew to injury so early in the season has at least given Slaven Bilic the opportunity to dip into the market to find a replacement while the window was still open and the Hammers have plumped for Italian striker Simone Zaza. If the name is not immediately obvious to you, then cast your minds back to the Euros and the penalty shoot-out between Italy and Germany – Zaza was the chap who made the bizarre run up only to miss his penalty. This was after he was brought on in the last seconds of extra-time to take a penalty in the shoot-out. So there is amusement from the start, which is always a positive. Zaza has found first team football hard to come by at Juve, making just five starts. He has represented Italy on 14 occasions scoring just the one goal and is described as quick, strong, versatile and hard-working, capable of playing both as a centre forward and off another player as a second striker. Time will tell if he can finally settle down and perform in a top division, but with the likes of Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini around, there should be plenty of creation behind him. Zaza has joined the Hammers on a season long loan and the club has an option to buy him permanently in the summer.

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Sofiane Boufal (Southampton – midfielder – FPL price 7.0mln)
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Having got rid of Graziano Pelle and Sadio Mane, the Saints decided that the purchase of Nathan Redmond wasn’t enough and have paid a club record £16mln to bring 22 year-old Sofiane Boufal from Lille. Boufal can either play as an attacking midfielder or a winger and last season scored 11 goals and made 4 assists in 29 league appearances for the French side, which prompted his call up to the Moroccan national team in March of this year. He has actually scored with 7 of his last 8 shots (for Lille, obviously).
Don’t get too excited quite yet as Boufal is recuperating from a knee injury sustained in May and is not likely to be available for at least another month or so. However, Saints boss Claude Puel knows the French league inside out and must therefore see something special in the player who won Best African player in Ligue One.

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Javier Manquillo (Sunderland – defender – FPL price 4.5mln)
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Manquillo has joined Sunderland on a season-long loan from Athletico Madrid. The right back is known to us from his brief time at Liverpool (again on loan) where he started under Brendan Rodgers but quickly dropped out of the first team after ten appearances and was sent back to Madrid a year early. With the Black Cats in dire trouble having lost Big Sam, Moyesie has been busy in the transfer market and Manquillo will compete with Donald Love and Billy Jones for the right back slot and made his debut in the weekend draw at Southampton.
Frankly a Sunderland defender looks like a strange desire for any FPL manager now that Big Sam has departed and with Lamine Kone’s future at the club in doubt. However, if the club can keep Kone and shore up the defence then maybe the likes of Manquillo may become a possibility if he can make the right back position his own. However, our favoured Black Cat defender remains PVA due to his attacking returns.

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Thanks for reading New Signings – Fantasy Premier League 2016/17. Zaza, Boufal, Manquillo This article was written by Cookie

Follow @SteveCook9

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