FPL Community reactions to Gameweek 31 (Saturday)
A collection of the best Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Twitter community reactions to all of Saturday’s matches.
Following the Gameweek 31 deadline, here are the post-deadline LiveFPL stats for Gameweek 31 ahead of seven Saturday matches. Besides this, FFScout covered the main team news of the 3pm kick-offs.
Community reactions
Fresh from a two-week international break, the main talking point on FPL Twitter was the fitness of Trent Alexander-Arnold. His hamstring injury ruled him out of England duty but Jurgen Klopp’s fairly optimistic press conference quotes suggested he could play. Despite this, he was named on the bench, without ever coming on.
Nevertheless, his replacement Joe Gomez paid homage by delivering a beautiful cross that was headed home by Diogo Jota.
Captained by the vast majority, Mohamed Salah blanked and was replaced by Sadio Mane after 69 minutes. Then, a late foul on Jota led to a penalty, successfully converted by Fabinho. So Liverpool emerged from a tricky lunchtime with an important 2-0 win and a clean sheet for much-bought Andrew Robertson.
Of course, there were a couple of surprises in the 3pm kick off team news. Man City’s Bernardo Silva has started every league match since Gameweek 2 but not this time. Furthermore, Reece James only made the bench for Chelsea, later making a cameo appearance.
Five goals arrived in the first half, alongside an early Lucas Digne injury to frustrate his owners. Additionally, Neal Maupay’s poor penalty ended up way over the crossbar.
There was also a back-and-forth debate on whether Raphinha would be awarded the assist for Jack Harrison’s opener. Whereas at Turf Moor, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan gave Man City an early 2-0 lead, compounded by a yellow card for Wout Weghorst.
Second half reactions
The second half belonged to events in west London. Goalless after 45 minutes, Antonio Rudiger scored a long-range screamer to put Chelsea 1-0 up. Yet they were quickly 3-1 down to Brentford due to Vitaly Janelt (twice) and Christian Eriksen. Then, incredibly, Yoane Wissa made it 4-1 by full-time.
In the meantime, a textbook James Ward-Prowse free kick equalised for Southampton at Leeds. What looked to be a comfortable 2-0 Wolves victory ended with no clean sheets because of Ollie Watkins’ late penalty.
Finally, there was no Cristiano Ronaldo for Man United in the evening game. A dull first half led to two quickfire goals after the break for Kelechi Iheanacho and Fred. As a result of his assist, today’s chapter of Harvey Barnes versus James Maddison was won by the latter.
Overall, 16 goals and four clean sheets arrived in Saturday’s seven matches. Not only do we get two Sunday clashes but also Burnley hosting Everton in midweek.
