FPL Post-Season | What's happened this week? (Ep. 3)

The stuff you might’ve missed this week.

🤝 Thomas Frank is the new Spurs manager.

💰 Florian Wirtz to Liverpool gets the “Here We Go” treatment from Fabrizio Romano.

✍️ Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Ait-Nouri signed by Man City.

🔁 Spurs sign Mathys Tels from Bayern Munich.

📆 Premier League fixtures released on 18th June.

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

Alright?

Every couple of summers, we get a transfer window full of genuinely interesting FPL prospects.

It happened in the 22/23 season when Erling Haaland and Darwin Nunez both arrived in the Premier League (remember debating which would do better?), and it’s happening again this summer.

With Liverpool expected to confirm the arrival of Florian Wirtz any day now, and Rayan Cherki the latest arrival at Man City, the Premier League is more than compensating for the loss of FPL stalwarts like Kevin De Bruyne, Mark Flekken and, of course, Southampton’s Cameron Archer.

Today we’ll talk about some of those signings, Frank’s appointment and anything else you might’ve missed. After all, what else is there to do?

The big done-deals.

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

Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Ait-Nouri ➡️ Man City

For Man City, last week was about officially confirming transfers that had effectively been confirmed already. Their recruitment strategy seems to be a simple one:

21-year-old Cherki is a particularly interesting acquisition. He’s already vowed to “kill” Man United, and seems to bring a bit of that old school fire that would, if not for the colour of his shirt, make the likes of Roy Keane proud.

He also had incredible stats at Lyon last season, including 19 goal contributions (8 goals, 11 assists) in 30 Ligue 1 appearances and 12 goal contributions (4 goals, 8 assists) in 12 Europa League appearances.

His challenge will be minutes - an all-too-familiar tome at Man City. If he can string together some consistent performances under Pep, he’s certainly one to watch.

Mathys Tel ➡️ Spurs

Tel and Spurs have gone from friends with benefits to an official relationship.

He scored three goals for Spurs during his loan, which hardly constitutes “lighting up” the Premier League, but given how poor Spurs were in general, it’s hard to judge him on actual ability.

Look, none of us will be rushing to buy Tel when the season starts. At best, his name adds to the list of punny team name options for Dads to use (off the top of our heads, we’re thinking Show, don’t Tel could be a frontrunner).

But Spurs under Frank could be a different prospect. We’ll discuss that shortly.

Other notable done-deals

Jean-Clair Todibo ➡️ West Ham. The £25m French centre-back will join the Hammers from Nice.

Kevin Danso ➡️ Spurs. Another loanee-turned-signing for Spurs. Danso, a centre-back, is officially a permanent Spurs player.

Enzo Le Fee ➡️ Sunderland. The Mackems have spent nearly £20m on making Le Fee a permanent addition to their side after a successful loan spell.

Lukas Nmecha ➡️ Leeds. The former Man City and Wolfsburg forward joins Leeds on a free from the German side.

Estêvão ➡️ Chelsea. The promising Brazilian winger joins Chelsea from Palmeiras after the Club World Cup for a reported £28m. He impressed in his first CWC game against Porto.

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.

Florian Wirtz ➡️ Liverpool

Effectively confirmed (the player has alluded to it and Romano has given it a “Here We Go”), Wirtz will play at Liverpool next season.

Liverpool have spent a modest £116.5m on him, breaking the British transfer record in the process.

Their reward? One of the most promising attacking midfielders in the world.

We generally don’t recommend starting the season with new arrivals to the Premier League, because they’re too much of an unknown entity. A record-breaking youngster isn’t about to change our stance, either.

Still, we’ll be keeping a close eye on not only his performances, but his impact on the players around him.

To be Frank.

Thomas Frank is the new Spurs coach, demonstrating that despite the poisoned chalice of Spurs management, they’re still able to punch above their weight when it comes to managerial hiring.

Fundamentally, Frank is exactly what Postecoglou wasn’t: adaptable. As the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast aptly put it, it’s like when you pick a new girlfriend because she’s the exact opposite of your ex.

The Spurs under Frank is expected to be a more pragmatic - and probably less exhilarating - version of the one we saw under Postecoglou. If you’re a Spurs fan, the hope is that he’ll make them significantly harder to beat.

For FPL managers, it puts Spurs players back on the menu. Cue the meme:

If Spurs have a good pre-season and start the season with some kind fixtures, the likes of Brennan Johnson and Pedro Perro may well enjoy some Gameweek 1 ownership.

From Harry Kane to Heung-min Son to Kieran Trippier, Spurs have a heritage of producing good value FPL players. Time will tell whether we’ll see some under Frank.

Key dates this summer.

We’ve added a key date to this list: the release of the Premier League fixtures, which takes place on 18th June.

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.

June 18th - Premier League fixtures released.

~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.

Kevin De Bruyne will go to Napoli, according to Fabrizio Romano. Finally, we’ll get to see the two great Premier League midfielders, De Bruyne and Scott McTominay, playing together.

We’re out. But stop getting emotional: we’ll be back next week.

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.