🏆 A quick note to say "cheers" 🤝

🚨 The stuff you should know 🚨

🤦‍♂️ Everton receive a 10-point deduction.

🚑 Haaland, Bowen (most transferred-in) and Onana amongst those yellow-flagged.

🤕 Maddison out until January.

❌ Mitoma allegedly out this weekend.

🎉 Last international break until March.

Keep reading for a face reveal.

Alright?

Quick email today - proper one on Friday morning.

James Cooper, The Professor and I (also James) were in Liverpool last week, attending the Football Content Awards.

It was quite a bizarre evening, not least because somehow we won the Silver Award for best fantasy football editorial.

This isn’t going to turn into an Oscars speech, but we would like to say “cheers” for subscribing, reading and even voting for this shitty newsletter. If there was an award for best audience, you lot would probably walk it.

The award’s flimsiness is almost certainly a metaphor for the vacuousness of award ceremonies themselves, and the fact that nothing actually changes as a result of this award hasn’t been lost on us either.

Still, it’s something we can point to when our grandparents inevitably quiz us about why we spend so much time writing about a pretend game, and for that we’re sincerely grateful.

The key injury updates.

Whilst we’ve got you, it’d be rude not to talk about the big injury news over the International Break.

Erling Haaland

He’s yellow-flagged, which has naturally caused pandemonium. The Norse God proved that he is, in fact, just flesh and blood after he was subbed at half-time against the Faroe Islands with an ankle injury.

But fear not. Norway’s head coach - whose first name is Stale - said it “was not a serious injury”, even suggesting that Haaland might’ve been risked for the Scotland game if it had been remotely important.

Jarrod Bowen

Bowen’s prognosis is slightly more complex. He withdrew from the England squad with a knee injury, and has had a scan to determine the severity. At the time of writing, we know that the scan revealed fluid on his knee, but it’s still unclear how serious that is.

The fact he’s even having a scan is a small indication that Bowen could miss at least one game, but considering some of the sensationalist reports this week (some sources have claimed a 9-month absence), I think that’d be a relief for owners.

Andre Onana

Onana’s injury doesn’t look serious. The goalkeeper is “hoping to be fit” for Man United’s fixture against Everton.

Kaoru Mitoma

Helpfully, Mitoma’s injury is unspecified. He was out of the Japan squad and Andy Naylor - one of those sensible, dad-like sources that writes for the Athletic - has said he’s set to miss the game against Forest.

James Maddison

It’s not an international break injury, but we haven’t spoken since it was confirmed that James Maddison will be out until January.

Next email you’ll get some analysis on what this means for the rest of Spurs (spoiler alert, it ain’t good).

Everton’s -10.

Some hits are more painful than others. As you almost certainly know by now, Everton have been forced to take a -10, putting them joint-bottom of the Premier League.

This likely won’t have an impact on FPL, other than perhaps contributing to the false belief that Everton are one of the league’s worst teams. Memories are short, and it isn’t hard to imagine that, within a few weeks, we’ll be looking at the fixture calendar and saying stuff like “Arsenal are playing all of the bottom three in their next five!”.

Just remember that one of them isn’t there through a lack of wins and draws.

The key stats.

You know what? You deserve some key stats early this week for reading this far.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• This excellent post by a sadistic Football Manager player.

• Matty Cash should be fit for this weekend after some initial doubt.

• Alexander Isak should be fit for Gameweek 13 too - Callum Wilson out for 6 weeks.

• Guess which team has scored more points than anyone else from their last 5 matches? Yup, it’s Man United. 12 points. Are they decent again?

It’s the last international break until March, folks. Let’s take this rare opportunity to celebrate. See you Friday.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.