FPL tips: Mitrovic and Watkins overdue goals

Ollie Watkins may have registered three assists against Crystal Palace last weekend but he has not found the back of the net since GW 8 despite playing the full 90 minutes in every match since.

In that time, Watkins has made 21 attempts on goal and amassed a score of well over 300 on FPL’s Threat metric – an amount which would typically average more than three goals.

To see who else might be overdue a goal, we have taken a look at every player in the league who has scored at least twice this season to see who has taken the most shots since last improving their tally.

Misfiring Mitrovic could provide differential

The only player on our list who has taken more shots than Watkins since they last troubled the goalscoring charts is Aleksandar Mitrovic.

This lack of goalscoring form has seen his price drop from £6.0m to £5.5m and while he is not an obvious choice he could provide a serious differential for little cost.

In his last Premier League season he found the net 11 times and prior to that he was returning more than a goal every three matches.

Two goals in 788 minutes this season is well below his established pedigree and he has a double gameweek on the horizon, surrounded by three matches which carry the lowest possible fixture difficulty rating.

Don’t give up on Grealish just yet

It has been fewer matches since Jack Grealish registered a goal but due to the sheer volume of shots he takes, he finds himself in our top five.

Only seven players in the league have taken more shots than Grealish’s 40 but the last 16 of those have been unsuccessful.

Since the injury to Ross Barkley, Villa’s homegrown talisman has found himself playing through the middle rather than out on the wing, where he was having so much joy earlier in the season.

Anwar El Ghazi has scored five goals in as many games since stepping into the role previously occupied by Grealish but with Barkley fit enough for the bench against Chelsea, it is entirely possible that El Ghazi could lose his spot and that Villa could revert to the set-up which allowed their captain a clearer sight of goal.

Even if this is not the case, Grealish continues to provide creativity as well as goal threat so it seems foolish to assume that his big point hauls are all behind him.

More to come from De Bruyne

The only one of the seven players who has taken more shots than Grealish but scored fewer times is Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne.

City have struggled for goals this season but with an easy-looking run of games between now and February it is surely only a matter of time before they return to their normal standards.

When they do, you can be fairly confident that a certain Belgian playmaker will be involved in the action.