Game Week 25 belonged to one Dream Team gaffer, James Taylor.
The Liverpool fan, who we assume isn’t the Grammy-winning musician or the former England cricketer, amassed 132 points this past week despite blanks from two of his most-expensive assets.
Let’s take a closer look at how he did it.
The first thing to note is that Harry Kane (£7.5m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£7.6m) returned zero points between them – it’s rare that the Team of the Week features two goose eggs.
Clearly, a dominant performance by Chelsea’s defensive unit was key to James’ success.
The Blues have struggled in the final third but they’ve been relatively solid in defence this season and they registered back-to-back clean sheets in Game Week 25 against Leeds and Borussia Dortmund.
More than that, Ben Chilwell (£5m) whipped in the corner headed home by Wesley Fofana (£3.5m) in the only goal of the game at Stamford Bridge last weekend, with the latter also picking up the Star Man award.
Speaking of defenders providing attacking contributions, Andy Robertson (£4.1m) provided the assist for Cody Gakpo’s (£3.9m) first goal against Man United, opening the floodgates in the process.
Scotland’s captain earned a 7+ rating on top of a clean sheet to register just his second double-digit haul of the campaign.
Jordan Henderson (£1.3m) features in just 0.9% of teams but James was among the tiny slither of gaffers who backed Liverpool’s captain and benefited from an assist and a 7+ rating.
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Game Week 25’s top gaffer is a fan of the Reds so perhaps his natural bias was a factor here and while Henderson has mustered just 11 points all season, his selection paid off last weekend at least.
Phil Foden (£5.2m) has suddenly exploded back into life after a lean spell.
Manchester City’s resident wonderkid earned his third consecutive Star Man award when he topped the match ratings against Newcastle having got on the scoresheet again.
A 13-point return means the England international has racked up 45 points across the last two Game Weeks!
Up front, it was all about the 7-0 at Anfield.
Mohamed Salah (£8.9m) was the chief architect of Manchester United’s demise with two goals and two assists.
A 21-point haul meant the Egyptian hero became just the third Dream Team asset to become a double centurion in 2022/23.
Finally, Darwin Nunez (£5.5m) helped himself to a brace as well.
The Uruguay international has set about correcting his conversion rate in recent weeks and looks notably more confident in front of goal compared to the first half of the season.
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He’s now the sixth-best player in his position – not bad for somebody labelled a ‘flop’, eh?
Well played, James, good luck to you and all gaffers for Game Week 26.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
