Let’s talk about the player that infuriates holders the most:

Mr Philip Walter Foden

Should we play him, bench him, sell him or just lose our rag, delete the #FPL app & never play this daft game ever again?!

THREAD

So far 27 points for a 6.5m MID isn’t exactly setting the world on fire.

We know that given a run in the team he’ll provide fantastic value for money.

He’s been one of the few bright sparks for a slow start for the season for Man City.

I think he’s a massive talent who can go on to win 80+ England caps.

At 20 years old he’s a superior player to both Gerrard & Lampard at the same age.

Holders are worried about 1 of 2 things

Selling him & he goes on to get plenty of returns during these stretch of great fixtures.

Holding him while Pep brings him off the bench for 7 minute cameos.

Lets look at Man City’s up coming fixtures:

10 Burnley
11 Fulham
12 Man Utd
13 WBA
14 Southampton
15 Newcastle

Tasty, very tasty.

4 of the next 6 are at home to poor teams.

Over the next 6 fixtures I project Man City to score the most goals in the league (unsurprisingly):

Man City 15.9 goals
Liverpool 13.4 goals
Chelsea 11.0 goals

Clearly, we want KDB &/or Sterling in our teams.

But what about our boy Phil? Good fixtures don’t mean anything if he’s sat on the bench.

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious:
His minutes per game is dragged down by his sub appearances.

As holders we want him to start.

But WHEN will he start?!

Since lockdown 1.0 ended, Foden has

Started 15 games
Come off the bench 9 times
Was on the bench, & did not come on 3 times
Out injured for one game
Scoring 9 goals (6.2 xG)
4 assists (2.2xA)

BUT he has a definite Home/Away split:

Note that he starts at home in 71% of games (78% in the PL)

While away from home he only starts 38% of games.

Why is this?

At home Man City will have the majority of possession while usually the other teams will park the bus.

At home Pep will very rarely play Rodri & Gundogan, so there’s an extra opportunity for Foden to start either on the wing or in the mid 3 (to the left of Rodri).

So we know that Foden is much more likely to start in home games, and also home games against poor teams.

Since lockdown 1.0 the only HOME PL games Foden has NOT started were:

v Arsenal (last season). He came off the bench & scored.
v Liverpool. He was on the bench & DNP.

Looking back at those fixture again:
10 Burnley
11 Fulham
12 Man Utd
13 WBA
14 Southampton
15 Newcastle

My pencilled in plan is to:
Start Foden in the home games.
Bench him away to Man Utd.
Play it by ear away to Southampton.
& probably sell him in GW16.

END