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
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*** NEW ARTICLE ***
Three more must-have FPL players are reviewed for your perusal and pleasure.
Cheers Cookie, you forgot Chadli though. You want to keep him secret dont you :p, or is this article just for new to the EPL?
The week is young, Lukey, the week is young – patience my friend.
Fair enough, probably going to be another 10+ signings anyway, I hope Spurs are on that list :/
Thanks Cookie.
“I can see that this club is the best place for me to continue my progression as a footballer,” Boufal said. – Wants to move to Liverpool then I guess 😛
ah an attacking midfielder – just what Liverpool need!
Cheers Cook. Interested by this Boufal fella but didn’t know he was injured sadly. Manquillo can stay far way the lad was useless for us and I don’t see him improving the Sunderland defence too much.
Yeah I was surprised when Sunderland went for Manquillo – shows how desperate their situation is I spose. Boufal could be good, given some time I think.
Yeah it seems that Sunderland are just trying to get bodies in the defence as they know they will be fighting for survival again this year. He seems like a Ben Arfa type player but let’s hope he doesn’t have the attitude that Arfa has.
Ok thk I had a blood rush to my head & changed Mahrez & Townsend last night brought in Caz & Bark which I’m now regretting don’t thk I should have brought in Caz . I’m away to Paphos tomorrow for my daughters Wedding so I’m not going to have a lot of time over the nk two wks to have a look at my team oh well just need team to hang in there for this nk GW.
Any news on Kun or Gray yet ????
hahaha oh Silvers, what are we to do with you?!
No news on the naughty boys no.
No Silvers but I expect both to be given bans. Caz is an interesting choice given how far back he plays but he is on pens at least.
Are FFF correct on Chadli’s massive increase in ownership? Am I missing something? He was going up about 2x faster than Sterling yesterday and 6x faster than anyone else. A revelation at WBA perhaps..
It’s being reported that Andre Marriner said in his refs report that he missed Kun’s elbow on Reid, giving FA more power to look into it. It would seem a charge and ban is therefore more likely.
Yeah it’s kind of a guarantee now that Kun will get a ban and it will more than likely be 3 games. Helps with budget I suppose.
Until we panic to get him back for the Swansea game 😉
Not at all!! 😉 we’d just need to plan better haha
My worry for people WCing is that they will make a team distributing the money from Aguero around and then they’ll struggle to get him back in w/o another WC.
Ummm AT, that’s the pleasant side of people WC-ing. HAHA! I love it. They will have to take hits to get Kun back or swap Ibra to Kun.
I say worry in an empty manner 😉
3 games ban Matt but only 2 EPL games, something to keep in mind.
Way I’m seeing it though Raz is that he is at £13.1m currently and, following the ban, he will undoubtedly drop to at least £13m (I would suspect more). As such, you could actually buy Aguero back cheaper come the end of his ban whilst using his absence to invest heavily in premiums elsewhere. Usually the argument is that getting rid and buying back will lose you a lot of team value as it occurs late in the season. But, with it being so early, I can’t think of a reason to keep him other than a point hit perhaps.
Oh I know that Raz the 3rd game is in the League cup so he will be back for the Swans game.
You guys are forgetting that he is also injured
Could be a 3 game ban coming then for violent conduct
I heard today will be the verdict. Also for the Lamela and Gray case?
He hasn’t even been charged yet, give the bloke a break!
Gray has until tomorrow to appeal.
Cookie, will we find out the extent today or just that he has until x date to respond?
Huh? What bloke? I saw wtf he did, what they both did. But they have to make a decision today, that’s a verdict right? It can be violent conduct or unclear and he gets away with it. Which bloke needs to be given a break? COOKIE you bloody confuse me. They are being assessed!
Gray is not super relevant. But sadly, I have all 3 players, hope 1 gets cleared, lol.
I have all three and hope the FA don’t bottle it against Aguero for external reasons such as the Manchester Derby. Don’t want them to fuel the people who think they adjudicate for the big teams.
Gray should be out and I hope they force my hand. If I dicth Aguero I’ll probably ditch Lamela anyway so don’t mind if all three go hahaha
Anyway, this guy was pretty happy with the display of Lamela and Kun. 😉
I was talking about Kun! But yes you are actually correct – a charge is almost always a guilty verdict and leads to a ban – so yeah if charged expect a ban!
You are a Mancunian right? Not happy Kun might miss the clash? Or do you fear the other strikers more? Must admit, bearded Kun looked a bit off, the other day.
The game is still far ahead but would I be crazy to play Jakupovic over DDG?
Agreed Cookie, appeals often only work against red cards etc., ie. erroneous matchday decisions.
On that note, a clash between 2 promoted teams could also end up in a big score. And Mou might put another bus infront of the goal.
I’m a United fan, but not Mancunian Raz.
Yeah Kun being banned would be a big positive for the derby, his record against us is very impressive!
What happened to Lamela?! I didn’t see/hear about him