João Pedro: Time to Sell Despite the Fixtures?

João Pedro is like the FPL equivalent of a hangover. The fun part happens first - he’s taking shot after shot, scoring goal after goal, basically fulfilling all your heart’s desires.

Then comes the regret. He stops shooting the ball. Goals? Nah. His only goal now is going a game without being sent off. Assists? Pfft. The only thing he’s assisting are my red arrows.

But does this hangover really have to last forever? Let’s take a look.

In his last five Premier League games, João Pedro has taken three shots. In comparison, Mateta’s taken 21. That’s not great.

During this time, João Pedro accumulated 0.1 npxG. His xG per game was so low that even when he took a shot, the xG was rounded down to zero. Yikes.

But the thing is, this was kind of expected of JP. He’s never been a high-volume shot taker. To further compound things, JP isn’t necessarily a clinical finisher either, having underperformed his career xG by 5.3. 

But a lot of the good things JP brings to whichever club he’s playing for come from his link-up and hold-up play, which he does by dropping deep. Of course, this isn’t ideal for FPL, but I suppose we can find some solace in his general on-the-ball activity being beneficial for the BPS system.

I don’t think losing one player affects team strength all that much - even if that player is Cole Palmer.

In fact, I think, in a rather perverse way, Cole Palmer’s injury helps João Pedro. Simply put, this injury gives JP (a) higher xMins, (b) a higher probability of taking Chelsea’s next penalty, and (c) a larger share of team goals.

Chelsea have only two strikers at the club. Wait - I’ll rephrase that. Chelsea have only one competent striker at the club. My apologies to Marc Guiu, but this is someone who was being benched at Sunderland. Errrrr...

Anyway, what this means is that JP should be a nailed-on starter for one of the best attacks in the league.

I think JP has about a 40% chance of being Chelsea’s primary penalty taker, behind only Enzo Fernández, who’s struggling with a knee injury and is likely to have his minutes managed. What this means is drumroll please JP is likely to be on penalties for a decent chunk of each match over the next couple of months.

Phew! He can finally get a shot on target. Plus, JP decided not to attend the Ollie Watkins School of Penalty Taking™, meaning he’s really, really good at taking penalties - having scored 18 of the 19 he’s taken.

None of Chelsea’s wingers (barring Cole Palmer) scream “goals.” Enzo isn’t really a goalscorer either, albeit his xG has tripled this season, meaning someone really has to grab Chelsea’s share of goals.

Who better than João Pedro? The markets rate him pretty well, and for good reason - I think we can reasonably expect him to account for more than 22% of Chelsea’s expected goal threat on a weekly basis.

So that’s three huge pluses for the Brazilian striker.

Long story short: they’re GOOD. Short story long: SUN, tot, WOL, bur, ARS, lee, bou, EVE. Need I say more? 

Chelsea and João Pedro face some pretty awful defences over the next eight gameweeks, and that’s a long enough stretch to carry you over to the AFCON five-transfer boost, giving you an easy route out of JP if needed.

In essence, his fixtures are good enough to make JP a set-and-forget option, even with possibly limited minutes in “easier” games that are sandwiched between midweek fixtures.

It doesn’t help that Chelsea have decided to play life on hard mode by getting a player sent off every week (four red cards in six weeks), but with those fixtures, you can still see them scoring plenty of goals - meaning plenty of JP promise and the inevitable disappointment returns.

I think it’s worth sticking with João Pedro for a few more weeks. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say he’s a buy and an indefinite hold, unless we see his minutes fall off a cliff with midweek UCL fixtures.

I don’t think we live in a world where he never takes a shot again, and those fixtures are really hard to pass up. As a non-JP owner, I’m terrified.

If you do decide to say Ciao Pedro, though, I quite like Mateta as an alternative. Bowen and Woltemade could be good picks, too, but at that point, I’d really just stick with JP.