Matchday Wrap Up: Monday Morning Manager – WK1
And we’re back! It certainly felt a little early in the summer to have Premier League action back, especially when a trip to the pool with our toddler interrupted the second half of the 10 AM Eastern Time matches on Saturday. The date may be early but the drama was certainly in mid-season form. There were debut goals, surprising results and our first chance to overreact to what will end up being approximately 2.5% of the season.
From a fantasy standpoint, perhaps the storyline of Saturday was the proliferation of exciting new arrivals who started their respective matches on the bench but then came in to deliver big results. We’ll start our recap of Week 1 with a review of the high profile new arrivals with a way-too-fast over-reaction to their initial performances:
Troy Deeney: He looked imposing and not at all out of his depth in the top flight. Three shots, a shot on target and an assist are a solid debut against a quality opponent (at least we think they’re a quality opponent) on the road. Quick Verdict: Hold/Buy
Odion Ighalo: He didn’t start but in just over 15 minutes of substitute action he scored the equalizer. Not exactly what managers drooling over his pre-season form were hoping for but something to build on. Quick Verdict: Hold/Don’t Buy
Callum Wilson: He showed all sorts of raw skill and had a great opportunity in alone on Brad Guzan but he also showed that he is raw. His shot on Guzan was could have been much better and there were other instances where his control let him down that prevented a break away by allowing the defense to recover. Quick Verdict: Hold
Matt Ritchie: No results this time around but he was on the ball a lot and didn’t seem at all out of his depth in the top flight. His day will come. Quick Verdict: Hold
Miguel Layun: He wasn’t one that you were likely looking at but he’s listed as a defender in a lot of places and he’s playing in an attacking role on the left side of the attack for the Hornets. He scored one and was close on another. Quick Verdict: Buy immediately if he’s listed as a defender.
The Rest of Watford: There were lots of tackles won and passes intercepted with Etienne Capoue, Craig Cathcart, Allan Nyom and Valon Behrami all putting up big peripheral defending statistics. Verdict: Could be some value here if the starting line-up is relatively stable.
Nathan Redmond: Tell me if this sounds familiar…didn’t start, came on as a sub, scored. You’d be forgiven if you were worried about the fact that he didn’t start. Quick Verdict: Hold
Rudy Gestede: One more time…he didn’t start, he came on as a sub, he scored a towering header for the win. As a bonus he had one addition very good chance. Very bright debut in the top flight. The only question is whether the substitute appearance will buy him a series of starts. Quick Verdict: Monitor Playing Time.
Andre Ayew: What a fantastic, composed goal against the defending champions and one of the top goalkeepers in the world. That he added two other shots on target, won two tackles, suffered three fouls, and only committed one puts him near the top of the list of debutants in Week 1. Quick Verdict: Hold/Buy
Franck Tabanau: Didn’t start after looking like he was being brought in as a replacement for Neil Taylor. Quick Verdict: Consider Selling
Villa’s Jordans: It’s hard to get too much of a handle on Villa’s new Jordans (Amavi, Veretout and Ayew) but Amavi seemed to be the pick of the lot in Week 1 with four tackles won and five interceptions in a clean sheet win. That it came over newly promoted Bournemouth means we shouldn’t overreact to the performance TOO much. Quick Reaction: Hold All Three.
Cedric Soares: He played well going forward and tallied an assist in his first match replacing Nathaniel Clyne. All of the attacking signs look good (he also had a shot on target). The concern early is that he committed three fouls and got a yellow card. Quick Verdict: Hold/Buy.
Jordy Clasie: Didn’t play due to a lingering injury. Quick Verdict: Hold.
Georginio Wijnaldum: He started and counterattacked well for Newcastle’s second goal but the real work was done by Gabriel Obertan of all people. Still, a promising debut. Quick Verdict: Hold.
Roberto Firmino: He didn’t start nor did he play enough for us to get a good sense of what he is going to offer. With the amount paid you suspect he will start sooner than later but it is worth noting that Daniel Sturridge is coming back soon as well and there are only so many players that can start in any attack no matter how much was paid for their services. Quick Verdict: Hold.
Yohan Cabaye: We got what we expected from the Frenchman and we got it right away with a goal, two shots on target, four tackles won, and four interceptions. Just remember that it was against Norwich before you get TOO giddy. Still, nice to see that he hasn’t lost his touch during his stretch on the bench in Paris. Quick Verdict: Hold/Buy.
Joe Gomez: He started on the left of the defense for Liverpool and he stood up pretty well. He picked up a yellow card when Jon Walters showed him some veteran moves on a ball in the air but otherwise a very solid debut. Quick Verdict: Buy
Chancel Mbemba: Newcastle’s newest defender had a solid debut from a fantasy point of view with two tackles won and four interceptions against a good Southampton team. Quick Verdict: Wait and see.
Steven Whittaker: The Norwich defender tallied two shots on target, won two tackles, suffered a foul, intercepted two passes and blocked a shot. Solid return to the Premier League. Quick Verdict: Wait and see.
Wes Hoolahan: An assist on Redmond’s goal a tackle won and six fouls suffered mean he was all over the place in the Canaries’ opening loss. It is worth remembering that Hoolahan was incredibly inconsistent last time around in the Premier League, he’s just as likely to do nothing next week. Quick Verdict: Don’t get too excited.
Marco Van Ginkel: Didn’t do much in his Stoke City debut. Quick Verdict: Wait and see but consider selling.
Ibrahim Afellay: Three fouls committed and a yellow card are about the only evidence that he played. Don’t overreact but it’s hard to see a path from here to “this season’s Victor Moses”. Quick Verdict: Extreme skepticism.
Jeremain Lens: An assist highlighted the new Sunderland man’s first start. It’s hard to take much positive away from the thrashing that the Foxes gave the Black Cats but Lens’ performance was one of them. Quick Verdict: Buy/Hold.
Dimitri Payet: His statistics didn’t tell the tale of how good he was in his debut. He got an assist but his influence leads you to believe that there’s more to come. Quick Verdict: Buy/Hold.
Angelo Ogbonna: Hard to believe he only tallied three tackles, one interception and one shot blocked. It felt like he was all over the place. Quick Verdict: He looks great in real life but wait a week on the fantasy front.
Reece Oxford: The West Ham youth product looked amazing in his debut at 16-years-old. He did a great job in front of the defense and didn’t put a foot wrong. Pedro Obiang is likely to take his spot but he looks like one to remember for the (near) future. Quick Verdict: Admire the performance but don’t buy.
Check in with Rotoworld.com all summer for transfer analysis and 2015-16 season previews
The Title Race
The Title Race (Ranked from favorites to most likely to miss out on the Champions League)
Chelsea – SO. MANY. TALKING. POINTS. Chelsea wanted a penalty when Fernandez tipped the ball away from Costa in the box but the call was a good one. The biggest moment of the day was when Gary Cahill allowed Bafetimbi Gomis in behind him for Gylfi Sigurdsson to play in. Thibault Courtois fouled Gomis and, in the eyes of the official, denied a clear goal-scoring opportunity. You could argue either way on that count with Gary Cahill belatedly arriving back on the scene but it was a judgment call that went against the Blues. Courtois off. Gomis scores the penalty. Match tied. It stayed that way. Not exactly the sort of organization and good fortune we associate with Chelsea’s title run from last season.
Manchester City – City will not have played by the time this is published.
Arsenal – What a miserable start to the season. Questions about Arsene Wenger’s persistence with zonal marking on set pieces. Multiple goalkeeping errors. Long periods of domination of possession without enough danger created. A few solid chances that didn’t go in their favor. It is a familiar script for the Gunners when things go wrong and just that quickly all of the momentum from the second half of last season, the acquisition of Cech and the impressive pre-season is undone. The season is only one week in and none of the other contenders looked especially convincing so this isn’t a tragedy but Arsenal could have used an early lead on Chelsea for once rather than falling on their faces after the Blues presented them with an early opening.
Manchester United – They won’t be singing about this one into the future but at the end of the season when everyone looks back, all they’ll see is a 1-0 victory over a quality opponent to start the season. On the plus side of the ledger, Luke Shaw looked solid (which is a huge improvement on last season), Matteo Darmian looked very comfortable, and Bastian Schweinsteiger and Michael Carrick both played without hurting themselves. Sergio Romero was a mixed bag making a few smart saves late but looking like a bit of a disaster with the ball at his feet early in the match. Memphis Depay, the heralded new arrival, started behind Rooney and showed some flashes but looked like he’ll take a little time to settle in. United will presumably continue to add (Pedro presumably at the least) and will continue to get to know each other. That they got a clean sheet win over Spurs while that process is happening is a solid early indicator for the Red Devils.
The Second Tier (Ranked from most likely to break into the Champions League to least likely)
Liverpool – Brendan Rodgers and the Reds got lucky on opening day for sure but you’d imagine that Chelsea, Arsenal, and Spurs would be happy about the same level of luck. It all looked decidedly average on the road at a depleted Stoke City side missing Ryan Shawcross, Marc Wilson, Bojan, and Marko Arnautovic until Emre Can came on late. Can in his proper spot as a holding midfielder looks like the perfect elixir for the Reds. Perhaps Mark Hughes’ decision to bring on Steve Sidwell, who was criminal in his negligence in watching Coutinho blow by him for the winner, had more to do with Liverpool getting the three points but things seemed to make more sense for the Reds with Can anchoring Henderson, Milner, Coutinho, Firmino and Benteke. When it was Ibe and Lallana in over Firmino and Can Liverpool looked a little directionless. Still, three points won and the right to erase the 6-1 drubbing at the Britannia on the last day of last season off the books. Not a bad first day when clearly not firing on all cylinders.
Spurs – You could look at Spurs’ season-opener in a few different ways. If you’re an optimist (which probably means you’re not a Spurs supporter) then you can say that they went to Old Trafford and only conceded because of a hideous error from Nabil Bentaleb. If you’re a pessimist then you’ll say that they only looked dangerous for the first fifteen minutes and the last ten and committed a bunch of errors that could have led to goals in-between. Without at least one or two more new acquisitions, this Spurs team looks like they’re treading water at best.
Southampton – Seventh and sixty points is hardly anything to sneeze at given where they started the season. Ronald Koeman is undoubtedly the Manager of the Year. They didn’t do much against Manchester City of note to change our opinion of their season on the final day. This summer will be nearly as interesting at St. Mary’s as last summer was which is saying something. How much does the club invest? Do they keep with the policy of promoting youth as they potentially lose Morgan Schneiderlin and Nathaniel Clyne?
The Relegation Battle (Ranked from most likely to be relegated to least)
Norwich City – Hard to know how evaluate this one. They lost, yes. They conceded three goals, yes. On the bright side, they had a good goal disallowed that would have made the score 2-2 and perhaps made it more of a game. They also dominated possession against a team that was good enough to leave Yannick Bolasie on the bench. It still feels like they don’t have enough talent, especially at the back, to stay up but there were at least some positive signs.
Sunderland – They’ve performed their high wire act for the last three seasons and survived each time so the easy narrative is that despite looking rotten that they’ll do it again. I’m going in the opposite direction and saying that their luck will finally run out.
Bournemouth – I watched all of their match against Aston Villa and, while I liked what I saw in flashes, Callum Wilson and the entire team are going to have to be far more ruthless with their chances if they’re going to stay up. Maybe it was just first day jitters and they’ll start knocking in those point blank chances and break away opportunities in the weeks to come. Until I see it, though, I’m going to keep the Cherries as my third team to be relegated.
Watford – For some reason no one seems to like the Hornets heading into the season. The Cherries seem to be the “feel good” story of the newly promoted sides and people are equating that with staying up. Maybe it’s the foreign manager coming at the end of a lightning round of manager-go-round. Maybe it’s the funky business model that makes them unsympathetic. Maybe it’s the presence of a lot of players coming in from foreign leagues that aren’t well known and no one knows what to make of them. The reality is that they looked at least competitive against an Everton team that I’m not sure anyone knows how to evaluate. Deeney looked up to the task. Ighalo continued his hot streak. They took two leads. The got a point on the road. On one week of evidence, they’re my favorites to stay up of the three newbies.
Aston Villa – There’s almost a Watford-esque level of new arrivals at all levels of success. Jordan Amavi looked great. Micah Richards looked good enough. Rudy Gestede looked bright off the bench and scored the winner. The rest were less than scintillating but they got three points and bought themselves some more time for the newest of the arrivals to get acclimated. It didn’t exactly scream “we’re clearly mid-table stuff” but it was a cut above what we saw from Sunderland.
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Newcomer of the Year of the Week
We spent a lot of time on this in the intro so we’ll just pat Andre Ayew on the back again and move on.
Season Leaders: 1) Andre Ayew; 2) Miguel Layun; 3) Yohan Cabaye; 4) Dimitri Payet; 5) Cedric Soares
Young Player of the Year of the Week
There’s no question that Reece Oxford gets the nod here. He may not get many starts with the presence of Pedro Obiang and eventually (maybe) Alex Song again but he sure looked good even if you take away the caveats of “16-year-old” and “playing first Premier League match ever”.
Season Leaders: 1) Reece Oxford; 2) Joe Gomez; 3) Wilfried Zaha; 4) Jordan Amavi; 5) Nathan Redmond
Player of the Year of the Week
How do you decide between Leicester City players? Riyad Mahrez scored twice and Marc Albrighton scored one and assisted on two others as the Foxes picked up where they left off at the end of last season while Sunderland didn’t. You don’t expect either of these guys will be in the running for any year-end awards except maybe Albrighton and the “Back from the Dead” award so we’re going to honor them both this week.
Season Leaders: 1) Mahrez/Albrighton; 2) Andre Ayew; 3) Dimitri Payet; 4) Bafetimbi Gomis; 5) Oxford/Ogbonna/Reid
Manager of the Year of the Week
Allan Pardew is the obvious answer if you’re just looking at scorelines but there was some worry if you actually watched the match. He may look like Technical Director of the Summer (so far) but we would be remiss if this didn’t go to Slaven Bilic who no one was giving much of a chance against Arsenal but he organized his team well and bought smartly over the summer and capped that off by not hamstringing them on his Premier League debut by essentially sacrificing their Europa League campaign at the alter of the Premier League. If Arsenal win then it looks like a foolish gambit but after Sunday it looked brilliant to have a squad that had played competitive matches but wasn’t coming off a competitive match on Thursday…on a hot night…in Romania. Well played Slaven.
Season Leaders: 1) Slaven Bilic; 2) Gary Monk; 3) Quique Flores; 4) Alan Pardew; 5) Claudio Raineri
My Fantasy Week
It has been stated that you really shouldn’t spend a lot of time in polite company talking about your fantasy sports exploits because, well, no one really cares. Therefore, it’s nice to have a column to use to share my ups and downs. The advent of single-ownership leagues sees me with a LOT of fantasy action going on despite the fact that I haven’t dipped my toe in the Daily Fantasy League universe yet. Here’s the highlights from two Expert Leagues (one on PlayTogga.com and one on Fantrax), two other draft leagues (one on PlayTogga and one on Fantrax), and three salary cap teams (Perfect XI, Fantrax w/ the Never Manage Alone guys, and PremierLeague.com).
My first observation from trying to go back and forth between single-ownership and salary cap is that it’s not easy. In single-ownership you get attached to players and especially to players who might provide late-round value. You aren’t attached because these are going to be stars when compared to players selected in the early rounds but because they may be the difference between a winning or losing draft/auction league team. When you get your head back into salary cap, you may find yourself over-valuing some of these bargains when they may not be worth considering at all when you have the entire league available to you.
As far as results with Manchester City and West Brom still to play, it looks like I’m going to win one and lose one of the Expert Leagues and likewise in the other two draft leagues although there’s still an outside shot that I win both of those. Overall, I’m heavily invested in West Brom so I’m expecting that the early part of the season is going to be rough for me as they fight through a tough early schedule.
Players I’m looking at acquiring: Miguel Layun (I’m not expecting a ton of goals but he’s a left-sided attacker who is listed as a defender) and Jordan Amavi (I have him in a couple of leagues but will give him a look in the others if he’s still available).
Players I’m thinking about ditching: It was frustrating that Patrick Bamford didn’t even get some late-match action and I was equally frustrated with Franck Tabanau being left on the bench which could signal a legitimate job share vs. Tabanau coming in ahead of Neil Taylor.
This Week in Fantasy Premier League Games
While the Yahoo game may be on hiatus this season, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a ton of options for fantasy managers. The people at PlayTogga.com had a rough Friday evening/Saturday morning with their Premier League fantasy platform but, unlike Yahoo when they experienced issues, the Togga team communicated early and often on Twitter to update status and got things working quickly. I really like the user experience and how they’re approaching both Perfect XI and their draft manager so I hope you give them a little leeway as a start-up that really wants to create great fantasy Premier League platform and a great community to go with it. It didn’t hurt that it looks like I’ll win my initial match-up in the Togga Expert League over Todd Shenk from Premier Soccer Chat on the strength of Riyah Mahrez and Dusan Tadic despite getting nothing from Bellerin, Bamford, and Ayoze Perez.
Fantrax.com was more stable but presented some mild frustrations on the salary cap side. The issue stems from the fact that there isn’t a site-wide game and, because of that, I can’t use exactly the same team to play two private salary cap leagues with the exact same rules. This means that if I want to mirror my squad in both leagues that I have to go in and make the same changes twice. On the auction/draft league side of things, both leagues were smooth sailing from a platform point of view even if my Fantrax Expert League team stunk up the joint on the imaginary pitch. Congratulations to old friend Gavin Wright from Never Manage Alone on what appears to be a debut win in our league over my defending champions – he was definitely Swansea while I was Chelsea on the day.
PremierLeague.com just keeps on rolling along. There are the three new “boosts” or “chips” to be played but hopefully you realized that this wasn’t the weekend to play any of them so the experience was as rock solid as ever and almost indistinguishable from last season (or the season before or…).
Elsewhere, there are some mobile-only platforms and Daily Games that might pique your interest from Flip Sports, Ultimate Fan Live, MondoGoal.com, and DraftKings.com. With everything going on, I didn’t have a chance to play any of the above for Week 1 but it is my hope to carve out some time early in the season to make that happen.
Random Closing Thoughts
My Second Club – I have been trying to decide between Watford (because of their unique approach to ownership) and Crystal Palace (because they’ve put together what should be a really fun side AND I enjoyed my trip to see a match there AND they have really awkward cheerleaders AND they’re the Eagles). Neither dissuaded me with their Week 1 efforts so let the competition continue with Leicester City trying to sneak in and reclaim the spot they’ll claim they won rightfully last season before my late reversal of course.
This Week’s Good Points: West Ham were the far and away winners here after three points at the Emirates with Swansea getting an excellent point at Stamford Bridge and Watford securing a valuable road point at Goodison Park.
The Good Points Table: West Ham United 3; Swansea City 1; Watford 1
This Week’s Bad Points: Arsenal have the early season lead in terms of amount of egg on their faces followed by Chelsea and Everton.
The Bad Points Table: Arsenal 3; Chelsea 2; Everton 2
My Favorite Things – Coutinho’s blast from distance. Yes, he sprays those shots regularly but when it comes off its pretty sweet…Week 1 of the Luke Shaw redemption tour (he wasn’t spectacular but “adequate” was a big improvement from last season)…Palace’s attacking options (seriously, Bolasie was on the bench)…Chelsea getting a little bad luck after a championship season with a lot of good luck…A Gabriel Obertan highlight (that was a great run to set up Wijnaldum’s goal)…a chested in goal from Papiss Cisse…Jon Walters showing Joe Gomez the ropes with a veteran move to draw a foul and a yellow card that were both entirely undeserved, call it Old Man Soccer…some excellent calls in the Chelsea match (we have to give the officials some love when it is deserved)…
My Least Favorite Things – Steve Sidwell’s ole defending on Coutinho to allow him three or four steps to take that shot uncontested, one game in and Stoke City are already missing Steven N’Zonzi…Sergio Romero with the ball at his feet…Nabel Bentaleb with the ball at his feet…Crazy early expectations on new transfers in who are also very young (Firmino and Depay especially)…Everything about Sunderland, Dusan Tadic has November 7 circled on his calendar to see if he can repeat his season-making 6 assist performance against the Black Cats again (cut to Marc Albrighton nodding)…the start of the Petr Cech era at Arsenal…Emre Can on the bench…Bournemouth (Wilson and Pugh especially) in front of goal…the officiating on Norwich’s second goal that wasn’t…Jose blaming his medical staff for taking care of one of his players…both medical teams (and the Premier League) for Olivier Giroud and James Tomkins being allowed back on the pitch at all…Chelsea’s bench (pardon me if I’m not impressed by Begovic, Zouma, Ramires, Mikel, Moses, Falcao, and Remy – that looks like it should be the Stoke City bench, not that of the defending champions).
What did we find out? The middle class of the Premier League is getting better and better. West Ham and Swansea City took points off of title contenders on their home soil. Crystal Palace have more impressive attacking options off the bench than Chelsea. Stoke City took Liverpool to the limit despite breaking in a new goalkeeper and being without their best defender (Shawcross), their best attacker (Bojan), and a Premier League holding midfielder (maybe if Brendan Rodgers doesn’t want to start Emre Can, Mark Hughes can have him). If the arrival of players like Yohan Cabaye and Dimitri Payet outside of even the presumed Top 7 (the usual suspects plus Southampton) and with Shaquiri potentially arriving at the Britannia could make this the norm rather than the exception.
What’s Next? Saturday has a bit of an undercard feel to it with Sunderland and Norwich facing off in an early-season relegation six-pointer, Watford getting a first home match against West Brom and two of the most exciting teams of Week 1, West Ham and Leicester City, meeting at Upton Park. The marquee match-ups happen on Sunday where the day starts with Crystal Palace vs. Arsenal which looks incredibly interesting on the heels of Palace winning and Arsenal looking pitiful. Sunday’s main event will be the Courtois-less defending champions facing off with Manchester City at the Etihad with a potential five point lead on offer for the challengers.
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