FPL Analysis: Who were the heroes and the villains of Game Week 4?

The fourth and final game week of the Premier League, before the international break, turned out to be as exciting as the three before it. From a Fantasy Premier League perspective, it was another week of low scores where the popular picks and superstars didn’t turn up at all.

Let’s take a look at the heroes and villains from an unpredictable GW4.

Heroes

Jose Holebas

What is happening at Vicarage Road? For the first time in their Premier League history, Watford have won their opening four fixtures of the season and Jose Holebas has led the charge for them. The Greek defender has already notched up 4 assists and 1 goal this season.

The FPL managers who started Holebas in their teams were rewarded with 10 points. His devilish set-pieces seem to find a Watford head more often than not. The Hornets host Manchester United after the international break and given their current form, they might even get a positive result out of Jose Mourinho’s men.

They travel to Fulham and Arsenal for GW6 & GW7 but after that, they have an easy run of fixtures till GW12. There are whispers of Watford doing a Leicester City, so hold onto Holebas for now!

Cedric Soares

The Southampton defender was the unlikeliest of heroes from GW4. His ambitious cross from the right-wing turned out to be an assist for Danny Ings’ goal, courtesy some comical defending by the Crystal Palace players.

The Portuguese, who recently dropped in price, also accumulated 3 bonus points on the way to get a total score of 12 points for the week. Since the weekend, more than 20,000 managers have brought in Cedric but the fixture list gets tougher for the Saints from GW6, when they travel to Anfield and then host Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea two weeks later.

Villains

Theo Walcott

After Richarlison’s red card against Bournemouth, Walcott became an absolute darling for the FPL Community. The 29-year-old had scored a brace in GW3 and was transferred in by more than 800,000 managers. But Walcott did what he has been doing for years, destroying millions of FPL dreams in an instant.

This time around, he was injured during the first half and got eventually subbed off after 55 minutes, earning a solitary point. Walcott is expected to be out for a couple of weeks and that will force numerous FPL bosses to look for his replacement straight away.

Mohamed Salah

Okay. This was not in the scripts. The most expensive player in the game blanked against Leicester City and was subbed with a quarter of an hour to go. The Egyptian, who is owned by a record 52% of managers, was guilty of missing several guilt-edged opportunities in the game.

The player, who currently earns a staggering £200,000-a-week at Liverpool, merely looked like a shadow of his former self from the previous campaign.

With the fixtures getting tougher as the season progresses, should the managers look for cheaper alternatives like Mane or Hazard?

Read More: Fantasy Premier League: Three heroes who saved GW3 – including this £90,000-a-week Chelsea sensation

For now, owning Salah is scary and if he fires, the non-owners’ Overall Rank will take a huge dive.