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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Evening gents. Is 2 FTs enough to fix this shambles or is it time to wildcard?
Have you got any money in the bank?
0.9mill
Milburn
Schmeichel and Stones may both be OK so I would roll with them just now. Midfield could be tweaked but all OK for now at the least. Depends on how you deal with Aguero. Sell him for a replacement or bench him and transfer Townsend and Hojbjerg (Snodgrass/Fer/King) to cover the two games he’s out.
Cheers GP. Suppose I’ve got a while to decide, just don’t want to miss any price rises.
Mustafiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Please be 5.0m!!!
More like 6
Smash I hope not, I think gunners might be spot on and he will be 5.5!
Yeah Gunners is probably right. The players added recently look on the high side though.
I think he will be 5.5
Mustafi finally confirmed to Arsenal.
Mustafi won’t be available for about a month, he fell off the treadmill in a light workout after he signed.
Mustafi and Perez join Arsenal.
Calum Chambers goes out on loan and Gnabry could be sold to Bayern or Werder.
Evening fellas,
I might have shot the gun, but I went ahead and played my wildcard early…… any thoughts or suggestions on my hopefully improved squad??
I like a lot of it. I would change a few things. Holgate won’t play now as Coleman is back. Due to play for Ireland this week. You can get Stoke coverage for cheaper so I’d swap Shawcross. Wanyama has to go. I would try and upgrade Carzola to Ozil. Courtois maybe downgrade to get funds
Sound advice…. much appricated.
Hey Robot, obvious question really – what happens when Kun is back. It’s a nice squad and I like the suggestions by Smash to improve it. Just the Kun thing stands out at me.
Init – a -8 can sort that out no problem 😉
Yeah I’m worried about that myself, but the with Kun out of my team there is a huge jump in quality of my midfield…. hopefully the points gained while he’s out warents dropping him. And I might have to take a 4 point hit putting him back in.
It does indeed mate. Well I say it does I’m just guessing but I had both too and my midfield was scraping the barrel so I guess yours probably was similarly so yes it looks a lot better now doesn’t it! If you’re cool with a -4 as and when then that’s ok. Just bear in mind it’s only 2-3 weeks away in probability so I’d be looking at it now in relation to who I’d be willing to lose also to make it happen comfortably, money wise. You could conceivably skip a transfer too and do it in one fell swoop with 2 for free. But you need to plan that out.
Sanchez/Ozil or both need to be in that squad mate!
I had Sanchez and Ozil for a lot of last season. Don’t think it works Arsensl don’t score as many goals as they used to. I do think one is a good idea though
Yep those two are too much, that’s what 20mil+ on two Arsenal players. If you must have two which I advise against then downgrade one of them to Cazorla I guess.
Few hours later. Any word on Gray and ummmm Lamela? I have Kun/Gray/Lamela.
Nope I think news n Gray was always going to be tomorrow. No news is probably good news on Lamela
Probably not going to rush their decisions when they have the break to decide
Aah, I see Sanchez ain’t going up tonight. Which helps.
Are you going Sanchez over Ozil Raz?
Most likely. There is actually a possibility to do Kun to Ichanagio? Or wtf is the guy from City called? Gray to Costa and Lamela to Sanchez.
Yeah Iheanacho ain’t bad just a bit of a risk. United away is not good though. But Bournemouth at home is as good as it gets
I think Kun scored 6 versus United in his last 3 encounters?
Yeah but that’s Aguero… Different animal
Raz – Gray has until this wednesday to answer the charge, which he will. Only afterwards will the FA look into that so don’t expect a final decision this week, at all.
Because it was so long ago, I expect Gray to get a fine no ban.
Lamela and Kun both to get bans
I’m probably wrong, but I hope I’m right cause I have neither :p I do have Gray though.
If my little plans works out I will keep Gray vs Hull, then Bring Kelechi in for him after the Hull game
Well luke, I’m not so sure about the Gray situation, you see looking at the comments under discussion it wouldn’t make too much sense to charge him with a ban if they wouldn’t think they are still relevant, timewise. In the end, it’s a premier league player with gay offending comments at a given point and with all the rolemodel shit around players these days they are most surely looking at this as a public statement on how EPL positions itself on these matters. So it’s not about Andre Gray’s 2012 possibly out of context comments (not saying the comments are not worth punition), but about EPL and in that regard it just doens’t make sense to simply fine him…it would’ve been better to ignore it.
As for lamela, I’m not sure why haven’t they charged him yet, but looking at what he did I would say it’s the most serious offense here. I mean that’s an off the ball and out of play bizzare situation where we WANTED to “hit” the player. If that doens’t deserve a ban (1 game should be enough) I don’t know what does. It’s ackward, however, why they haven’t charged yet.
Yea I totally get what your saying about the image of the EPL, and they are very anti-homophobic and anti-racism your probably right, they may want to stamp it out however it pokes its head.
The Kun offence has been highlighted in the press lads, I have not seen the Lamela offence in the press anywhere other then here. I agree Lamelas is the worst, and its ridiculous. God knows what was going through his head, its not like I would walk round my office at work and gauage someone int he eye, he is an idiot and deserves the ban and I support Spurs.
You wouldn’t be at home in the FF247 office then Luke. When it’s time to pick the site team eye gouging is considered a pleasantary….