FPL Post-Season | What's happened this week? (Ep. 2)

The stuff you might’ve missed this week.

👋 Ange Postecoglou sacked by Spurs.

✍️ Liam Delap moves to Chelsea. Caoimhin Kelleher goes to Brentford.

👀 Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Ait-Nouri to Man City get a ‘Here We Go’ from Fabrizio Romano.

🏆 Click here to join our £100 Club World Cup fantasy league. (Or use code: 4LYSGC6R).

Alright?

Those of us foraging for scraps have found small morsels of nourishment in an otherwise barren footballing wasteland this week.

A disappointing England win here. A managerial sacking there. It’s nothing like the bountiful feasts of August-May, but it keeps us alive for now.

The Club World Cup starts next week, which, in nourishment terms, is tantamount to eating those plastic fried eggs you find in children’s kitchen playsets. Still, when you’re desperate, you’ll take what you can get.

It’s in the spirit of surviving the boredom that we’ve created a free-to-enter fantasy league for the Club World Cup with a £100 prize. Click here to join if you fancy it.

The big done-deals.

This section will only include transfers that have been confirmed by an official source.

Caoimhin Kelleher ➡️ Brentford

As we suspected, Kelleher has indeed moved to Brentford after Mark Flekken departed last week.

We’ve been used to seeing the Irishman put in heroic - but only occasional - performances for Liverpool. It’ll be interesting to see how he does playing more regularly. Flekken was the fourth-highest scoring goalkeeper last season, and the highest-scoring goalkeeper that started the season at £4.5m.

So we know Brentford can produce good value goalkeepers. Kelleher might make for a nice set-and-forget if he’s priced similarly to his predecessor.

Liam Delap ➡️ Chelsea

Another move we discussed last week, Liam Delap is officially a Chelsea player now.

Here he is standing on a giant hockey puck to confirm the appointment (an age-old Chelsea tradition, of course):

This move is interesting if you’re an FPL manager (which, unless there’s been a terrible mistake, you probably are). Nicolas Jackson had moments of value last season, but struggled to convert his chances. He managed 10 goals from 11.7xG.

Delap, meanwhile, scored 12 Premier League goals from 9.4xG: a testament to his ability to do quite a lot with not very much at Ipswich. If he plays regularly and finds some chemistry with Cole Palmer, his opportunities at Chelsea will be far more plentiful than those at Ipswich. It follows that his FPL points tally will be far more plentiful, too.

All eyes on his 25/26 price.

The rumour mill.

This section will include transfers that are strongly rumoured by reliable sources. We won’t include pure speculation, and will always try to verify the rumour with multiple sources.

Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Ait-Nouri ➡️ Man City

Fabrizio Romano is not Man City, but his confirmation of these moves is as close as we can get to an official announcement.

You’ll already be familiar with Wolves’ Rayan Ait-Nouri, who was outscored by the likes of Marc Cucurella, Nathan Collins and Murillo last season, but was still pretty good.

Tijjani Reijnders, meanwhile, is more than just an easy opportunity for some Christmas-themed puns next season (prepare yourself for an absolute onslaught of those). He’s also a gifted central midfielder who scored 10 goals for AC Milan last season.

Most pundits have him pegged as a replacement for Kevin De Bruyne.

Kepa Arrizabalaga ➡️ Arsenal

Kepa’s Guinness World Record attempt to play for every Premier League team before he retires appears to be getting another boost, according to David Ornstein and other top-tier sources.

The latest team to sign him is, apparently, Arsenal, who will presumably use him as a backup keeper to his compatriot, David Raya.

Goodbye Ange.

Ange Postecoglou has been sacked from Spurs.

We’re not here to talk about whether that was a good decision or not. Our only focus is on what it means for our FPL teams.

Until we’ve seen them under a new manager (Thomas Frank is the hotly rumoured replacement, but is by no means confirmed at the time of writing), it’s difficult to provide too much analysis. At most, we can assume that Postecoglou’s sacking means his happy-go-lucky style of football will likely leave with him.

For FPL managers, it means removing the Spurs file from its current cabinet (the cabinet where we also store files on teams like Norwich City, Southampton and Derby County circa 07/08) and keeping it on the desk for now.

We don’t know what sort of Spurs we’re going to get next season, but there’s enough talent there to keep an open mind. If the likes of Dominic Solanke, Brennan Johnson, James Maddison and Pedro Porro are priced well and play regularly under a good manager, they may well be worth a look.

Key dates this summer.

We’ll include this in every pre-season newsletter, scratching off milestones like a prisoner might scratch off days in a cell.

June 10th - Mini Transfer Window closes.

June 14th - The Club World Cup kicks off with the two best teams in the world: Al Ahly vs. Inter Miami. Chelsea and Manchester City are the Premier League’s representatives.

June 16th - The Summer Transfer Window opens.

~Early-mid July - The 25/26 FPL game likely to launch.

Mid-July - Pre-season friendlies begin.

August 10th - The Community Shield (Liverpool vs Crystal Palace)

August 16th - The 25/26 season begins 😍

Other stuff we found interesting.

1. Portugal won the UEFA Nations League on penalties against Spain.

2. Newcastle sign right-winger Antonio Cordero from Malaga. Fans expect him to go straight out on loan.

Okay, that’s us for now. See you next Monday and remember,

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.