On Saturday, these Spurs and Leicester City played out another goal-fest, with Son Heung-min (£11.7m) snapping his goal drought in spectacular fashion. The South Korean international accomplished everything while serving as a second-half substitution after Antonio Conte sent him to the sidelines for the first time in a Premier League game. After full-time in north London, there was a lot of hindsight bias and resentment going about, but both the for and against Son camps had good arguments. Son wasn’t in an exceptionally productive area of the concept of “shape,” whatever description you would give to it. In other news, Ivan Perisic (£5.6m) provided his third season assist with a corner that Eric Dier (£5.0m) nodded in, continuing Harry Kane’s (£11.4m) purple run as he moved up to second in the FPL points rankings.
Erling Haaland (£12.0 million) has scored 11 goals in just seven league games, so there are no more accomplishments to assign to him. Manchester City, meanwhile, is leading the league in clean sheets at this earlier stage of the campaign because they have consistently been the best defensive team in the division. The distribution of FPL points among the midfielders on Pep Guardiola’s team is a recurring theme. On Saturday at Molineux, attacking returns were collected by Jack Grealish (£6.8m), Phil Foden (£8.0m), and Bernardo Silva (£7.0m); in Gameweek 9, it could just as conveniently be Riyad Mahrez (£7.6m) and Ilkay Gundogan (£7.6m).
Following a 3-0 victory against Brentford, which included goals from William Saliba (£4.8m) and Gabriel Jesus (£8.1m), Arsenal reclaimed first place in the Premier League. Fabio Vieira (£5.7m), starting for the first time in the Premier League in place of the injured Martin Odegaard (£6.5m), sealed the victory for Mikel Arteta’s team, who dominated the game from beginning to end. An earlier header from a Bukayo Saka (£7.8m) corner gave the superb Saliba the lead and was the first of the winger’s two assists. This implies that the Frenchman, with 9.2 points per million invested, is not only the highest-scoring defender in FPL but also the most significant value.
The Toffees defeated West Ham United 1-0 on Sunday at Goodison Park thanks to Neal Maupay’s (£6.1m) debut goal for the club. The former attacker for Brighton and Hove Albion has made a strong start for his new team. Since Gameweek 6, no player has actually taken more shots inside the penalty area (six). Even if Demarai Gray (£5.5 million) was one of the game’s greatest strikers, Everton’s defence is really standing out. In fact, they have already kept back-to-back clean sheets in the Premier League, allowing only six goals in seven games. With only three league goals this year, West Ham is once more unable to generate any offence. Their difficulties reside in the attack.
