Assist specialist Pedro Neto emerges as tempting short-term punt for Dream Team gaffers ahead of Gameweek 25

THE upcoming FA Cup fifth round fixtures present tuned-in Dream Team managers with an opportunity to improve their ranking.

Ten Premier League clubs remain active in the prestigious competition and therefore have an additional midweek fixture in Gameweek 25.

However, it’s worth noting that one of those clubs, Luton, don’t have a league game this weekend as they were due to face Liverpool, who are set to face Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley instead.

On a similar theme, Tottenham don’t have a single fixture in Gameweek 25!

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While rotation is more common in the domestic cups, Dream Team bosses will ideally have plenty of active players on Tuesday and Wednesday in hope of bumper points.

TEAMS WITH TWO FIXTURES IN GAMEWEEK 25:

• Manchester City (Bournemouth, Luton)
• Manchester United (Fulham, Nottingham Forest)
• Liverpool (Chelsea, Southampton)
• Chelsea (Liverpool, Leeds)
• Wolves (Sheffield United, Brighton)
• Newcastle (Arsenal, Blackpool)
• Brighton (Everton, Wolves)
• Nottingham Forest (Aston Villa, Man United)
• Bournemouth (Man City, Leicester)

Naturally, the eye is drawn to City and Liverpool but there’s little value in tipping glaring obvious stars such as Erling Haaland (£7.3m) and Mohamed Salah (£6.7m).

We feel it’s worth flagging Wolves’ double header as a potentially productive endeavour.

Gary O’Neil’s side have lost just twice in 11 games (seven wins) since Christmas Eve in all competitions.

This coming weekend, they have the luxury of a home game against Sheffield United which has to be considered the most-favourable match-up possible in the top flight at present.

The Blades are rooted to the bottom of the table with just 13 points to show for their efforts since promotion and were comprehensively beaten by Brighton last time out.

Wolves will then host the Seagulls in the cup in what should be an entertaining contest.

These two teams played out an uncharacteristic 0-0 in January but their respective styles should deliver goals this time around.

With this in mind, how about Pedro Neto (£3.4m) as a short-term punt?

The 23-year-old winger is one of the most exciting players in the Premier League and the thought of him running at Chris Wilder’s beleaguered troops should have gaffers licking their lips.

His assist against Spurs last weekend was his 13th of the season – only Ollie Watkins (£4.4m) and Darwin Nunez (£4.5m) have set up more goals at this stage.

However, Neto is the undisputed assist king when we boil it down to efficiency.

The Portugal international has been restricted to just 19 appearances this season because of injury, which makes his assist tally truly remarkable – Watkins and Nunez have played 33 and 37 games respectively, for comparison.

In fact, Neto is averaging an assist every 116 minutes in 2023/24!

And his total of 25 bonus points is mightily impressive too given his two-month lay-off.

A favourable weekend fixture couple with an additional midweek outing makes Neto an immensely tempting option for Gameweek 25 but Dream Team bosses should be aware that this is likely to be a short-sighted strategy.

Wolves have just two fixtures to fulfil across Gameweeks 26 and 27 while Liverpool, Aston Villa, Brighton and West Ham will play FOUR games in that time because of their European commitments.

Man City, Arsenal, Luton and Bournemouth also have three fixtures each in the same time frame.

Still, gaffers with relatively settled line-ups should have enough flexibility to recruit Neto for Gameweek 25 before swapping him out for a busier asset the following week.

Wolves’ No7 currently features in just 1% of teams.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk