Doherty injury latest as more blanks confirmed in Gameweek 31

Wolverhampton Wanderers and Crystal Palace both overcame opponents from the Football League on Sunday to progress to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup – meaning that their respective Premier League fixtures in Gameweek 31 will now have to be rearranged.

Five sides from the top flight of English football have now reached the last eight of the FA Cup: Watford, Brighton and Hove Albion, Manchester City, Wolves and Crystal Palace.

Championship clubs Millwall and Swansea City have also made it through to the sixth round.

The one FA Cup fifth-round tie still to be contested, Chelsea v Manchester United, will determine whether Fantasy Premier League managers have five blanks to navigate in Gameweek 31 or six.

As of Sunday evening, the Gameweek 31 picture looks as follows:

Fixtures that will go ahead as scheduled:

Bournemouth v Newcastle United
Burnley v Leicester City
Fulham v Liverpool
West Ham United v Huddersfield Town

Fixtures that will be postponed until a later date:

Brighton and Hove Albion v Cardiff City
Manchester United v Manchester City
Spurs v Crystal Palace
Watford v Southampton
Wolves v Arsenal

Fixture that could still be a blank, depending on the result of Monday evening’s FA Cup tie:

Everton v Chelsea

Should Wolves and Palace’s Gameweek 31 fixtures be moved to Double Gameweek 32 (which is only a possibility at this stage and not a certainty) then Nuno Espirito Santo’s side would face Burnley (a) and Arsenal (h) in DGW32, with the Eagles playing Spurs (a) and Huddersfield Town (h).

READ MORE: How Manchester City and Brighton booked their passages into the FA Cup quarter-finals.

We’ll look at chip strategy and Blank Gameweek 31 in more detail once the result of Chelsea v Manchester United is known, while the Scout Notes for Doncaster Rovers v Crystal Palace will follow on Monday morning.

Our focus instead switches to the Sunday afternoon match at Ashton Gate, a game in which Matt Doherty took centre stage.

Bristol City 0-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers

• Goal: Ivan Cavaleiro (£5.2m)
• Assist: Matt Doherty (£5.4m)

With Gameweek 27 already testing the depth of Fantasy managers’ squads, the last thing many FPL bosses needed was an injury to Matt Doherty (£5.4m).

The Irish wing-back is owned by more than one in four FPL managers and, as of Gameweek 26, sat in over 60% of Fantasy teams inside the top 10k.

The sight of Doherty limping from the pitch after 81 minutes of Wolves’ 1-0 won over Bristol City therefore sparked considerable concern in the Fantasy community, though the problem thankfully doesn’t seem to be a serious one.

Speaking after full-time, Nuno Espirito Santo said:

He had a knock and was not able to continue. It was tough, he held on for the maximum he could, but in the end, he had to come off.

Express and Star journalist Tim Spiers, meanwhile, posted the following:

Doherty impressed prior to his injury, having assisted Ivan Cavaleiro‘s (£5.4m) 28th-minute strike and having struck the woodwork himself soon after.

There was a sense of deja vu about the Ireland international’s role in the match-winning goal, with Doherty latching onto to a long diagonal ball from Conor Coady (£4.5m) before picking out Cavaleiro from the byline with a low cut-back.

Doherty nearly capped his performance with a goal two minutes later, combining beautifully with Leander Dendoncker (£4.3m) and Raul Jimenez (£6.8m) before clipping Frank Fielding’s post with a deflected shot.

Doherty returned the favour by teeing up Jimenez five minutes before the break but the Mexican striker’s shot was off-target.

Santo paid tribute to his all-action wing-back after the match:

Doherty has been fantastic. He has a big heart, he goes up and down, doesn’t rest and on the other side, Jonny. It’s a tough job and we are very, very happy with him. I think last season he had a fantastic season and this was a big challenge to prove himself in the Premier League and he’s doing so well.

Cavaleiro’s goal was the first shot of the match and Wolves were largely untroubled against their in-form Championship opponents in the first half, with Dendoncker wasting a presentable chance to double the visitors’ lead.

The Robins had only two attempts on goal before the interval, both of which failed to force John Ruddy (£4.2m) into action, but were much more of a threat in the second half – registering 17 shots, 14 of which were in a frantic last quarter.

None of Ruddy’s five saves were anything other than routine, however, with a couple of scrambles from corner-kicks (including an effort from goalkeeper Fielding) being as close as the hosts came to forcing extra-time.

Substitute Morgan Gibbs-White (£4.3m) tested Fielding at the other end, while Joao Moutinho (£5.4m) saw a free-kick tipped over.

Santo said of the match:

The first half was well-played. We kept the ball, we had chances and really unbalanced Bristol City, and could have put the game to bed.

In the second half, the momentum of the game was with Bristol City and sometimes the shape needs to adapt and we had to hold on until the end.

It was two different halves, first-half us, second-half Bristol City’s.

We tried to find solutions but it’s hard to defend when they put so many people in the box and put in long balls, you hope for the best sometimes. You just have to be ready, when you’re not ready you’re in trouble, if you are ready you’re always able to compete and stay in the game.

The boys were very brave today.  We had bodies behind the ball, protecting our box, it’s very hard. It was about getting the job done. We could have done better when we tried to go out, we played the ball too soon.

Rui Patricio (£4.5m), Ruben Neves (£4.9m) and Diogo Jota (£6.1m) were the only three players who dropped out of the Wolves starting XI from the side that drew with Newcastle last Monday.

Jota was a doubt for this FA Cup tie with a dead leg, with his manager having said on Friday:

Diogo started his problem against Everton. It was a big impact, a dead leg, so he’s been struggling since then.

Since then, we have taken care of him. We went to Marbella, and he didn’t get involved, but he trained enough to be ready to compete like he did in the last game.

This week, again, in this game (against Newcastle), he had a knock on the same place, so he didn’t train.

Wolverhampton Wanderers XI (3-5-2): Ruddy; Bennett, Coady, Boly; Doherty (Neves 81′), Dendoncker, Moutinho, Saiss, Jonny; Jimenez (Traore 90+2′), Cavaleiro (Gibbs-White 70′).