All eyes were on Md. Salah, the most-captained player of GW22 followed by in-form striker, Alexander Isak. While the former blanked for the second week on the trot, the latter rewarded his FPL managers who risked him with the armband.
However, it was someone outside the template, who became an instant talk of the Fantasy Premier League 2024-25 as gameweek 22 came to a close. Justin Kluivert’s 22-pt haul was the highest individual tally of the gameweek and as expected, he has drawn unwavering attention from the FPL community.
Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United were on a winning spree and their juggernaut was put to a halt after six matches, thanks to Kluivert’s flamboyance on the field. The Dutch dynamo smashed home three goals and an assist to paralyse the Newcastle defence.
Now he happens to be the most transferred-in player heading to GW23. Though FPL managers tend to chase the previous gameweek heroes, Kluivert’s sudden rise has a lot of substance.
His heroics at St. James‘ Park was no fluke. Kluivert is in red-hot form, having scored 40pts in the last two matches. Meanwhile, the one against Newcastle was his second hattrick of the season, as the first came against Wolves in GW13 where he amassed 20pts.
Currently, Justin stands fourth in the FPL leaderboard for midfielders with 108pts. Only Salah, Palmer, and Mbeumo are ahead of him. Just to remind you, all of them are template picks.
In order to thrive at the highest level, professional footballers have to overcome many odds. But for Justin Kluivert, the greatest of them all was probably the long shadow of his father, Patrick Kluivert, a modern-day football legend in his own right, looming large over his career.
However, he stamped his authority in PL last Saturday and now has a strong identity of his own to come out of that long shadow, which has been closely following him ever since he took up football.
This is certainly Kluivert‘s breakout season in the Premier League. He has arrived and arrived with a bang – 10 goals and three assists in 17 starts and 21 appearances. Kluivert’s underlying numbers are great too – an xG of 0.52 per 90’ and an xGI of 0.61 per 90’.
With a price tag of just £5.6m, the Bournemouth attacker seems a great enabler alongside being a superb differential, as he is still owned by only 6.8% of the managers. Bournemouth’s fixtures look crazy from gameweek 25 till GW34 and Justin Kluivert seems the next big thing in fantasy football. Hence, a long-term hold, right until the day end of the season.
