VILLA THRILLER
Youri Tielemans mixing it with Dream Team’s elite midfielders despite not scoring goals
Aston Villa's No8 has amassed 72 points via other means to infiltrate the top ten midfielders
YOURI TIELEMANS (£4m) is long overdue some praise from Dream Team HQ.
Truth be told, we ignored the Aston Villa midfielder's lofty ranking earlier in the season because we foolishly thought his returns would fall away sooner rather than later.
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However, with the campaign now into its eighth Gameweek, the Belgium international is still mixing it with the most successful assets in his position and deserves suitable recognition.
At the time of writing, Tielemans is ranked eighth among midfielders with an overall tally of 72 points.
For context, he's just one point behind James Maddison (£4.6m) and five shy of Brennan Johnson (£4m), who was by far and away the most popular recruit in the game over the international break.
What's remarkable is that Tielemans has scored just one goal in all competitions this season - against Young Boys in the Champions League back in Gameweek 4.
In fact, he's registered just three shots on target in ten outings.
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The 27-year-old's relative lack of goal threat has been partially offset by his creative output.
He's provided four assists and created six big chances in total; only three midfielders rank above him in each metric at present.
Even so, one goal and four assists accounts for just 18 points, which is the lowest total earned through goal involvements among the top ten midfielders.
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The secret to Tielemans' success is that he's excelled in other aspects of the game.
His tally of 14 bonus points is only bettered by Maddison and Eberechi Eze (£4.9m) among all players while just three players in his position have made more tackles.
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The statistics reinforce what the Villa Park faithful have observed of Tielemans, he's a well-rounded midfield player who ticks a lot of boxes.
Despite having scored just one goal, he averages 7.2 points-per-game in 2024/25.
For comparison, Luis Diaz (£4.6m), Alejandro Garnacho (£3.6m), Mohammed Kudus (£4.8m), Anthony Gordon (£4.4m), Morgan Rogers (£3m) and Bruno Fernandes (£5.3m) are all among the list of midfielders who average fewer points-per-game than Tielemans this season.
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Whether the Belgian can maintain his lofty rank going forward remains to be seen but he won't lack fixtures with the Villains' Champions League commitments bolstering their schedule this term.
In fact, Unai Emery's side are due to host Bologna this evening and so there's every chance Tielemans will improve his rank further before Gameweek 8 concludes.
He's a player to monitor closely at the very least...
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