If a Premier League team wants the inside track on an opponent’s injury status ahead of a game, there’s an online resource it can increasingly lean on to get crucial information.
The Fantasy Premier League soccer competition.
The absence of Jack Grealish proved to be a major blow for Aston Villa in its 2-1 loss to Leicester on Sunday, though an injury to the England midfielder had been extensively trailed ahead of the game via chat on social media — specifically by participants of the fantasy game played by more than 8 million people worldwide.
That’s because it had been flagged up to the so-called “FPL community” on Twitter on Friday that three Villa players — Matt Targett, Conor Hourihane and Neil Taylor — had taken Grealish out of their team ahead of the latest round of Premier League matches.